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BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU wish for: Your kid may grow up to be too much like you.
Many parents do an exemplary job raising their children. The rest of us bumble along, knowing we aren’t perfect but praying we’ve been good enough. I believe I fall into the “good enough” category. But I also believe I went overboard expressing approval for the ways my son Ryan was becoming like me—or the person I once desired to be.
Ryan, now age 35, emerged from our family cauldron a really good guy. Yet I see how my need for his admiration made me less attuned to his own emerging identity. He strove to win his father’s approval and has become in many ways, laudable and not, much like me.
Children aren’t here to be their parents’ trophies. My parents didn’t realize that—and nor did I. When Ryan struck out with men on base, he saw the disappointment on my face. He heard me confront a high school administrator about the validity of a standardized test on which Ryan’s performance proved to be ordinary. I encouraged Ryan to apply to two schools that had rejected me, a last shot at redemption.
How do I know my need to relive my life through Ryan’s achievements left a wound? That’s easy. Ryan has called my wife Alberta and me on it numerous times. He knew he wasn’t good enough to be a starter on the high school freshman basketball team, yet I questioned the coach. He felt humiliated when we closely edited his college admissions essay.
Always a good public speaker, Ryan was incredulous when we suggested he was probably the best teacher at the Jesuit high school where he worked. “What’s with you guys, you’ve never seen me teach?” A constant feeling that he never quite measured up, which we unwittingly fed, took a toll on our son’s self-esteem. Despite his growing skill as a sports bettor, Ryan routinely underestimates his role in wins and underestimates luck in his losses.
Ryan’s struggle to differentiate his work from my former stock trading is complex and conflictual. I actively traded individual stocks and options as a way to keep engaged and involved with life in the midst of an extended midlife depression. As a child, when Ryan walked into my home office, he saw his father alternately checking his figures and graphs and looking up to catch the breaking news on CNBC.
To Ryan, it looked like I was having a grand old time pursuing my passion. This impression was reinforced by watching me devour Barron’s first thing Saturday morning as if it were a religious ritual. In fact, I was battling a mood disorder and was lucky to turn the page on my trading era without drastically depleting my money-market reserves.
Fortunately, I had made some advantageous purchases of small residential income properties that served as a buffer, but I was no tycoon. Partly to protect me and partly as a way of compensating for her husband’s steep career fall, Alberta idealized my exploits to Ryan and to herself. Unaware of the extent to which the family’s privileged financial situation resulted from inheritance as much as any astuteness on my part, Ryan was intimidated. “Dad, I just don’t get this stock market stuff like you do.”
For a long time, I thought defiance was behind Ryan’s decision to banish investing from his life. But I no longer think that. Through his embrace of sports betting, with its focus on discrepancies and probabilities, Ryan has identified with me in a way that allows him to blaze his own trail, but without having to compete directly with the family mythology about my investing prowess.
This is, not coincidentally, how I separated my identity from that of my own father, a shrewd commercial real estate operative. I chose stocks as my investment vehicle, and only tried residential rental properties after a stroke partially paralyzed my father and he was no longer invincible. But even today, I don’t own any commercial properties.
Three years ago, Ryan left his job as a high school math teacher to experiment with a career as a professional sports bettor. Resisting the disbelief and ridicule of friends, as well as his parents’ apprehensions, Ryan has shown he can prevail against the oddsmakers. He sits engrossed at his desk, eyes on a computer screen rather than a TV, ready to pounce on small but actionable disparities between the market price and his prediction model. What the father did during his stock trading period is remarkably similar to what the son is doing now. Ryan has borrowed from me, all the while becoming his own man.
In several other ways, Ryan’s identification with me has been less easy to watch. As a child, I was excused from most chores and more than a few family obligations, like weddings and bar mitzvahs. That primed me to flout social convention. I even avoided the marriage ceremony of two college friends I had fixed up. But in the end, instead of continuing to flout social convention, I succumbed to my shyness and introversion, and took refuge in a traditional lifestyle.
Wanting Ryan to be the free spirit I had abandoned, I took a page from my parents’ childrearing playbook and promoted a laissez-faire home environment. Not surprisingly, Ryan today is unmoved by invitations and exhortations. Like his father, he must be coaxed out of his standoffishness and withdrawal. Alberta has taught me the value and joy of belonging. Will Ryan meet his own liberator?
Steve Abramowitz is a psychologist in Sacramento, California. Earlier in his career, Steve was a university professor, including serving as research director for the psychiatry department at the University of California, Davis. He also ran his own investment advisory firm. Check out Steve’s earlier articles.
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I really enjoy your thought provoking articles. Many interesting points but I’m drawn to the link you make between yourself and your son being excused from certain social/community activities during childhood as a reason for declining invitations to the same activities as adults.
I wonder though, could a reason that you and your son were excused from activities in childhood be that you displayed a clear lack of enjoyment in these activities, leading your parents and yourself to spare their children from participating? Perhaps for some individuals, increased and continued exposure to certain types of community events will never lead to the sense of value and joy of belonging you have found through your wife’s coaxing.
