Paige LaCava dissertation

Institute for Clinical Social Work

Lost and Found: Prior Parental Death and Launching One’s Own Child

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

By Paige LaCava

Chicago, Illinois.

October 24, 2020

Abstract

This study used Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis methodology to explore the phenomenon of launching a child from a parents’ perspective, focusing on a subgroup of parents whose own parent died during their own launching phase. Six female participants engaged in three interviews, reflecting on their present and past processes.

Feelings such as sadness, anger, and notably fears and personal insecurities were observable in the present. Many described their children as having struggles in daily living, and all placed a priority on working through challenges, and remaining connected.

These aspirations were in marked contrast to memories of their own launch, largely alone, regardless which parent died or their quality of relationship. Grief surfaced during the interviews, as participants voiced awareness of how much has been missed without parental relationship. Being witnessed brought hopeful feelings to the surface and potentially mobilized self-strivings. To the extent that their children have strengths and families remain intact, recognition of their own contribution seemed to bring a needed self-esteem boost. Discussion section notes the impact of absent parents on participants’ development and names ‘lost launch.’ Section also questions whether this loss ties to current lived struggles with children, and observes parents’ eventual need to relinquish control. The new outcome, surviving launch, may be provisional in ways that have heretofore been lacking; new meaning may bring a sturdier sense of self and openness to what participants want and expect for themselves going forward.

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Dedication

For Sophie, Charlie, Owen, and Andrew

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Acknowledgments

I could not have completed this project without the dedication of my teachers and clinical consultants who shaped my studies at The Institute for Clinical Social Work.

With gratitude, I would like to mention contributions of five faculty members whose support has been invaluable, as my Dissertation Committee. John Ridings, for methods and design, and sparking a sense of myself as a researcher; Carol Ganzer, for guiding me through the literature review, and helping me imagine myself entering that dialogue.

Kevin McMahon, as your student I felt ‘at home’ and left class empowered to play with ideas; as a reader, your expertise in development expanded my thinking at two key stages of this project. Connie Goldberg, as a reader, your targeted feedback kept the bar high and focused me on my participants and best practice; also, you gave me the idea of something being ‘usefully argued,’ which I cherish. Karen Bloomberg, I have benefitted immensely from your talent as a clinician, writer and editor. As my chairperson your generosity, energy, and determination were essential to this process and getting the job done. I feel fortunate to have known you in multiple roles as I have gone through my growing phases at ICSW and your ongoing relationship means so much.

PDL

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Table of Contents

Page Abstract…………………………………………………….………………………….....ii Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………….....iv List of Charts…………………………………....................………………………….... ix List of Tables.....................................................................................................................ix Chapter I. Introduction………………………………………………………………..….1 General Statement of Purpose Importance of the Study Significance for Clinical Social Work Statement of the Problem Research Questions Theoretical and Operational Definitions Statement of Assumptions Guiding Paradigm Foregrounding II. Literature Review…………………………………..……………..…….…17 On Launch Psychoanalytic Theory

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Table of Contents--Continued

Chapter

Page Bereavement, Mourning and Grief Trauma Outcome Studies on Parents’ Experience of Launching a Child Conclusion

III. Methodology……………………………………………………………….39 Scope of Study Data Collection Process Data Analysis Credibility Ethical Considerations

IV. Results and Findings………………..………………………………..…...50 Overview of Results Results Demographic Charts for Participants in the Study Introduction to Participants: Launching Stories and Observations Explication of Organizing Themes Conclusion Summary of Findings

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Table of Contents—Continued

Chapter

Page

V. Discussion…………………….............…………................……………….154 Parents Experience Child’s Launch as an Existential Passage Parenting Ideal Is to ‘Be There’ Parents Feel Ill-Equipped Parents Reach A Point of Surrender ‘Living Through’ Launch Brings New Opportunity to Self Conclusion

VI. Considerations and Recommendations…...................………….……….196 Clinical Considerations Clinical Recommendations Limitations of the Study Potential for Future Research

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Table of Contents—Continued Chapter

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Appendices A. Individual Consent for Participation in Research………….….…….….206 B. Query to Colleagues for Participants…………………………………….210 C. Flyer………...……………………………………………………………....212 D. Screening Interview Script…………….………………………………….214 E. Interview Guide…………………………………………………...………216

References…………….……………………………………………..…….……..…….218

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List of Charts

Chart

Page

1. Chart #1 Participant Present Demographic Data……………………..……............55 2. Chart #2 Ages of Participants and Parents at Time of Death……………………..56 3. Chart #3 Quality of Relationship with Deceased Parent, Surviving Parent….........56

List of Tables

Table

Page

1. Table #1 Summary of Organizing Themes………………………………………..69 2. Table #2 Summary of Findings…………………………………………………..153

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Chapter I

Introduction

General Statement of Purpose This study set out to explore the experience of launching a child, from the perspective of those parents who have also experienced the prior death of their own parent, during the time when they were leaving home as a young adult. A phenomenological design was chosen for this study to allow the exploration of participants’ reported feelings and behaviors, in response to their child’s launch, happening presently. They were then asked to recall former lived experience, their own launching phase, during which time one of their parents died. Finally, they were asked to consider whether and how they felt these experiences fit together.

For the purposes of this study the term “launching phase” was understood as a period of transition that occurs in families as children move from adolescence to adulthood, at approximately ages 18-24 years old (Carter & Goldrick, 1999). In this process it is held that both parents and children are called upon to manage intrapsychic and interpersonal shifts for the renegotiation of former roles and responsibilities, and sometimes make room for new family members who may enter the system (Arnett, 2006). The focus of this study was on the participants’ experience of the parent-child

2 relationship during this transition, and the parent psychology as they engaged this process, wherein they are potentially called upon as a facilitator. The ways that these parents experienced and attributed meaning to the processes of leaving and loss were assumed to be impacted in some way by the former loss, and this study set out to identify and come to understand the meanings made by participants, and how these were presently felt by the family.

In this study, participants had at least one child who was 18-24 years old during the interview period. Participants also experienced their own parent’s death by illness or accident when they were themselves between the ages of 18-24 years old. Individuals who had lost a parent by suicide or homicide were not included, because of the potential for additional layers of response to violent death. Participants were all between the ages of 36-60, making their launching child(ren) approximately the same age as the participant, when they experienced their parent’s death. This allowed for the exploration of a cycle of experiences: parent’s launch of a child, recollection of their own launch, and recollection of a parent’s death during launch phase. This query considered various coping styles and supportive relationships, the process of grieving, modes of making meaning and possible re-workings of meaning with particular attention paid to the participants’ internal object relations and how these might relate to current family dynamics.

3 Importance of the Study Parent death was considered a potentially traumatic event because of the important nature of the relationship and the finality of loss (McCoyd & Walter, 2015).

This period of transition known as launch (or emerging adulthood) which happens at or around ages 18-24 years, is considered by some to be a particularly vulnerable time to experience a parent’s death because of the developmental demands on an individual during this period between adolescence and the achievement of adult identity. It has been shown that any death experienced at this stage of life can be extremely disruptive because of the fragile sense of self and identity at this time (Servaty-Seib & Taub, 2010).

Research from Balk, Walker and Baker’s 2010 study “Prevalence and Severity of College Student Bereavement Examined in a Randomly Selected Sample,” shows that 1.7% of students can expect a parent to pass away every two years of college which translates to roughly 360,000 college students in the U.S. over a two-year period. Yet, the unique challenges of coping with death at this age are relatively unexplored, and this phenomenon of ‘college bereavement’ has been called a “silent epidemic that negatively impacts the bereaved academically, socially, and developmentally” (Neimeyer, et. al.

2008, p. 28).

If during the launch phase, parents are still needed as a secure base, and to set limits as well as provide encouragement, then parents play an important part in helping their child successfully adapt to a new level of functioning (Kins, Soenens, & Beyers, 2013). Renegotiating their relationships with each other is a key task of this transition (Arnett, 2006; Erikson, 1956). For those who have experienced the death of a parent then

4 it was not only the loss of a person and relationship, but also the loss of that relationship’s function during an important life stage. This study explored perceptions around the task of helping a child launch and negotiating this new phase of parenthood, without traditional models and with a special sensitivity to loss.

Significance of the Study for Clinical Social Work This study used a phenomenological design in order to access a deep and detailed exploration of the experience of “launching a child” for the participants, who specifically have also experienced the prior death of their own parent during their own launching phase. This was done by reflecting on their present experiences, and by exploring individuals’ perceptions of their own earlier launch transition, which included simultaneous parent loss. They were asked to recall their earlier experience, various ways it has been reconsidered through the years, and whether they felt this to be impactful upon the present.

Gathering this information was potentially useful for the participants themselves, and then results could be shared with others. The study highlighted aspects of the perceived dynamics of a “parent’s role” during this phase. If Winnicott once said that there is no baby without a mother, it may well be asserted here that there is no adult child without a facilitating parent (Winnicott, 1960). This exploration most importantly looked at how particular parents’ expectations, psychological strengths and/or constraints may affect the unfolding of the transition process for both parties, and the system in general.

5 The study elaborated the picture of a parent’s sense of launching a child today, within the particular circumstances of this time and culture (Hammack & Toolis, 2014) as well as particular family dynamics. This information could be helpful to clinicians treating parents who are launching their children and facing an empty nest, with its new roles and vantage point; or for student clients, who are struggling to grow and leave home because of some unclear underlying complex in the family system.

