The family is like a "tree", one day the fruit will leave the tree, and then the "bang" will fall to the ground. But the fruit stays with the tree until it ripens, and it's nerve-wracking to leave before it's ripe.
Family members are closely linked by a "don't know why, but want to be together" relationship.
In this age when everything needs a reason, it is really important to have this fate-like relationship of "although we don't understand why, but we have become parents and children". From the child's point of view, they cannot choose their parents, because they did come into this world without knowing anything. If you think so, parents are indeed responsible for their children.
Today's couples can divorce if they want to divorce, but marriage has both a side that reflects people's subjective will and a side of fate. From the perspective of subjective will, since marriage is a matter of self-determination, the end of marriage can of course also be decided by oneself. But nowadays, the subjective will side seems to account for too much. I think we should not only pay attention to this side, but also look at the other side of fate. From the perspective of fate, it is not surprising that there is a "because it is the arrangement of fate, so it cannot be divorced". If two people have never experienced the feeling of "common destiny", then this kind of marriage is really regrettable.
Even if the relationship between parents and children is severed, it is still parent-child, which is definitely a fateful relationship. Therefore, in the family, there is a contradiction between "you can leave at any time" and "absolutely cannot be separated", which I call the "cross of the family". The "cross of the family" generates a strong family dynamic, and it is particularly interesting to study.
Caption: Illustration of "Tokyo Story". The film reflects the difficulties of getting along between families across space, real life.
In addition to husband and wife, parents, there is also a relationship between brothers and sisters in the family. Although the proverb says that "brothers grow up to be passers-by", I think that "the relationship between brothers and sisters is the beginning of a relationship with others". For the eldest of the family, the birth of the second brother is equivalent to a foot inserted into the parent-child relationship that originally belonged only to the boss, which is a big thing; and for the second eldest, there should be an absolutely pure parent-child relationship, from the beginning there is a strange guy. Experiencing the experience of "accepting such unacceptable things" is precisely to lay the foundation for becoming a social person.
You can't just look at the superficial problems and draw conclusions easily. When a child has a problem, don't immediately say "it's the fault of the school" or "it's his friend's fault", but first look for the reason from yourself. It is as if when it is believed that there is a gap between mother and child, it is better to first examine the relationship between husband and wife, because the relationship between husband and wife precedes the relationship between mother and child. And after one child's problem is solved, other children may have problems, and family relations are always involved in the whole body.
Even if parents use "it's all the school's fault" to try to avoid their responsibilities, children often force their parents to face the problem directly. "Show your true skills!" Children will use this attitude to force their parents to come forward to find school, so I often say "family Zen" because the questions raised by children are like the meditation practitioners playing machines to test each other.
People who come to me for advice on their children's issues usually start with the phrase "My child is really not saved." I just "um, um" and listen, and slowly they change. "Thanks to this child!" "Thanks to the fact that my children don't go to school, I have changed so much!" After the parents' minds have changed, maybe the children will go back to school. Crises are often opportunities.
When it comes to children, they are like part of their parents, but they are very different from their parents and do not know what they are thinking. Raising a child is raising a person who is neither like himself nor himself. It's an amazing experience, it's hard to do on your own, but you have to take responsibility. The child is a kind of existence of "unique" and "this is me", without anything similar to it, the only person since the founding of Pangu, and no one can compare. This also subtly fits the concept of "oneself" in Jungian psychology. So, what I think of as "self-realization" is the matter of raising children.
This article is excerpted from "What is the Best Parent", the author Hayato Kawai is a heavyweight in japanese psychology, a master of Jungian psychoanalysis, an undisputed pioneer and founder of Japanese psychotherapy, and a spiritual teacher admired by Haruki Murakami throughout his life. The book has been a best-seller in Japan for 20 years and has influenced two generations of Japanese people's views on parenting.