I think that a sense of belonging is fundamental to one’s happiness, so I hope that your son has found that in his betting community, or perhaps with certain family members and close friends.
Hi Brent,
I got a little sidetracked and apologize for not getting back to you sooner. The sense of belonging has so far been a little out of Ryan’s reach. His research work necessitates considerable isolation. Several of his friends have gotten married, have kids and are not as available as they once were. He participates actively online with fellow sports bettors and regularly meets them when they come to LA. He also stays in close contact with Alberta and me. But we all agree he needs to find a more balanced work/play rhythm.
This was SO interesting and honest. As a parent of two Millennials, one of whom is about the same age as your Ryan, I was fascinated by your insights about how your and your wife’s attempts to be his cheerleader actually undermined his confidence. I think a lot of us Baby Boomer parents can relate to this. What I most appreciated was your self-awareness and lack of defensiveness. I think a lot of parents, myself included, try to work out our own insecurities through our parenting, but most aren’t as conscious and transparent about it.
Hi DrLefty
Sorry for the delay in responding and hope you get this. (I was taking my morning walk with Alberta the Great Liberator.) I think “working out our own insecurities” necessarily affects our relationships with our adult children, whose independence can be mistaken as rejection by the insecure parent. Quite the contrary, it is often confirmation we have done a good job by encouraging them to follow their own path.
Steve, your transparency again makes for a fascinating article. The relationship between a son and father is complex. I (like you) could probably write a book about the experience of bringing up my son, but parts of it would be too personal to share. I am extremely proud of who he has become. Those who criticize the work ethic of his generation en masse have not met my son.
Hi Nuke Ken,
What a caring, self-reflective father and lucky son. Even as adults, our children can feel our support (or rejection) of their career and life milestones. I find this often occurs with choice of partner—either for race, sexual orientation or religious values. We don’t want to see them walking on a road to disappointment and pain, but most of us would like them to have the chance to fulfill their promise in making their own way. You are basking in the fulfillment of your son as he undoubtedly appreciates the gentle support you have given him. Congratulations on your accomplishment in developing your son’s character without feeling surpassed or no
longer needed.
Every generation criticizes the generation that follows. It is, I believe, foolish. We forget what we were like at that age, fail to appreciate the obstacles they have overcome and fail to appreciate how they will change as they grow older — until they reach that sad point where they, too, are carping about the generation that follows.
I thought you might appreciate this. I posted on one of my Facebook groups about Retirement at Risk and does anyone know younger generations not saving. One reply was:
”Yeah, 3 kids & spouses in their 50’s, 6 of 8 grandchildren. And my parents always thought baby-boomers like me were spendthrifts. I’m fortunate to be able to change my nickname to “Mr. 529 Account” for them”
Hi Jonathan,
In interacting with Ryan, I try so hard to remember where my head was at when his age. When I was 35, I was frantically churning options infatuated with the prospect of becoming a freewheeling trader. I had no clue I was trying to self-treat a mood disorder. Putting ourselves in our children’s shoes is humbling, while at the same time enhancing our self-knowledge. I believe children take in that empathy, feeling loved and accepted for who they are and encouraged to find their own way.
You’re right, but it seems to me each generation changes society forever, good or bad is questionable. The 60s and 70s changed our culture especially regarding the role of women, in many good ways but there were and still are consequences for families now living on two income households – actually a necessity created for most families. Child care needs for example, larger homes and more stuff.
I also don’t think younger generations fully understand or appreciate the hardships and obstacles faced by older generations. Imagine if bringing back the draft was suggested.
I hear a lot about the workplace of today, even from retirees of my old company. People are treated horribly, demands are unreasonable, etc. The corporation does not make decisions, people do and the people making those apparently less than compassionate decisions are a product of their generation whatever that may be and whatever priorities it may hold.
Hi R Quinn,
I think that in trying to individuate from their parents and become their own person, children inevitably must go to war with them. I find that they often feel secure enough in who they are to “come back.” Unfortunately, this sometimes occurs after the passing of the parent, who is denied the gratification of the “homecoming.” Thanks for clarifying a process I have only recently come to appreciate.
I guess it depends on which workplace you’re talking about. My husband works for a Big Four accounting firm, and they spend a lot of energy and resources on making their younger workers happy—and a big part of them being happy is a real commitment to work-life balance. Why do they care about this? Because they’ve spent money and time to hire and train them, and they don’t want to lose them, at least not too soon. In this way, my husband (a Boomer) believes that the Millennials/Gen Zers have positively transformed the workplace compared to what he experienced as a young attorney in a high-powered law firm in the 90s.
Clearly there are exceptions, I’m generalizing based on what i read and hear and the experience of my former employer.
It’s a pretty good bet that nearly all remnants of corporate paternalism are gone. Benefit packages to the extent they exist, have done nothing in the last 20 years or so but shift responsibility and costs to workers offsetting pay raises in many cases and contributing to a retirement and health care cost crisis for many.
Another great one Steve.
Professional gamblers have always fascinated me. It is likely that the math involved rivals that of rocket scientists.
Nate!
What would a beautiful California morning be without a supportive word from Nate? Thank you for your valued contributions to the conversations at Humble Dollar.