Unresolved loss often shows up in some kind of enactment, and can be understood as a form of anniversary reaction which is “a time-specific psychological response arising on an anniversary of a psychologically significant experience which the individual attempts to master through reliving rather than through remembering (which is shown) in behavior, in symptom formation, in dreams, or in associations” (Mintz, 1971).

This study underlines the significance of a parent’s death at this stage of development, as well as the importance of functional support and adequate grieving processes. It also encourages thinking about the impact of parental loss throughout the life course, and the impact of a parent’s death on subsequent generations.

This study has gathered information, which may inform clinicians who treat individuals in the midst of a launch transition, whether parents or children. It may also contribute to the literature on grief, anniversary reactions, parent death, transgenerational transmission of trauma, and the role of parents in young adulthood.

6 Statement of the Problem Adulthood is an identifiable life stage, and “coming of age” is a universal process, although within every culture there are unique variations on the rites and markers that signify adulthood; thus, we say the notion of adulthood is socially constructed, specific and not static (Hammack & Toolis, 2014). Participants in the present study have lost a parent who died when they were in the launch phase as young adults. These individuals, whose parent died, were asked how they negotiated the developmental tasks of this phase without their parent - and then later in life, as a parent? The particular experiential template for this phase of life includes profound loss. It was expected that their management of their own transition, and how they made sense of their experience without their parent/parents, may have shaped their present negotiations of this transition with their child.

Summary of literature.

Literature remains scant when it comes to current phenomenological research specific to this inquiry of a parent’s experience of a child’s launch, and there is particularly little for those with a history of a parent’s death, during their own launching phase. Some readings will be cited that set up the concept of the ‘launch’ phase.

Relevant readings that make space for the study are psychoanalytic theories, specifically relational and developmental theories, which described internal objects and relational templates, identity development, maturational sequences. Literature on emerging adulthood has opened inquiry around the role of parents in the launching phase and has

7 been extended to looking at cultural factors that might facilitate or impede launch. Other potentially related search terms were: grief and bereavement, trauma, transgenerational transmission of trauma and anniversary reactions. Points of intersection within these related fields will be noted in the literature review.

Gaps in literature.

Launch, or the ‘launching phase’ is an expression from popular culture and an academic term more commonly found in family life cycle theory to refer to a developmental phase in the life of a family wherein members must transition from having children who are living at home to becoming a family whose children have reached adult identity, are self-supporting, and live independently. The reciprocal relationship between parents and child both before and during these changes has been said to require “negotiation” and when successfully done, the end result is the “empty nest”, which is another colloquial expression, one that implies lack or loss (Carter & Goldrick, 1999).

The psychoanalytic understanding of the period of transition from childhood to adulthood emphasizes concepts related to identity development. Psychoanalytic theory addressing separation and individuation attends to a psychological process within the young adult, as did Erickson who was among the first to outline phases of identity development. Arnett, more recently named ‘emerging adulthood,’ which he claimed as a new phase of this process, with its inherent potentials or vulnerabilities. In response to this term, new literature notes the psychological role that parents play during emerging adulthood; young adults often have an extended period of interdependence with parents

8 during this time. This research notes the interaction of the generations, and begins to explore the intra-psychic processes of these relational shifts at launch.

When invoked in psychoanalytic literature, the term “launch” is more commonly known by its inverse: the failure to launch. And in psychoanalytic treatments, traditionally more oriented to the individual, problems of maturation are attributed to the stuck child, who is labeled a ‘failure to launch’ (Lebowitz, E. R., 2016). While there is not a diagnosis in the DSM for this problem, it would likely be characterized as a ‘phase of life’ problem, or a generalized anxiety or adjustment issue, with symptoms likely connected to the experience of the launching child/young adult rather than to the parents or system. A child’s ‘dependency,’ which implies underlying mental illness or organizational deficits for the individual, may not address other equally likely reasons for delay—which might include socioeconomic pressures in the culture or parental ineptitude or needs that come to bear on the family system and serve to keep the child from moving along. Historically, this description of failure to launch may have always implied that if problems occurred during this process it was an indication of another latent problem in the family system, there all along (McCullough & Rutenberg, 1988). Yet, the parent’s experience of launch has been generally underrepresented. Some recent studies have looked to the “empty nest” situation for information about how different parents’ function in that related experience, which is the end result of the launch phase. The phrase ‘empty’ poignantly suggests an experience of lack or loss, as parents eventually reach a new phase of life that is absent child-rearing activities and responsibilities. Many have come to find this term inaccurate or inadequate because it overlooks ambivalent feelings such as pride, relief and optimism, which are additionally reported. In response,

9 researchers have asserted a more neutral term ‘post-parental,’ while others disagree with it since parents do not cease parenting when children launch - their roles change (Bouchard, G., 2014). Some suggest a more benign name, the “empty nest experience” for when the parents adapt well, saving the “empty nest syndrome” for a more problematic adjustment.

A recent article entitled “Empty Nest Trigger” (Grover & Dang, 2013) concludes that many parents that struggle with the empty nest phase may have underlying psychological problems that surface during this time of family life, with its inherent feelings of loss. Others acknowledge that inevitable feelings of loss are prominent among all that parents must navigate at this time of life, such as loss of former close relations with kids, loss of role, and aging. Significant for the present study is the recognition that the empty nest stage is recently seen as being potentially shaped by parental expectations and capacities; if so, then this finding may call for a more complex view of the preceding launching phase, one that includes parental psychology as a significant factor (Lebowitz, 2016; Mitchell & Lovegreen, 2009; Abaied & Emond, 2013).

This socially constructed experience goes without clear descriptive language in the field and perhaps this lack of precision reflects some culturally relevant meaning. By highlighting this relational engagement during launch, comes a chance to newly describe the phenomenon. The field of psychoanalytic clinical social work could benefit from knowing more about the interplay of the generations at this stage, from a contemporary phenomenological perspective.

10 Potential benefits of the study.

This study explored with its participants their experience of launching their child, which recalled their own lived experience of losing their own parent to death during their own young adulthood. For the specific participants in the study, the interviews and structured reflection seemed to bring enhanced understanding of a significant life event and its impact on their lives; in addition, through the attention and support that accompanied participation in the study, members seemed to attain a higher degree of closure felt as satisfaction. The information may be of interest and might possibly benefit others in this population (launching a child, or for those whose parent dies during launch). Additionally, the study might benefit the field of clinical social work by bringing a deeper understanding of this phenomenon to psychological theory and clinical practice. And other researchers may benefit from the findings of this study.

Research questions.

My study focused on four broad research questions. For adults who lost one of their own parents when they themselves were becoming independent: 1. How do they recognize and define independence for their child?

2. What is their lived experience of their child becoming independent?

3. What was the lived experience of losing a parent during a launching phase?

4. To what extent does the death of their parent play into the launching of their own child?

11 Theoretical and operational definitions of major concepts.

Anniversary reaction – from PTSD literature; when distressing feelings (from mild to severe intensity) accompany memories of a traumatic loss or event that are triggered because of a time cue. Examples of time cues are a season of the year, a day, date, or hour. For the purpose of this study, an anniversary reaction would be understood as a response to a stage of life that the participant recalls through her identification with a child who is approaching the same life stage when the traumatic loss occurred (Mintz, 1971).

Bereavement – biopsychosocial state following death of a close family member or friend (Hagman, 2016).

Death – end of life due to illness, injury or accidental death; exclusion of homicide or suicide Emerging adulthood – transitional stage of development between childhood/adolescence and adulthood wherein certain tasks related to identity formation and assumption of adult roles are undertaken ages 18-24 (Arnett,2006).

Empty nest – parents’ experience of no longer having children living at home; parent returns to independent living apart from prior family responsibilities and comforts (Mitchell & Lovegreen, 2009; Grover and Dang, 2013).

Grief – profound sadness, missing and longing feelings associated with death, final separation (Hagman, 2016) Identity - the ego, a coherent self (Erikson, 1959)

12 Individuation – process of becoming autonomous; a young person takes increasing responsibility for the self, rather than expecting others to accept that responsibility. The individual gradually realizes that he or she can function competently on his or her own (Blos, 1997).

Launching stage – time when young adult children are in the process of leaving home to live, love and work in the world as an adult individual. For parents, the stage ends with an empty nest and potentially with new relationships with adult children and their families (Carter & Goldrick, 1999).

Mourning – psychological condition of bereavement, with intense affects often sadness and anger but feelings can be varied and complex (Hagman, 2016).

Parent – biological parent, for purposes of this study.

Transgenerational transmission of trauma – term that became popularized first in response to studies on holocaust survivors, and families; family and especially children experience the emotional trauma of lived atrocities through nonverbal communication of affects, such as terror, hatred, mistrust, sorrow, etc. (Faimberg, H., 2005; Fromm, G., 2012).

Trauma – when psychological system is overloaded, experience is coded in memory differently; often symbolic and not in language therefore inaccessible and prone to dissociation or acting out (Herman, 1997).

Unresolved grief – grief that is not become integrated but rather continues to affect mood or functioning (Herman, 1997).

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Statement of assumptions.

1. The launching process is both an intrapsychic experience and an interpersonal experience.

2. The launching process for a young adult brings complex and contradictory responses to new responsibilities, tasks, and freedoms.

3. The launching process for a parent calls forth complex and contradictory responses as responsibilities are surrendered, and new freedoms are engaged.

4. The launching process is a period of family life where the roles of child and parent change around issues of authority and control.

5. Death always involves loss and usually grieving.

6. Death of a parent is a particular kind of loss.

7. Trauma is experienced as overwhelming affect that does not become integrated over time.

8. Un-integrated trauma often shows itself through behaviors, inhibitions and other nonverbal (often unconscious) expression, which can be evident in later in life.

