The New Marriage - Part Four of Four
When we are children we do not yet have an identity. We learn
about who we are through the mirroring that we get from our
parents. It is called mirroring to describe the ability of good
parents to gently hold up an imaginary mirror in front of the
child until they learn to see themselves clearly without harsh
judgments. If we do not get enough realistic mirroring during
the years we live with them, we remain pretty clueless about who
we really are.
I am always so pleased to see parents who appropriately mirror
their children. By providing them feedback about their behavior
without shame or blame, parents help children grow up with a
realistic self-image and the ability to operate from a strong
sense of self.
In my children's book, Amanda Salamander, written with Martin
Terrell, we tell the story of a beautiful young salamander who
changes herself into the color of whomever she is with so that
they will like her. This is quite characteristic of what we
learn to do when we do not have a good picture of who we are. In
the story, Amanda Salamander turns into the color of her husband
so that he will like her. This brings many problems into their
marriage, because she is not being true to herself.
We wrote Amanda Salamander to advise children of the perils of
entering a relationship by pretending to be someone else. When
we read this story to our five-year-old granddaughter, she
already understood what we were talking about. We asked her what
the lesson was in this story and she responded, "You should stay
your same color when you get married." However, we first need to
know what our true color is!
An example of a parent doing a good job of mirroring a sense of
self to her children without shame and blame occurred one day
when we took a picture of a group of neighborhood children.
Except for one four-year-old girl we'll call Lillith, all the
children were boys. Lillith wanted to be in the middle of the
picture, and when the boys refused, she began to whine. It's not
hard to guess the reaction of young boys to a whining girl. This
behavior was obviously not in her best interest.
Lillith's mother wisely called her over to the side and knelt
down to her level. She explained, "Lillith, you know that thing
you do that causes you problems? You are doing it right now."
What this woman was doing so naturally was mirroring back
behavior that was not in the child's best interest without
sounding overly judgmental. Therefore, she was helping Lillith
to begin to look at her own behavior and to self-correct.
Consequently, Lillith pushed herself into the middle of the boys
and they seemed to respect this behavior and allowed her to get
her picture taken. Ultimately, that is not the behavior that we
would want to encourage. Lillith, however, is beginning to
experiment with something different based on her mother's
mirroring.
Sadly, I have seen countless adults who really do not have a
sense of who they are. I was present when one woman realized
that when her husband had asked her to marry him, all she had
thought about was whether he would want to marry her. She had
never even asked herself whether she might want to marry him.
The clinical term for the development of a self is
differentiation. Developed by a brilliant family therapist named
Murray Bowen, this concept refers to our ability to be close to
others and also maintain a sense of self. This is perhaps the
most difficult task that we have in our lives.
It requires a great deal of learning and trial and error to
begin to figure out who we are. We are not doomed if we do not
develop an accurate mirror as children. This can be developed
through our relationships as adults.
Copyright 2005 Linda Miles Ph.D