Why Do We All Become Our Parents?
Psychology has both the answer and the solution.
Have you been to the new grocery store in Cranberry, the one by Lowe’s? We got an ad in the mail and they have salmon on sale for $5.99 a pound. We just HAD to check it out!
It was at precisely this moment when I realized I had officially unlocked the “suburbanite dad badge” in the game of life.
I uttered the above during a recent dinner party with friends. My wife and I found ourselves across the table from a couple we hadn’t seen in a while. All was going well, we made pleasant small talk and caught up on the recent happenings in our lives
All was going well, that is, until it wasn’t.
We hit the dreaded awkward pause, the moment when you realize the conversation has run its course and it would be best to mingle with a different group. However, we were stuck, the moment had already turned slightly awkward.
I began to panic.
Racking my brain for a fresh topic of conversation, I latched onto the most immediately relatable subject: the new grocery store in town slinging fish for six bucks a pound! Perfect!
As Blink-182 might say, “Well I guess this is growing up.”
Dammit…
The moment you realize you’ve become your parents.
Progressive, the national property and casualty insurance carrier best known for “Flo,” has a great Ad campaign running for their home insurance line of products. For the uninformed, “Dr. Rick” follows a handful of millennials around as they haplessly evolve into their parents by way of homeownership.
There are a handful of commercials in circulation, but I have a soft spot for the one when they’re navigating the airport.
All too accurate but painfully funny, right?
These commercials from Progressive and my own “becoming your parents” evolution got me thinking:
Why do we become our parents, anyway?
The psychology of becoming your parents.
Many of us progress through our adolescent and young adult years bellowing the futile idea that we won’t grow up to be our parents. We make vows not to:
- Force our kids to behave in certain ways.
- Prioritize our careers over family.
- Have the next great “dad joke” on speed dial.
- Make fools of ourselves in public.
- Become technologically inept.
Vow as we may, most of us are rudely reminded of our parent-like tendencies at some point in our lives. We exclaim, “What have I done to deserve this?!” as we sob over our slice of humble pie.
How do we get to this point?
Unsurprisingly, psychology plays a major role. As detailed by Assael Romanelli, Ph.D. in Psychology Today, family “scripts” are passed down from one generation to the next, shaping how we behave, speak, and think.
Three primary scripts shape our parent-like behavior:
- Replicative: When we consciously or unconsciously repeat an element of our family origin. We commonly find ourselves repeating the qualities we disliked during our younger years, only to eventually find these tendencies to be desirable.
- Corrective: When we consciously choose to do things very differently or the exact opposite of how things were when we grew up. Those who move from the small town to the big city are often applying the corrective script.
- Improvised: Born from a newfound necessity not present during childhood, we create a new script that adds a layer to the generational family script we inherited.
When we see our parents coming out in us, we can blame the psychology of the replicative script. Our inherited nuances are consciously or unconsciously shining through for the world to see, often to our dismay.
But what if you’re not fond of the replicative script stealing the limelight in your life, or if it’s wreaking havoc in your relationship? Can you leave it in the past for good and start a family script of your own?
How to alter your family script.
Since behaviors are largely inherited, as much as we’d like some of them to “go away” it’s not that cut and dry. Instead, Dr. Romanelli details how we can soften and improvise scripts through conscious effort, especially as we work through the challenges of two family scripts colliding in a relationship.
The following exercise can help us alter our inherited family scripts:
- On a piece of paper, create three columns and label them: “Replicative,” “Corrective,” and “Improvised.” List all of the scripts you’re aware of in each column.
- Circle the scripts you like and the ones that cause problems.
- Discuss the familial script principles with your partner.
- Choose one replicative or corrective script that is causing an elevated level of anxiety or tension.
- Talk to your partner about how this script can be improvised into a different or softer behavior.
- Give yourself grace during the process of improvising, there will be slip-ups along the way that require repair.
- If a new script isn’t working that’s okay, adjustments can and will likely need to be made. Reexamine and consider altering a different script as needed.
Though an element of inherited familial scripts will always remain, the above process provides hope for the scripts that cause disruptive problems in our lives. When we identify the existence of a particularly challenging script, it’s comforting to know that the script can be softened and improvised over time.
My wife and I experienced this with the familial script of money management.
Early in our relationship, it was painfully obvious that we were on two different wavelengths regarding how money should be managed. My wife was (and in a sense, still is) extremely conservative with finances. Me on the other hand, well, let's just say I was the opposite.
Ultimately we came together and hammered out a new familial script that works perfectly for our lifestyle. I’m now accepting of a more conservative approach to money, while my wife is more open to freely enjoying what we’ve earned.
We compromised, we improvised, and we created a new script in the process.
You will create scripts that aren’t right for your kids.
It must not be forgotten that the familial script you create will not be 100% right for your children.
With every passing generation comes a wave of cultural and societal changes not present when a familial script was created. Take the climate we live in now: COVID-19, inflation, supply chain issues, the great resignation. It would be naïve not to acknowledge the need for scripts to change with each passing generation.
I point this out because the scripts of parents and children will clash (See: “corrective” script). You may be someone who has adopted a corrective script in response to this very issue. However, if we remain mindful of the need for scripts to evolve, we can stay true to our values while establishing a solid familial foundation; one that can thrive from generation to generation.
The day after making the infamous above quote, my dad-mode raged on, but this time at a professional hockey game.
I managed to achieve multiple “becoming your parents” badges in the course of an afternoon. Here’s a sampling:
- I wanted to get to the arena an hour early to find prime parking
- Found prime parking
- Noted on multiple occasions that I had found prime parking
- Wanted to get the “lay of the land” near our section for reference
- Was actually in the wrong section and had to go to the other side of the arena
- Commented on the youngsters glued to their phones during the game
- Detailed how we could beat the traffic by taking a short-cut home
- Proudly pulled off the quick escape from the post-game gridlock
Yep, full dad-mode.
I’m okay with it, though. There’s a certain charm about adopting the annoying scripts of your parents. As you age, you realize it’s not so bad to acknowledge your parent’s quirks and nuances. One might say it’s actually kind of fun, and you begin to understand why they are the way they are.
While I’ve improvised many of my familial scripts, I’ve grown to accept the charming ones I swore to never adopt during my younger years. Sure, my wife gives me grief, but that’s where a good dad joke bites back hard.
On second thought, maybe my ways would make more sense if I had kids of my own. That’s a discussion for a different day.
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