Guiding paradigm.

Qualitative research according to the constructivist worldview is interpretive, grounded, naturalistic, context emergent and evolving. According to this position, individuals seek understanding of the world they live in and assign subjective meanings to their experiences (Cresswell, 2003). These meanings must be negotiated through the

14 world and with others, thus meaning is co-created. This project attempted to make meaning from thoughts, feelings, and associations of the participants relative to their experience of a phenomenon, specifically the launch of their child when they had also experienced loss of their parent due to death, during their own launch phase of life. The researcher brought her own experiences, which interacted and filtered meanings put forth by the participants of the study.

The IPA (Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis) model uses a contextspecific perspective, wherein the construction of reality is explored as it occurs socially.

There was a dialectical process between inductive and deductive reasoning (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009).

Foregrounding.

My interest in this topic came from the personal experience of discovering my mother’s leukemia when I was 20 and her subsequent death four months later. Many people hold the mistaken impression that a person who is 20 years old is virtually an adult, without much need for parents, and in a practical, physical sense this may be largely true for many people. Yet, well-meaning assurances such as “at least you had her that long, when she died you were practically an adult” felt markedly different from my emotional experience of loss particularly at subsequent milestones. Being motherless at college graduation, at marriage, the births of my children, moving into a new house, left me at times sensitive about doing things “right” without her as a guide or sounding board.

I have often felt I was searching out replacement ‘mother ducks’: teachers, supervisors,

15 neighbors, mother in law–someone who could show me the way, given what I was missing.

By all accounts I have managed successfully: married, four children, and a homemaker. Later I became interested in revisiting work and career, which had been interrupted by my mother’s death. In my studies I came across developmental literature describing multiple individuation phases, and in particular I became interested in the idea of launch as a recapitulation and a renewal of ‘basic trust,’ which is considered a much earlier developmental achievement. It occurred to me that the profound loss of a parent during this transition is potentially a breach with massive implications.

The idea of interviewing participants who are older and can be reflective about the past loss, but also who have lived substantially since the loss also originates from my own lived experience. Having children now reach the age that I was when my mother died has triggered an anniversary type reaction for me, as I have re-visited some of the emotional memories of myself at their age. What I have realized poignantly is that I have no template for how to hold my children through this transition in their lives, as my own experience and lived-experience is one of loss and fear. From personal experience, letting go is not safe and survivable, however natural, normal and desirable it might be on a conscious level.

The poignancy and struggle of this experience led to a curiosity about others’ experience. I have sought commonality or difference and shared phenomenon, as I cannot believe I am alone. Individuals develop subjective meanings of their experience and multiple meanings exist for individuals and among individuals. My hope is to enter

16 this inquiry as a process of discovery, as a passionate participant. I cannot position myself in such a process without acknowledging my own self and perspective in the process. In this study, I will pose a question and seek meaning rather than starting with a set theory.

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Chapter II

Literature Review

In this literature review relevant existing literature was identified and explored to offer information that would both support and make space for this study. First, a brief history of ideas that set up a context for the present use of the term ‘launch’. Then, the conceptual basis for this inquiry was located in psychoanalytic literature, which posits a theory of mind wherein relationships are central to development. The psychoanalytic section of the literature review identifies ideas such as attachment and relational theory, to show the extent to which relationships are intersubjective and co-created.

Developmental studies are also mentioned as reference points. Though at one time development literature compiled data to formulate ‘normative life stages,’ in order to create standards of optimal functioning, today ‘normative’ thinking is considered restrictive and potentially derogatory for certain individuals. Still, it can be useful to consider the identified roles and tasks of phases like adolescence, emerging adulthood, or late adulthood for these historic papers, with their constructs, illustrate expectable patterns or feelings given certain cultural values and norms. This information might contextualize our cultural views, and the familiar ideas that are embedded in personal narratives.

Following the section on psychoanalytic ideas, there is an acknowledgement of the vast body of work on bereavement, mourning and grief. Several outcome studies are

18 cited that relate to the experience of a parent’s death, particularly during young adulthood. Seminal works from the biopsychosocial perspective on grief, and a newer psychoanalytic perspective on mourning add to our understanding of this phase.

Trauma is another relevant topic, to the extent that an ‘off time’ death of one’s parent, experienced prior to the child’s ability to comprehend and integrate the meaning of such a loss can be considered traumatic. Of note is how one can experience trauma and then later, that experience becomes expressed implicitly, in an unfolding family history. The literature has named this covert expression the transgenerational transmission of trauma. This study explored how participants experienced and made meaning around the process of parent death and leaving home, and how that meaning may get expressed intergenerationally.

As parenting values change depending on the cultural milieu, recent studies have used a contemporary vantage point to understand how parents feel about reaching the life stage of an empty nest. The literature review concludes with a look at some recent studies on the current perception of those determining factors. Finally, a small number of outcome studies acknowledge how the launching process may be shaped by particularities of the parents’ psychology.

On Launch In the culture of the United States over the past 100 years, social and economic forces have influenced psychological conceptualizations that determined working definitions of adult functioning. Historically, the dominant American orientation has

19 been individualistic. In the 1950s when Erikson was first writing, the family structure and economics of the time indicated that it was necessary for a child to grow and eventually function independently, apart from the original family home. Marriage along with the creation of a new family, were other commonly accepted signifiers of adulthood at that time (Mintz, 2015).

Erikson (1959) as a psychologist who subscribed to this individualistic attitude (even though he recognized culture) made his most notable and lasting contribution an outline of the transitions of individual human identity development. This was broken down into eight phases of maturity, wherein “adulthood” was framed as an intra-psychic achievement, to be equated with identity consolidation. He felt that adulthood was possible for those who could well use available internal and external psychological resources (Erikson, 1959). That was consistent with the capitalistic values, dominant in America of that time (Cushman, 1995).

Other psychoanalytically-oriented studies also focused on internal life, referring to maturation as ‘the adolescent passage’ or sometimes as ‘the second individuation’ stage (Blos, 1979). These processes of identity development were thought to occur within individuals, and emphasized separation and independence from mother. In a successful outcome, earlier developmental accomplishments were expected to cohere and become the basis of a self, capable of meeting the ongoing challenges of life. In descriptions of ‘the second individuation’ a poor outcome at this stage would place the individual at risk (Blos, 1979). The key task was still understood as an individual attaining selfhood, by way of an internal (not interpersonal) though culturally proscribed process (Cushman, 1995).

20 Recent decades and economic and cultural shifts in the United States (namely a constriction of employment opportunities) may have caused family expectations related to “achieving adulthood” to shift in tandem. In the 1980s an American psychologist, Arnett, observed a developing trend along these lines as financial challenges and societal complexities impacted young people, lengthening and complicating their path to adulthood. He saw a definable, middle period between adolescence and adulthood (ages 18-25) that he identified for the psychological literature as ‘emerging adulthood’.

Growing up was taking longer than for prior generations, and Arnett predicted a trend of interdependence with parents (cohabitation or financial dependence) for an extended period of several years, even beyond college (Arnett, 2006).

For Arnett, the tasks of achieving adulthood were basically the same as those Erikson had put forth: an intra-psychic process of self-discovery wherein young adults questioned their families’ values, trying to decide what suited them personally regarding education, career, mate, spirituality; followed by a differentiation and choice period that would require accepting or rejecting parents’ priorities, values and dreams. The optimal outcome was for the young adult to feel a sense of ongoing belonging with family while also belonging to the larger community, in a manner freely chosen (Arnett, 2006). While the emphasis stayed on individual identity consolidation, he noted challenges that came with pursuing such goals without being able to leave home and live apart from parents.

This schema of emerging adulthood designated a new-normal timetable that both socially allowed for an extended interaction with parents into the mid-20s yet predicted psychological consequences for both parties. The extended time that families faced together called for adapted markers of adulthood that would match individual needs and

21 factors (Mintz, S. 2015). The body of literature that marked these changes newly recognized that parents might have a key role in their child’s process of becoming adult.

Whether actually new, or newly identified, this growing emphasis on that parent-child relationship makes a case for more study of the relational dynamics at this time of life and for research that looks beyond behavioral trends to the affective, intrapsychic events of the transition.

Another relevant theoretical shift happened during the 1980s. A sea change occurred in psychoanalytic theory and the field of clinical social work that increasingly recognized how social context and psychological wellbeing are inextricably connected (Stern, 1985; Hoffman, 1992). Human minds exist within a system of interpenetrating subjectivities, and as primarily social beings, we are embedded in dynamic relational systems that are essential to our survival from birth onward (Stern, 1985; Hoffman, 1992). Attachment theory and relational models came to the forefront of the approach to treating individuals, and it became routine to assess how combinations of external/cultural and internal/psychological factors exist and are entwined. Development came to be understood as an interpreted and interpretive process. Today, understanding how parents launch a child to adulthood naturally would reflect complex psychological and interpersonal processes happening within and between parents and their children, shaped by societal expectations (Hammack & Toolis, 2014).

Raised awareness of cultural-ethnic sub-contexts of families, situated in the larger US culture, has called for attention to be paid to individual family expectations that vary with culture. Newer research to this end has found that particular meanings assigned to various choices do shape the outcome of these transitions. This area of research sets a

22 precedent for attending to family-specific issues that pertain to the outcome of the launching process. Clinicians would do well to be informed about the extended range of normal possible meanings, which might be ascribed to this passage. This study might contribute understanding to how sensitivities are felt and managed for desired outcomes in families (Mitchell, B. & Wister, 2015).

