VIDEO
AUDIO
In the aftermath of the holidays, many people find themselves facing an old question in a new stage of life: what does an adult child owe aging parents, especially when the relationship was full of criticism, absence, harm, or disappointment? The pressure to visit, to host, to reconcile, or to perform affection can feel like a moral demand, and a trap.
In this episode, we explore the concept of filial duty as a debt and offer new perspectives on discernment. We discuss the mythic elements of the parent-child bond, the power of the internalized parent, and the inner figures that govern Psyche through guilt, rage, duty, love, and refusal. We consider the power of cultural scripts, the tension between fleeing painful demands on the one hand and familial duty on the other, and the pressure to abandon one’s inner life. We offer practical and safe ways to work through parental wounds without collapsing back into obedience, to define boundaries t
Here’s the dream we analyze:
I am in the passenger seat of a car with my parents, sister, mother’s sister and husband, and their daughter. We are going out for dinner, and we are all very dressed up. We do not know where to go out and it feels like it is up to me to find the right restaurant. s we pull into a parking spot downtown, I am trying to write out a thought that keeps slipping away on a large piece of paper. As we get out of the car, I put the paper down, and we go into a restaurant that feels like a university cafe, with lots of young people. We find a table big enough for all of us and it still has food garbage on it. We sit down and there is a feeling of being way over dressed and of letting down my family who seemed very irritated. I then leave the restaurant by myself and walk into a beautiful old Italian restaurant. I feel delighted to have found this place and also feel regretful that I did make a reservation here for my family. There is one family who I do not know seated at a large table eating together. In a special area of the restaurant there is an old man seated alone at a table. As I turn to leave the restaurant, I notice that this is my deceased maternal grandfather whom I loved as a child. There is an emotional upwelling in my chest, and I begin to smile and cry looking at him as he smiles at me. I then walk down a flight of dark stairs and enter out into the street and wake up.
