Soulshine

“You saved Richard Callahan’s life. You can’t live it for him.” Helen Pryor, American Dreams We codependents tend to want to live other people’s lives. And it seems to be especially difficult for codependent parents who are now facing the fact that their children are no longer “kids”—they’re grown adults themselves. I gave a series of talks to mostly baby-boomers last week and a recurring theme was their need to control the lives of their adult children, in particular when it comes to God or church. Many baby-boomers are church goers. They grew-up believing that it was sinful to miss out on attending church on Sundays. Now they are faced with children and grandchildren who don’t believe it’s important to attend church. And so these baby-boomers have an intense need to rectify the situation by trying to impose their beliefs onto their adult children and grandchildren. In effect, these baby-boomers want to live their children’s lives for them and so they coerce and n...

In watching the TV series American Dreams , it’s easy to see how family relationships are based on control. Everyone in the Pryor family is trying to control and manipulate everyone else to ensure their individual happiness. Dad (Jack Pryor) wants his eldest son (J.J.) to attend Notre Dame University on a football scholarship. Notre Dame means nothing to J.J. but he’s constantly coerced by Dad into believing that Notre Dame is actually his (J.J.’s) dream. Of course J.J, rebels. The night a football scout from Notre Dame is coming to the Pryor’s home for dinner, J.J. goes off and gets drunk with a buddy instead of showing up for the dinner. He’s also slow about filling out his application and so Dad takes care of making sure it gets to Notre Dame on time. Dad’s living HIS dream and he can’t accept that it’s not J.J.’s dream, too. Mom (Helen Pryor) doesn’t want to have any more children. She has four already. She wants a life of her own, outside of being a housewife and ...