Psychoanalytic Theory Psychoanalysis is based on a theory of mind that is founded on the notion that relationships are essential for human psychological development and survival. Views of human motivation include emotionally connected relationships as the precursor and sustenance of mental health: Winnicott’s observations on optimal development posited that the ‘good enough mother’ made space for the development of a ‘true self’ who over time, achieved the counterbalancing ‘capacity to be alone” as his world expanded (Winnicott, 1960); Bowlby’s research and writings were also born from his interest in the subject of parent-child attachment and loss. He authored an explanation of relational development wherein human infants are striving from their first moments of life to relate to others; Daniel Stern’s scientific infant-research awakened the psychoanalytic community to the infant’s capacity for recognition of mother and he showed that infants displayed a keen sensitivity to their environment from birth (Stern, 1985) and their utter dependence on attuned caregiving. The parent-child bond remains a precious and essential asset yet in adolescence as one moves toward autonomous functioning, ‘optimal attunement’ looks quite different than it did during infancy. The end goal for parent-

23 child relating is not separation from each other, but the dyad moves through renegotiations toward interdependence, as parent and ‘adult child’ (Galatzer-Levy & Cohen, 1993).

Since Freud’s early essay “Remembering, Repeating and Working Through” (1914) introduced this basic concept, it has been maintained that one’s mind holds representations of the past, particularly traumatic memories that may not be consciously retrievable. If memories cannot be explicitly recalled, their unconscious repetition can be understood as a form of remembering. Adam Phillips (2016) recapitulates the belief that traumatic memory is often communicated through happenings that we are compelled to repeat, thus bringing current credibility to this valuable insight regarding human behavioral patterns. When contemporary relational theories are applied in treatment, the intrapsychic representations of formative and other important relationships are believed to bear on present functioning.

Hoffman (1992) said that one’s epistemological beliefs regarding the nature of persons and social life must precede taking a clinical stance and his endorsement of social construction as the foundation of a contemporary relational psychoanalytic approach is usefully applied here, as this approach examines the present reflectively, and focuses on reworking oneself and relationships through authentic encounters. He asserts that the clinical moment, and all of ‘reality’, is co-created. Several other seminal ideas from relational theory contribute to a holistic understanding of this paradigm and to the premise of this study: mutuality, identification, enactment, and working through (Aron, 2001; Aron, 2003; Mitchell, 1991; Stern, 2002).

Historically, the developmental studies have addressed life phases and roles

24 related to these phases, along with expectations that might define optimal functioning and the criteria for achieving maturational tasks. This developmental perspective informed the construction of the study and the interpretive process during data analysis. A framework for gauging the potential relationship between parent and child throughout stages of a lifespan were: adolescence; emerging adulthood; adulthood, midlife, empty nest. Current psychoanalytic literature provides relatively little information from the perspective of adult parents who are launching their children; Steinberg addresses this lack of data, saying, future research “on transformations in family relationships during adolescence needs to examine whether, why, and in what ways this transition is stressful for parents; how this type of stress affects parental mental health; whether parents who find this transition difficult are more likely to parent in ineffective ways” (Steinberg, 2001).

Families reorganize as children age and often leave home to find work, a mate, and to construct their own families. Discussion by Colarusso (1998) asserts that the normative experience of mature adults includes feelings of freedom, satisfaction as well as pangs of nostalgia and loss. For parents, the period following the departure of children is known as post-parenthood or as the “empty nest” and sometimes the “empty nest syndrome” refers to a condition women experience, indirectly signaling a pathological adaptation. This is not a preferable orientation to have assigned to females (Bernstein, 1987) as it implies a narcissistic vulnerability rather than promoting a complex exploration of individual emotional life. Here the study focused on the transition of launch for a group of parents with a vulnerability to loss, however the aim is not to pathologize, but to understand more fully and inform treatment.

25

Bereavement, Mourning and Grief Several contemporary articles reference the special situation of bereavement in college-aged kids. This section also includes comment on loss, grief and adjustment.

While the literature on bereavement is vast, this study looks closely at circumstances of mourning and the impact of grief when the death of a parent has occurred during the launching stage of life for the child. Many studies have been done in an attempt to understand a child’s mourning when a parent has died prematurely, and yet less is known of the impact of parent loss during the launching phase. It is broadly believed that a parent’s death is significantly impactful at any age and potentially a traumatic loss. The process of making meaning is specific and unique for each individual; relationships, as well as the social context of loss and healing are considered to be factors that affect mourning. The completeness of mourning may determine the course of future relationships and functioning (Hagman, 2016).

Outcome studies.

Contemporary articles are noted which reference the special situation of bereavement in college-aged kids; they identify this group as at risk and needing a more thoughtful approach/intervention in university settings, as well as better-informed clinicians. This establishes a prevalence of this problem, and a need for information and resources. According to one study bereavement presents ‘‘a defining issue in the lives of

26 no less than 40% of the students on the campus’’ (Balk, 2008, p. 6). Severity may be underreported due to the challenges of self-report data, particularly with a group such as college students who are known as seeing themselves as not needing help (Balk, 2008).

Students may be away from home and support systems, pressured to fit in, or else be shunned as a grieving person and so “adapt”. Many are not sure what help is available or even that they need it, so it goes under reported--yet grades drop and other depressive symptoms may occur, like insomnia (Balk, Walker & Baker, 2010). Some question if college students’ resilience buffers them from prolonged grief disorder. The Balk, Walker and Baker study (2010) does not believe that somehow college students are immune or exempt from grief. Review of assessment strategies is purportedly called for in college settings.

Guidance in this matter may come from Rubin and his colleagues (Rubin, Malkinson, & Witztum, 2008) who devised a study that applied a Two Track Model of Bereavement in order to assess prolonged grief. These tracks look at the shock and trauma of the death, as well as trying to establish the college students’ sense of closeness to the deceased. They wanted to estimate the significance of the attachment bond, in an effort to factor in how attachment might influence the process of bereavement over time (Balk, Walker & Baker, 2010, p. 466).

In Silverman (1987) this small sample study showed the impact of a parent's death on college-age women. These women in the study reported that the death ‘matured them’, often putting them out-of-step with their peers on campus. This study posits that the students’ coping was positively affected by their surviving parent's ability to respond

27 to their needs and to still be able to treat the students as the children (not prematurely parentify the student). Regardless of their precise chronological age at the time of their parent’s death, the students reported that a shift occurred which left their world feeling ‘uncertain and unsafe’, and they stated needing reassurance that they would be taken care of by their living parent.

Another study shows that 25 percent of college students have lost a significant family member or friend in the past year, and nearly 50 percent have suffered a loss in the past two years. Because the prevalence of such loss is matched by widespread inattention, bereavement might be regarded as a “silent epidemic “on campus, with the potential for adverse consequences in academic, social and developmental realms (Neimeyer, 2008, p. 28). This study calls for the grieving person to undertake the task of revising their worldview, since “the death of a loved one ranks high on the list of potentially life and identity changing events. Bereaved individuals often regard the story of their lives as being demarcated by their death loss experience” (Neimeyer, 2008, p.

30). The current constructivist perspective advises to seek meaning and to honor a sense of internal connection to the deceased; redefining the relationship so it can be sustained symbolically, spiritually or in memory and shared through storytelling with family and friends in a way that maintains a vital attachment (Neimeyer, 2008, p. 34).

Biopsychosocial perspective on grief.

These approaches set up a framework that draws on historical ideas: one is looking at grief across differing stages of life; the other is looking at loss and impact of

28 death in the family system. The participants in the study have experienced this type of loss as young adults; by establishing the potential nature and degree of the experience, we underscore what is potentially being carried along in their relational experience as individuals and as parents and what by extension could potentially get reenacted.

Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan (2015) includes the particulars of expectable circumstances in biology, social and emotional development given different ages and life stages. When a parent dies at the launching stage, the young adult is likely to position it as an “off-time” death, which feels unjust, and leaves them not only vulnerable but ‘out of sync’ with peers who can understand and be supportive. They have been found to feel that without their parents’ acknowledgement their “status as fully functioning adults” is left as un-clarified (McCoyd & Walter, 2015, p. 148).

Bagnoli (2003) conducted loss narratives with a group who focused on the need for a reassessment of identity, once their parent died. They reported making attempts to continue the bond with parents by sensing them as role models, by sensing their guidance, utilizing their value sets and accessing memories - all toward internalizing an inner representation. The authors also cited Edelman, who in 1994 shed light on the experience of ‘motherless daughters’ and Schultz, who in 2007 found that in her small sample of women who had lost their mothers, half claimed to consider suicide following the death as they described a severe identity crisis as a component of mourning. Other reactions included relief, when the dying was expected and protracted, disbelief, and various behavioral symptoms including disruption of self-care, social withdrawal, and dealing with pressure to mask feelings and move on. Finally, resilience was another response (McCoyd & Walter, 2015).

29 Young adulthood is the beginning of a new systemic trajectory in life and an “offtime” loss is often arresting as particularly, “facing a parent’s dying may stir fears of a loss of self” (Walsh & McGoldrick, 2004, p. 32). Furthermore, when a family system is impacted, members and subsequent adaptation are affected; and because our society assumes that young adults should become independent, the significance of the loss of a parent at this age may not be recognized such that mourning may become more complicated. Unprocessed loss, or ambiguous loss, is problematic and can lead to untold stories that get folded into family functioning. Examples of these patterns are: time stops, constrictions and myths (i.e. leaving home is dangerous), pattern repetition, and don’t look back (secrecy and shame). In Living Beyond Loss: Death in the Family (Walsh & McGoldrick, 2004) the recommended approach uses family and social contexts both for meaning making, support, and working through.

