Ever had a friend that could relate to any situation? Always had a story that could somehow reflect what was going on in your life? Had some life hack that would help you deal with any problem you encounter? And all you wanted them to do was listen to you and sympathize. Well, that's kind of what it's like when one of your parents is a psychologist and I'll be the first to admit that it gets old . . . real fast.
Being the child of a psychologist is a lot like having a walking textbook always at your disposal. For a while it is great; you can reference it whenever you need, the answers are always there--right at your fingertips but eventually, like all textbooks do after you carry it around for awhile, it becomes a burden. The textbook grows heavy and suddenly having it becomes more of a nuisance than it is a blessing. Rather than referencing the textbook whenever you need it, the textbook starts opening to random pages and showing you it's contents without warning and without request. The nicely laminated textbooks begins to look a little like this . . .
In my limited experience, a psycho-parent--as in a parent with a psychology degree--looses their ability to turn off their inner Freud and remember what it was like to be a parent. In theory, every parent wishes they had a psych degree to help raise their children; understanding why a child does what it does can be invaluable but the art of being subjective gets lost at some point. Some would argue that being subjective can be a bad thing but in actuality, a child doesn't want to be treated as if they lack unique personal traits--like they are just a number in a statistic.
I'll give you an example situation: a child comes home from school with a complaint about something a friend might have said during lunch. The parent and child might sit down to discuss the situation and suddenly the living room might start to look a little something like this . . .
and then the questions start rolling in.
"Why do you think So'n'so said that?", "How did that make you feel?", and "Here's how I would handle the situation . . . " and before you know it, the situation has been so psychoanalyzed that the child walks away feeling frustrated and not feeling that much needed relief of just getting it off their chest. Now they're upset because "You don't understand."
A child doesn't always want the reasons why something happened, they just want someone to know what happened. In my own personal experience, I've grown used to having to say to my own psycho-parent "I just want you to listen. I don't need an explanation or a psychological evaluation of the situation." This is usually met with a quiet pause and careful acknowledgement of my request.
Far be it of me to only discuss the problems of the child; one of the complaints my psycho-parent has is the lack of acknowledgement of their profession from their children--my two siblings and myself. For me personally, my psycho-parent is my father. His frustration stems from the idea that he is "more than just 'dad'" and he wishes we'd utilize him as more than just simply a parent. As much as I can objectively acknowledge his frustration and even understand it--a little--what he fails to understand is that most children just want their 'mom' and 'dad'. A child does not need 'Mom the Lawyer' or 'Dad the Psychologist', they simply want their parent.
The exceptions to this rule, of course, being when a child is in need of their parent's professional services and if you're lucky, not necessarily at the same time--in my case.
For the past several years, the running joke in my family is that I could simply test out for a psychology degree. My father often listens to me and says that I should be a psychologist simply because I know so much about the subject--he is not alone in this thought. Other people have suggested the same choice in profession. I believe there to be a time and a place for psychology and I would never dispute the need for it, however, I often tell my father to keep such things as far away from me as possible.
There are times I wish I could tell my father that I just want 'dad'. I don't need the psychologist. I've grown up and a lot of things in life are learned as you grow--as you experience--and not everything needs to be taught to a thirteen year old who is learning that hormones are a bitch. I want to tell him that his way of "teaching" as a parent can actually do more harm than good and last longer than if you allow your child to go through things naturally.
I don't want to imply that my father is a bad person. He's not. His heart is in the right place but he needs to learn to listen without running everything through a textbook. He needs to realize the world does not simply run on statistics. He needs to remember what his mentor taught him...shit happens and sometimes you just gotta go with it.
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