Postponing Adulthood

In contemporary society there is an increasing trend for adult children, capable of self-sufficiency and independence, to postpone their own adulthood. This is coupled with research indicating that adult behaviors are often a result of the impact that parent behavior had when the adult was a child and adolescent. Recovery is often painful and may, in some cases, be difficult and time-consuming (Richards, 1989).

In almost all cases involving some sort of problematical behavior in adulthood that can be traced back to childhood, certain characteristics manifest themselves, although they are combined in innumerable ways (Knoblauch & Bowers, 1989). These characteristics include showing low self-esteem, mild to severe depression, self-pity, continual excuses for their behavior, refusal to take responsibility for their own actions, anger focused toward the world in general, a strong disposition toward not accepting any authority, a clinging financial dependency to parents or relatives, poor decision making, lack of ability to hold a job or chronic unemployment, verbal abuse of the spouse or family members, rudeness or ungrateful behavior, a sense that the world owes something to the person, the inability to make commitments, and the creation and elaboration of continual crisis situations (Stockman & Graves, 1989). Of course, these behaviors are not present in all adult children who have problems dealing with childhood parents, but they do provide a framework in which the impac

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These behaviors often manifest themselves without the adult child being acutely aware that it is rejection that is most feared. Instead, they often surround themselves with people in order to remove any feelings of loneliness, but are still reluctant to open themselves emotionally. These adult children have problems with trust and often lack the ability to give of themselves emotionally in any but a superficial manner (Yarrow, 1961). Adult children of alcoholics face similar problems, and care must be taken within their own lives to prevent their own addictive behavior. Children raised in alcoholic families seem to retain a pattern of codependency. That dependency may be of a substance (alcohol, cigarettes, drugs) or of a person or relationship (Woititz, 1983). Some research suggests that there may be biological predisposition to these problems, and that behavioral and cognitive developments are hindered for children with a pattern of alcohol abuse within the preceding one or two generations (Wilson & Nagoshi, 1988). It is with the behavioral patterns of alcoholic parents that adult children seem to suffer the most. These patterns have included sporadic love and attention, mood and temper swings, and an inability to count

Category: Psychology - P