Psychoanalytic perspective on grief.

Freud’s seminal work, Mourning and Melancholia holds the premise of mourning as a process of gradual working through, a digestion of grief during which time the image of the lost love object and the loving connection is introjected, while at the same time their death is consciously acknowledged (Freud, 1917). Freud, and later Bowlby saw grief as a separation anxiety that revisited the deceased loved one, until over time, the energy for the relationship was gradually de-cathected for investment in a new object (Stroebe, Gergen et. al. 1992). However, in other cultures and now as a newer understanding her in the U.S. there is growing acknowledgement of the benefits of

30 retaining contact with deceased, including overt or explicit rituals, or mental conversations – and there is no effort made to block these, whereas not long ago this would have been seen as aberrant behavior, a fixation. In the new view, a broken heart is an acceptable and understandable outcome, as a means of remaining connected.

Contemporary views on grieving do not assert pressure to break old bonds. In New Models of Bereavement, Theory and Treatment: New Mourning (2016), Hagman curated a collection of essays that emphasized this contemporary stance on mourning, viewing it as an interpersonal healing process, occurring in a social milieu. Hagman clarifies terms: bereavement is a biopsychosocial state that occurs in response to a loss of an important other to death; mourning is a complex and unique psychological response to the aforementioned. Grief includes the affect states of mourning, including sadness and others. In Hagman’s view the social and relational dimensions of bereavement can be life long and bond-affirming where reconstruction of meaning is the central feature of contemporary grief work, through reworking of interpersonal narratives.

Trauma Trauma defined.

Trauma has been conceptualized in several ways in the literature; following are several ideas, which attempt to qualify what makes an experience ‘traumatic’. Herman said, the “conflict between the will to deny horrible events, and the will to proclaim them aloud, is the central dialectic of psychological trauma, when secrets keep the story from surfacing as a verbal narrative so it comes out as a symptom” (Herman, 1979, p. 2).

31 When these events go unrecognized and unprocessed, the story shows itself in fragments of lived experience and contorted attempts to avoid the repetition of such experiences.

In The Dissociative Mind in Psychoanalysis (Howell & Izkowitz, 2016), the ‘dissociation of trauma’ is described as when some part of experience cannot be absorbed into the rest of the experiencing self, and thus it becomes a fixed idea, living apart, and disconnected from the rest of self experience; trauma connotes divisions, or fissures in experience” (2016, p. 35). Dissociation, according to these authors, is the loss of linkages resulting in gaps that can be reconnected through relationships with caring others, who are able to communicate and comfort, such that these cut-off experiences get re-linked.

When does ordinary bereavement become conceptually equivalent to trauma? It seems that one cannot determine the course a grieving process will take by assessing a person’s functioning prior to the death/loss, or simply by understanding the state of the relationship alone; and it is important to know that external adaptation to the loss by way of functioning, is not the same as resolution of grief. The current view of grief has come to see the relationship with the deceased as central, stressing that bereavement and the degree of trauma involved ought to be assessed from a relational perspective (Rubin, Malkinson & Witztum, 2003, p. 670). Furthermore, complications in the interpersonal dimension of bereavement have been found to function with the same power to derail life-function as exposure to external life-threats (Rubin, Malkinson & Witztum, 2003, p.

678).

According to Boulanger, ‘adult onset trauma’ is clinically different than childhood or relational trauma and triggered by “disaster, catastrophe, and overwhelming

32 social situations” (Boulanger, 2007, p. 10). Boulanger (2007) made a case for the importance of treating adult onset trauma with seriousness, implicitly including the impact of a parent’s death upon a person who is an almost-adult; as she points out that fear of object loss is one of Freud’s four basic anxieties, calling up helplessness as an effect, which is then defended against (p. 31). She asserts that our encounters with death do define all future life, and like others calls out the need for a social milieu for adequate processing.

Transgenerational transmission of trauma and anniversary reactions.

To the extent that one considers the death of a parent and the related sequelae to be a traumatic loss (Hagman, 2016) this literature selection is focused in on trauma and how it shows up in families over time. Transgenerational transmission of trauma is observed when certain emotional residues of a profound traumatic experience, such as fear, deprivation, and loss become passed along non-specifically and non-verbally to children and grandchildren (DeAngelis, 2019). The mechanism of inherited trauma is recognized and studied as specifically unprocessed, non-verbally communicated traumatic reactions. Another phrase related to the idea of inherited family trauma, the “telescoping of generations,” also emphasizes unspoken enactments of emotional experiences in families (Faimberg, 2005). An anniversary reaction is understood to be the revisiting of trauma, at a specific time or time interval, in attempt at mastery. This study considered how this phenomenon might be related to situations that have been experienced by individuals in instances of unresolved grief (Mintz, 1971).

33 Outcome Studies on Parents’ Experience of Launching A small, qualitative study in Britain that focused on parents’ experience of a child’s launch, reveals that despite societal changes that have eased the liability and demands of child rearing, still parents perceive some difficulty in ‘letting go’ of their grown-up children (Kloep & Hendry, 2010). In “Letting Go or Holding On? Parents' Perceptions of their Relationships with their Children During Emerging Adulthood,” parents acknowledged a range of strategies employed in response to young people’s growing independence and autonomy. The significance on “emerging adulthood” of factors like dependency, emotional tensions, and interactive behaviors was discussed. In conclusion, they found there are as many different parents who create and facilitate the ‘launch’ as there are “young adults,” and these researchers proposed that future study is needed to discover the parents’ experience, as this is missing from the general research on midlife development (Kloep & Hendry, 2010, p. 818).

Another study looking at parents’ role in emerging adulthood suggested that parents provide essential social-emotional support and uniquely influence their child’s responses to expectable stresses of the period (Abaied & Emond, 2013). Conversely, they can undermine the transition using negative parental control, which intrudes on the process: by taking away concrete resources or social supports such as: emotional withdrawal, criticism, guilt/shame, which all serve to inhibit autonomy. Parental control can be communicated from afar, and functions to cut away a sense of confidence/trust; over indulgence is another manifestation of the same problem. While the personality of the child can modulate parenting styles it was concluded that controlling parenting predicts adjustment issues. Through interviews with mostly white, college students the

34 study found that adaptive strategies lead to adjustment, and parents have a critical impact on responses.

In “How Do Parents React When Their Children Leave Home? An Integrative Review,” Bouchard (2014) collated a literature review aimed for a broader and deeper understanding of this time of life for parents, which she said is important but relatively unexplored. Bouchard asserts that a child’s leaving is complex and stirs deep feelings for parents. Some say the feelings are mixed, thus in place of empty nest, a more neutral term has come into usage: post parental, post parenthood, which accounts for the ambivalence many parents feel about the time of life after child-rearing. Bouchard discussed the “role loss, versus role strain” hypothesis; noting how other losses simultaneously occur at midlife. This review concluded that ambivalence is common, a combination of loss and relief, and that generally a child’s home-leaving is perceived to be “good” if the child remains in contact, and the parents are not “too worried” (Bouchard, 2014).

Other recent research on the experience of parents during launch/empty nest phase, takes social complexity into account. Newer perspectives are grounded in recognition of ethnic and racial diversity among young adults in the United States today.

Selected studies note how individual processes cannot be understood only according to generic developmental constructs, but must be viewed in combination with specific, cultural sub-contexts. The cultural meanings attributed to leaving home will bear on the unfolding process by enhancing or restricting the process (Mitchell & Wister, 2015). In a mixed methods study with a sample of 174 midlife parents (mean age 51.8) it was confirmed that family expectations are ambiguous, and specifically shaped by ethnic-

35 culture and family related factors. The launching phase is often extended and protracted when there is ambiguity in the family around the meanings, as home-leaving timing and pathways are influenced by family-related processes it was found (Mitchell & Wister p.

261).

In “The Empty Nest Syndrome in Midlife Families,” (Mitchell & Lovegreen, 2009) a sample of 350 participants were interviewed, using retrospective data to explore the process into empty nest syndrome, paying regard to gender and culture and concluded: context is specific. Many reasons and meanings contribute to protracted leaving based on cultural expectations, which determine what is normative. For example, they found that “off time leaving” is harder, based solely on perceptions, which comes from one’s own lived experiences. Older parents seem to do better, maybe having had more time to adjust, new sandwich responsibilities, and a readiness to pursue one’s own life dreams. This study found that perceived safety threats in world, or the sense of their child as inept, too far away, or otherwise vulnerable for some reason, were the hardest feelings for parents to bear.

Other studies with cultural emphasis looked at the social and psychological factors influencing the psychological well-being of empty nest mothers (Iman & Aghamiri, 2011), and parent-child relationships to see how intergenerational transfers of social emotional and material transfers. Real and perceived support might impact how supportive parents are/can be (Hardie, & Seltzer, 2016). Generally among these studies, a point made is the need to respect difference: it has been acknowledged that some parents struggle more than others, it happens, and is normal. Clinicians must allow for a variety of presentations and be alert to cultural denial or self-medicating (Mitchell &

36 Lovegreen, 2009). In fact, effective supports for parents who are approaching empty nest have been found in relationship: an investment in marriage, and in children and grandchildren can bring some satisfaction during these changes (Bouchard & McNair, 2016). For the present study these raise questions around adaptation for those whose family life is atypical and with possible past trauma.

