Ever
since old Marsullis farted in Holden Caulfield's face, we have viewed adolescence
as a time of inevitable storm and upheaval. But it looks like we've got it exactly
backwards.
After
following more than 200 families and their children into and out of adolescence,
a Wisconsin psychologist claims there's turbulence all right, but it's more in
the parents than in their kids. Teenagers, argues Lawrence Steinberg, Ph.D., "coast
through life in a sort of pleasant fog."
But
the biological changes they undergo at puberty trigger a crisis in their parents.
First, a child's changing appearance is "a constant, and perhaps annoying,
reminder that we are growing older--and it marks time in a way that is both indisputable
and irreversible," Steinberg says in Crossing Paths (Simon & Schuster).
Then
there's the anxiety provoked by a child's changing size. "We have underestimated
the positive feelings parents derive merely from being able to physically control
their children when they are younger," Steinberg offers.
But
the most anxiety comes from watching a child turn into a sexual being. For many
parents, it unleashed a torrent of emotions and conflicts about their physical
attractiveness, sexuality, and their marriage. Not only were all the effects negative,
a big one was dissatisfaction with one's spouse.
So
if there's a teen in the house, hang on.
Originally
published by Psychology Today:Jul/Aug 94