Those parents with unstable marriages may experience a particular vulnerability at a life stage when the instability of launching, affects the parent's’ capacity to parent, due to intense feelings instigated by relational shifts and uncertainties (Nagy & Theiss, 2013). In “Empty Nest Syndrome vs. Empty Nest Trigger: Psychotherapy Formulation Based on Systemic Approach – A Descriptive Case Study” it was asserted that underlying dynamics for the parents are why/when things don’t go well and the author argued against a facile label without examining other issues. The transitional stage they have entered gets named as the problem when actually the changes are triggering other unresolved issues, previously masked by children and role/responsibilities of parenting (Grover & Dang, 2013).

While perhaps there ought to be more space for expectable and normal angst, at this time of life for separation anxiety is “a salient feature of close relationships” considered functional and normal for the survival of the species; still, after 30 months, prolonged distress is not normative but instead a predictor of poor adjustment. Maternal separation anxiety, explored as a personality trait, became associated with low selfesteem and depression as well as intrusive and autonomy restricting behaviors. This citation relates to the present study insofar as it questions how parents’ internal responses

37 shape their interpersonal responses, and the child’s experience (Kins, Soenens, & Beyers, 2013).

Another study, “Attachment to Parents and Psychological Well-Being: An Examination of Young Adult College Students in Intact Families and Stepfamilies,” looked at the adjustment of young adult college students, through lens of attachment quality (Love & Murdock, 2004) and the impact of divorce. Looking at stepfamilies, it was found that while the quality of early parent-child relationships was likely to shape individuals’ expectations regarding attachment security in later intimate relationships, still, disruptive environmental stressors, such as emotional losses or other negative life events, could reorient individuals’ internal cognitive working models regarding intimate relationships and cause shifts in attachment behavior. This implies that the stress associated with divorce could cause a shift in cognitive working models, resulting in less secure attachment, and likewise, for the purposes of this study suggests that parental death in launching phase is inherently disruptive, signaling a loss of control as roles and former relationships and relatedness are already undergoing change (Bowlby, 1969; Love & Murdock, 2004, p. 602).

King and Theiss (2015) track the communication of relational disturbances in marriages, with emphasis on what is being communicated to the launching individual, and how are they respected or pathologized as they enter autonomous phase, the basis of which results in self-trust. Lebowitz, in “Failure to Launch: Shaping Intervention for Highly Dependent Adult Children,” (2016) sees the attribution of “failure to launch” as a stigmatizing diagnosis that breeds guilt and feelings of helplessness. He found that anxiety prevails in systems where then avoidance and shame perpetuate a negative cycle

38 because social withdrawal worsens the situation, by limiting new ideas and opportunities for the system to regulate. This latter study suggests treating parents, who can change their responses proactively and with support give proper space for the system to make changes. He also urges clinicians not to emphasize failure, as if it's finished story, but to see the process instead. These findings would seem to underline the potential for seeing and knowing more about the interrelatedness of the generations in this process of launch.

Conclusion This literature review has ordered the categories from the broadest relevant theory to the most specific and aligned studies. Starting with psychoanalytic attachment, relational, and developmental perspectives that outline expectable life phases in our culture, including the terms emerging adulthood, and the empty nest phase. There is less on the parents’ experience of children leaving home during the launching process, although some recent studies from emerging adulthood literature do point to the interaction of the two generations. Grief and loss, bereavement and trauma are broad categories that undergird the study, and the more specific area of intergenerational transmissions of trauma will potentially be tied to the study situation. The literature review is meant to lay a foundation from which to consider the research question, but the intent of the study is to discover the unique experiences that only the participants can deliver; it is these particular participants who will determine the findings.

39

Chapter III

Methodology The launching phase can be considered a process of changes that begins in family life as the oldest child readies to leave home and live independently. During this time, parents and young-adult children make adjustments in their ways of relating to each other as they initiate a new phase of life that potentially holds complex and contradictory feelings of promise and loss. It is a process that disrupts an old way of being together, and when all goes well, the child becomes adult and the parents will have an empty nest.

This study was designed to explore the parent’s experience of launch as a parent, and formerly as a young adult, using narrative report to learn about multiple dimensions of their emotional and cognitive processes. For the participants in this study, lived experience included a special circumstance, which was the death of their parent during their own launch phase. Therefore the study asked whether or in what ways they felt that their earlier loss has or has not impacted the present. Since a period of grief and mourning generally follows the death of a loved one, the study also sought information on coping and how other relationships provided support or were otherwise adapted over the years.

Qualitative modes of inquiry are valid, reliable methods used to expand knowledge in the field of psychology and clinical treatment, for exploring whether emergent patterns of experience exist, and how those can help define or understand a

40 situation. Results may indicate the need for future study or be used to generate ideas for general clinical application (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2012).

Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis is specifically a method that emphasizes learning “how people make sense of their major life experience” (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p. 1). Participants reflected on what was essential in their experience, sharing intimate details of their stories in their own words, thereby bringing a rich, personal dimension to the data in the transcripts. In the course of these interviews, multiple facets of the participants’ situations emerged, bringing out a layered and nuanced understanding of the phenomenon for each individual. Alongside that endeavor, the researcher engaged in a parallel process of ‘meaning making’ because of the interpretive nature of her role.

The small number of participants in a somewhat homogeneous sample (all female, white, upper middle class) allowed for examination of the ways that they in the sample were alike and different from one another. Theoretical generalizations were then made from the starting place of a relatively bounded group, and analysis included detailed examination of the researcher’s processes and interpretations, supported by participants’ quotes (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, pp. 3-4). Since meanings are complex, and vary even among individuals who share a similar experience, this ideology was a good match for an exploration of the phenomenon of launch, as we understand that process to be socially constructed and particular within cultures and specific families.

The set of multiple narrative perspectives could then be explored as a collection, to create a sense of context that then held each particular experience, relative to the

41 others, in an attempt to “capture the human predicament” through examination of the “people, relationships, and language” of their lived world (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p. 16). This topic proved well suited to a constructionist approach, which appreciates perspective, and holds in high regard the analysis of the particular over sweeping generalizations (Cresswell, 2003).

The participants’ narratives expressed stories in the midst of launching their young-adult children, which illuminated recollections of their own experience: having had a parent die during their own home-leaving process. The intent was to discover through minimally directed reflection what they experienced, the meanings made at various stages of subsequent development, and whether/how these live on in the present.

Using the text from interview transcripts, an inductive and deductive analysis gleaned meaning from the individuals’ descriptions. These were then interpreted by the researcher, who acknowledged her own subjectivity as it has been informed by experience, as well as theories which were identified in the literature review and discussion sections (Cresswell, 2003).

Increasingly IPA is becoming the method of choice to capture and explore personal issues of psychological distress and the intimate process of identity formation or transition. This study fit with that trend, insofar as it set out to examine an experience of identity transformation, as well as the impact of past experience of trauma and whether/how participants feel that the experience has become interwoven into their identity and shapes the present. (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p. 164).

42 Scope of Study Participants were selected to be part of the study if they were presently experiencing the identified phenomenon and met all criteria. A brief phone interview determined whether volunteer participants were: 1. 36 to 60 years of age 2. the parent of a child or children between 18-24 years old 3. own parent died when they were 18-24 years old.

“IPA researchers usually try to find a fairly homogeneous sample, for whom the research questions will be meaningful” (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p. 49).

Certain limits were used to narrow the field to create a relatively homogenous sample; for example, individuals who have lost a parent to suicide were not included nor were individuals who lost two parents during the proscribed time period. Furthermore, according to the IPA, participants were chosen who would likely be good informants on the experience of a child’s “launch” from the position of parenthood (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009). The nature of the study required that participants could show an inclination to reflect and verbally share their thoughts and feelings during the initial screening.

Participants were found by snowball selection, a referral process which began by sending email notification to multiple email address books (mine and others), and by distributing paper fliers in local cafes, bookstores, groceries and other public posting boards until enough volunteers came forward to make a sample. “Because IPA is an

43 idiographic approach, concerned with understanding particular phenomena in particular contexts, IPA studies are conducted on small samples sizes” (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p. 49). The aim was to compose a group, n=3-6 participants (target of 5) to allow for a range of responses and situations, but still a number manageable for multiple indepth interviews. The first respondents who met all of the criteria were chosen. Though men and women responded to the query, eligibility requirements resulted in a sample made up of six, all female members. Upon consent, each participant in the study received a modest stipend of $25 for agreeing to be part of the research.

The findings from this study are expected to have limited empirical generalizability, as the focus will be on details of personal circumstances. As each individual is unique, every experience is context specific, and the sample size is small, therefore even emergent patterns would be seen as potentially transferable knowledge rather than broadly applicable. “The truth claims of an IPA analysis are always tentative and analysis is subjective” (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p. 80).

Data Collection Process The recruitment process began by posting e-fliers and paper fliers (see Appendix B, C), requesting participation in the study. All volunteers who responded were asked to go through a screening interview by phone, and if they met the criteria and were willing, they were asked to participate in three 60-minute interviews.

Participants were asked to be available for their next interview at approximately two weeks from the first meeting, thus meetings were intended for two-week intervals.

44 This intention was meant to establish a frame and to allow for some reflection between the face-to-face meetings, but not be so long as to leave participants dangling. Each interview might prime the participant by raising awareness of the issues prior to subsequent face-to-face meetings. For most, this seemed to be adequate and comfortable timing, although a few participants noted that the length of time between sessions left them feeling “cooled” in between, making it harder to remember where we had left off.

All interviews were taped and transcribed. After each interview, the transcript was reviewed for preliminary responses and to allow feedback to shape the next interviews, although the aim remained to keep each meeting relatively unstructured, as the IPA method seeks emergent data. The 60-minute interviews were held in a neutral space, a private meeting room in a public library, which was reserved and arranged by the interviewer. One participant lived out of town and therefore interviewed online. In each case, attention was paid to the participants needs for privacy, pace, and sensitivity to the material. Participants were encouraged to talk about personal experiences and reflect at various levels of meaning. If at the end of three meetings there was need for further processing of material for personal reasons, referrals to a psychotherapist (not the researcher) were offered, and in one case a referral was made.

Confidentiality of data was of utmost priority, therefore all questionnaires; tapes and transcripts were maintained in locked files. The principal investigator gave every interview, in an attempt to achieve consistency in data collection. The principal investigator was a trained, licensed psychotherapist, with experience conducting interviews wherein the comfort of the participant is taken into account.

45 An additional data source was field notes, kept by the principal investigator to note/record impressions, questions, and other reactions that arose during and immediately following interviews. This record keeping process additionally strengthens the reliability of data by following the internal process of the principal investigator (Birks, et. al. 2007; Ortlipp, 2008). The journal of non-verbal data (and interview impressions) becomes relevant in the final analysis of findings, which is interpretive (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2012). This high-level assessment used sensitivity to coherence and narrative quality as evaluative criteria, as they can be indicative of both attachment style and/or traumatic residue. This study required attunement to the nature of the relationships described, as this information was key when trying to understand the impact of the loss as presented by participants. Incorporating psychoanalytic ideas like Main’s Adult Attachment Interview interpretations was also instrumental to this end with regard to data collection (Brandell, 2010; Faimberg, 1996; Wallin, 2007).

Contextual information for each participant was captured during the screening interview, to situate the group in a general sense. Demographic information noted, included: age/date of birth, gender, cultural identification, education, and work experience. Additional questions were: How old is your child/children? What are their current plans? Where do they currently live? How old were you when your parent died?

Which parent died? How old was the parent at the time of death? What gender was the deceased parent? How did the death occur?

The experience of launching one’s own child was explored through a series of three live, semi-structured interviews designed to highlight various essential parts of their experience and to explore the topic in a deep, spontaneous way. Participants were asked

46 to remark on the present, and to recall and reflect upon their experience their own launch phase which included a parent’s death, and the impact of the loss up to the present time.

This series of perspectives meant to create a sense of Heidegger’s “beings in context” which imparts intersubjective understanding of development and which functions as an outcome of using the IPA method of investigation (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009).

Data Analysis The three approximately 60-minute face-to-face interviews for 6 members of the study provided greater than 18 hours of verbal data transcription (Turner, 2010).

Interviews were taped and transcriptions were made by a professional transcription service that ensured protection of the data. Additionally, measures were taken to disconnect personal identifying information from the data.

The focus in IPA is to discern how participants attempt to make sense of their experience. The data analysis takes place through close examination of the texts in a series of steps according to a process, which moves from the particular to the shared, from the descriptive to the interpretive (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p. 80). To this end, each participant’s interviews were listened to and all interview transcripts were reread, making notes and summaries, as the researcher immersed in the data. Next, by using the recommended charts formatted in the IPA text (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p. 93) exploratory comments were made and emergent themes were named for each participant. The researcher moved to the following case in similar fashion, attempting to bracket reactions individually, at first. To cull the superordinate themes, per participant,

47 the book recommends first attending to emergent themes as they appear chronologically, and then beginning to allow for topics to ‘magnet’ together in related clusters.

Because the amount of data was massive, in an attempt to play creatively with the themes while also searching for meaning, the next step involved color-coding themes taken from the charts. The color codes were assigned according to their affinity with each of the four research questions, so that a Gestalt emerged in relation to each question; this step helped target the psychological essences of the data swaths, which became relevant later in determining the findings. Finally came the step of identifying links among cases with the purpose of looking for master themes that are basic to the phenomenon. During this entire progression, the analysis deepened through interpretation, or hermeneutics, which incorporated the researcher’s personal levels of experience with the material from the interviewees’ experiences (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, pp. 79-107).

In qualitative research, there is an effort to seek and organize patterns, make connections, and formulate meaning that will be usable to others. This higher order analysis of the data findings involves subjective, creative leaps and inferences to make sense from the data (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2010). The intent is not prescriptive, the analyst is meant to innovate in terms of organizing and not all themes must be incorporated in the final work; the goal is to produce a structure which includes ‘the most interesting and important aspects’ of the accounts (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p.

96). This study held several bodies of theory from psychoanalytic literature as reference points during the reading of transcripts and the process of identifying themes; these will be further explored in the discussion, Chapter V.

48

Credibility Secondary readers on the research committee have had access to transcripts and discussion has taken place throughout the research and analytic process around the researcher’s reactions to the transcripts and initial interpretations. Coding of transcripts was done line by line, with an emphasis on the text. Insofar as this process is hermeneutic, associations of meaning were already present for the researcher, from related experiences and existing literature. There has been an effort to foreground any imported meanings brought into the present understanding. The intention is for final categories and themes from the study to be emergent (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p.

91).

An IPA study aims to provide a rich, transparent and contextualized account of the details of each participant’s experiences. This endeavor provides information to the readers of the study which allow them to make links between what is systematically provided in the study, their own similar experiences, and the existing literature on this and related topics. This is the nature of the contribution of an IPA study: the way it shines light on a phenomenon (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p. 51).

Ethical Considerations An IRB application was submitted and approved by the IRB board of the Institute for Clinical Social Work before beginning, and active status was maintained for the duration of the study. Potential risks to participants in this study included being exposed

49 to subjects that had not previously been consciously explored, resulting in the possibility for psychological disequilibrium. Subjects of the study were informed of the potential for disruption as they reflected upon sensitive subjects from their personal history, specifically their experience of their parent’s death. This process also had the potential to disrupt former conceptualizations of self and important life figures, like parents, partners and other supports/groups, which may have previously served important stabilizing functions for the individual.

Although the identified traumatic event under consideration occurred many years prior to the investigation, there was a chance that the current circumstances being highlighted by the interviews (child’s launch) were still emotionally linked and therefore had the potential to be sensitive. The consent forms detailed such a potential for discomfort by way of discovery of uncovered feelings, which was thoroughly explained as a means to allowing for fully informed, voluntary consent.

As the IPA method called for a series of meetings, and for participants to share meaningful, personal details with the interviewer in a way that might suggest a psychotherapy relationship, data collection occurred in a neutral space, and a clear explanation of the limits of the relationship was explained at the outset. Participants were made aware of their right to forgo the interview without penalty or need for explanation, if there was need to stop at any time. Appropriate referrals were made upon request, following the interview process.

50

Chapter IV

Results and Findings The purpose of this study was to expand the understanding of a life transition called “launch” or the launching phase, from the perspective of parents whose children are currently in the process of leaving home and becoming independent. All participants of this study were also members of a subset of parents, who each experienced their own parent’s death during the time they themselves were launching.

The study asked participants to address four broad research questions: 1. How do they recognize and define independence for their child?

2. What is their lived experience of their child becoming independent?

3. What was the lived experience of losing a parent during launching phase?

4. To what extent does the death of their parent play into the launching of their own child?

The study method, Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, is a qualitative method regarded as especially well-suited to exploring nuanced experiences of identity transition (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009). The process of three interviews began with a brief conceptual overview, acknowledging there were no rules or strict format for discussion. For example, participants were told that in the first meeting we might focus on the present and their experience of their children launching; in the second, on memories of their own launch; and in the third, on whether and how they felt that their experiences of past and present fit together. Each of the three interviews with

51 participants yielded emergent data, and a progression of information surfaced across the sequence of meetings. The flexibility of the format allowed for the researcher or interviewee to circle back to earlier discussions as the topics unfolded. If questions arose regarding previously discussed subjects, there was the chance for clarification of meaning along the way.

Overview of Results The IPA method is unique in phenomenological methods in that it aims to provide “a detailed analysis of divergence and convergence across cases, capturing the texture and richness of each particular individual examined in the course of exploration” (Smith, Flowers & Larkin, 2009, p. 200). Themes identified from patterns of experience are presented as innovative organizations, particular to the sample and researcher, therefore having limited generalizability, but providing rich and layered data that illuminates dimensions of the phenomenon being explored. At times, one member may represent the group - articulating a dimension of experience more deeply, clearly and in detail, yet with relevance for all the others.

In this analysis, five overarching themes emerged which will function to organize the data from these parents’ exploration of their experience of launching their children.

These themes are: a concept of launch (coming from observed changes in their children, their own reactions and expectations, and ideals they hold for themselves in the parent role); the present challenges parents’ experienced during launch (including struggles their children are having and their own emotional responses); a sense of navigating these family changes and coping strategies; memories of their own launch, including their

52 parent’s death at that time; and finally, new experiences of the self, and growing awareness of personal limitations and potential.

Results In Chapter IV the verbal data from the series of interviews with participants is presented according to the five themes, with minimal analysis. The reason for immersing in these details is purposeful. Showing the complexity of each situation, the quality of relationships and personal concerns per each individual, reminds us how common threads of humanity exist in various walks of experience, and pays homage to the idiosyncratic uniqueness of each case history. This contextualization bears relevance for the clinical applications of this work. In reading excerpts from the narratives, one gets a general sweep of the participant field, while noting different dimensions of both phenomena: launch and the earlier parent death during their own launch. This section establishes a foundation for exploring the findings that emerged during cross-case data analysis, with regard to the present launching experience for these parents.

The charts (charts #1-3) at the beginning of this chapter lay out a sweep of demographic information for this group. The table of Organizing Themes (table #1) acts as a map to orient the reader to the coming sections of quotations, in thematic clusters.

These quotes provide the rich, thick data meant to convey and substantiate the participants’ lived experiences.

Chapter IV includes additional data, in the form of the researcher’s impressions of information conveyed during the interviews. (For example, two participants who were significantly involved in caring for their mothers during lengthy cancer illness, Minnie

53 and Tawny, both began their own stories talking about their mothers – perhaps demonstrating how at the time of launching, their own personal experiences were running in the background of the other happenings of family life, at the time. While for Pricilla and Mandy, whose fathers died unexpectedly in vehicle accidents, the account of their parent’s death seemed to interrupt their narrative explanation of their own launch, mirroring what must it have been like to have an accident disrupt their lives at that time.)

To capture these kinds of impressions Chapter IV includes a section introducing each participant via her Launching Story, along with a summary of the researcher’s Observations, to give a brief historical/present context for considering the data and findings.

Chapter IV culminates in the identification of the researcher’s Findings (Table #2) and a summary of these Findings. The ‘findings’ are distilled from the entire body of data, and represent a creative leap that composes an order of meaning upon the whole, in the context of the existing theory, for the purpose of asserting the study’s clinical relevance (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009). In the following chapter, Chapter V, find an in-depth discussion of these findings.

Chapter IV will proceed as follows: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Charts (#1-3) Participants’ Demographic Data Introduction to Participants: Launching Stories and Observations Table (#1) Summary of Organizing Themes Explication of Organizing Themes using Participant Narratives Conclusion Table (#2) Summary of Findings Summation of Findings

54 Demographic Charts for Participants in the Study Note in the following charts that this homogenous, purposive sample of participants shared many characteristics beyond the specific criteria of the study. For example, in addition to having lost a parent between the age of 18-24 and all being parents themselves, all participants in this study were alike as white, highly educated females, who had all been in long term marriages. Yet, despite much common ground, each have had other particular and unique experiences, and bring singular perspectives to the phenomenon under investigation. They are represented here by pseudonyms that were chosen by this researcher, in an effort to evoke the unique personalities of the participants, as they were perceived during the series of interviews. The six participants in the study ranged from age 47-59, two have earned Bachelor’s degrees, two have Masters degrees, and two were in the process of attaining a PhD. All participants were married, and have remained married for minimum of 21 years, and up to 32 years (one exception was also married another time previously, before the birth of her child; the same individual recently separated from her spouse). Per family, the number of children ranged from 1 to 5, with the mode = 3. Today, participants’ families are mostly consisting of two parent households, and ranging in size from 1-5 children. All described themselves as presently being in the process of launching their own children, ages 12-28, with mode = 20 years old.

Two of these participants lost their mother, both to ovarian cancer. Four of the participants lost their father; two from lung cancer, two were killed in vehicle crashes.

The average age of participant at the time of parent death, mode=21. The average age of their parent at time of death, mode = 51. Two participants reported angry and conflicted

55 relationships with their mothers at the time of death; two cited extremely close and loving relationships with their father who died; two claimed distant, yet fond relationships with their father who died. All reported detached /dysfunctional relationships with their surviving parent for a significant length of time following the other parent’s death. This considerable variance in the reported ‘quality of relationship’ between each participant and their parent who died is significant to note; as the coming discussion will show, these participants were impacted by the death, regardless of their feelings about that parent at the time of death. And the ubiquitous loss of the second parent through estrangement also comes to bear on participants’ current experience and functioning.

Chart #1 Participants’ Present Demographic Data

Age

Minnie 47y

Luna 59y

Marit 59y

Tawny 59y

Pricilla 51y

Mandy 49y

Race

White

White

White

White

White

White

Gender

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Female

Education

PhD studies

PhD studies

MA

MA

BS

BA

Marital Status

Married 21y

Separated/ m. 24y

Married 32y

Married 22y

Married 27y

Married 24y

# Children

3 daughters 22, 19, 17y

1 daughter 20y

3 daughters 28, 25, 23y

1 daughter 20y 1 son, 17y

2 daughters 25, 16y 3 sons, 26, 23, 19y

1 daughter 20y 3 sons 17, 13, 12y

56 Chart #2 Ages of Participants and Parents at time of Parent Death

Which parent died?

Minnie

Luna

Marit

Tawny

Pricilla

Mandy

Mother

Father

Father

Mother

Father

Father

51y

52y

55y

50y

56y

40s

23y

21y

24y

20y

19y

21y

Parent age at death Participant age at death of parent

Chart #3 Quality of Relationship with Deceased Parent and Surviving Parent Quality of Relationship Deceased Parent - Surviving parent (back then) - Surviving parent (now)

Minnie Angry, unresolved

Luna Close

Marit Distant, functioning

Tawny Angry, unresolved

Pricilla Distant, functioning

Mandy Close

Distant, detached

Distant, functioning

Distant, functioning

Distant, detached

Distant, functioning

Distant, detached

stroke

dementia

91y, ill

91y, ill

Deceased, age 76

70y, now in a closer phase, hopeful

Introduction to Participants: Launching Stories and Observations This presentation of the participants’ launching stories in some detail attempts to show the extent of idiographic immersion in each case, and demonstrates regard for the participants’ particular differences in lived experience as these may influence present functioning. This gesture aims to establish the complexity of the field prior to leading the reader through the organizing themes, which emerged during the first phase of data analysis.

Reading the participants’ stories consecutively may bring the reader a sense of hearing familiar refrains, repeating through a group’s plaintive chorus, as when a

57 participant expressed a specific concern or cluster of concerns, it often resonated with the other group members’ presentations. Each launch narrative and the accompanying set of researcher observations will function as a portal into the participants’ relational histories, giving contextual information relevant to their sense of self today. These stories were reconstructed from their personal reports, mostly shared during the second interview.

Minnie - Story of loss of mother.

Minnie describes her mother as “difficult and demanding” even before she was sick, yet she has distinct memories of a warmer and more engaging childhood back when Minnie says that her mother’s love “was not in question”. Once her mother became ill, Minnie says she became the primary caregiver for her mom, and also was like a substitute mother to her 3 younger siblings from the time she turned 17; though she complains that she hardly felt recognized by any of them for her many contributions to their family. Her dad worked a lot, and she describes them as “a family that avoided all feelings”.

Minnie’s mother died when she was 51 years old, after a 6-year long fight with cancer. Minnie was only 23. Her dad turned away, swiftly married an old childhood friend, and moved into a new home where Minnie and the other kids could not find a place. Minnie’s father is still alive, though recently has had a stroke so that he is no longer fully cognizant.

Within a year of her mother’s death, Minnie herself became a mother, and married her baby’s father. Their three daughters are now ages 22, 19, 17 and she has a 5year old grandson who sometimes lives with them, too. She is still married, but her

58 comments indicate an estranged relationship, about which she says, “It’s not a real team effort”.

Observations of Minnie.

Minnie responded eagerly to having a chance to talk about her experiences as a parent and to reflect on the past in dialogue with me. Her mother’s illness and death was a salient feature of her teen years and launch, and she was unequivocal about her sense of being shaped by the events of those years, as her relationships with mother, father, siblings and of course her own development was deeply marked by the illness, death and choices she made in the immediate aftermath. She reports feeling merged with her mother, unseen and unknown as herself, though she worked hard to please and be useful.

She yearned for recognition that never got addressed by her mother. It seems she left home of necessity, and never engaged in a separation process initiated by her own internal readiness.

As a parent, she wishes to provide a different experience for her own three daughters--freedom and acceptance as individuals, no matter what--though she wonders if at times she has been too lax and with lower standards, as a result? She wonders now how this open attitude has shaped their home life, and the group’s functioning? Bristling at her mother’s unrealistic attitudes she wanted to give her kids a reality check, saying to them plainly and informed by her own experience: “When you grow up, your mother is dead” And she tells me “its’ hard for them to them to understand why I am alive.” It also seems hard for her to consider the impact that her stance might have on them, when it is not a part of their own situation today.

59

Luna - Story of loss of father.

Luna traces many of her most favorite attributes in herself to her dad, and considers him to be living on through her life and values. As an only child she says, “I was very close to my dad. He knew me better than anyone...almost without the need for words”. This special understanding is a point she makes repeatedly--the wordless quality of their attuned communication. She admired her dad; he was an esteemed man who held an important role in their community. She reflects on times when she misbehaved as an adolescent, but this was presumably ‘to push away,’ as an expectable developmental exercise and she even wonders if it was his visibility in their community, which may have upped the ante on such disruptive activity.

When Luna was 20 her father was diagnosed with cancer, and he died a year later when she was 21 and he was only 52. Luna describes herself as his primary caregiver during his end of life care, so she was by his side when he died. As a minister, he was a reflective and spiritual man who had the presence of mind to take time to talk with her at the end of his life about his condition, and the importance of their relationship--and when he died, she describes herself feeling “very alone”.

Luna quickly married the young man she was dating when her father died, and then soon after he died tragically. She was briefly married again. She married a third time, and though now recently separated, they have a daughter together; she is now 20 and currently spending a year abroad. About this new phase Luna says, “it hurts to let go” and it has been “agony”.

Her mother is still living, never remarried, presently suffers from dementia.

60

Observations of Luna.

Luna felt ambivalence when she first called after seeing my flier, but once we spoke on the phone she was eager to join the study and talk, notably affected by the topic which she felt seemed to illuminate something about the “poignancy” of her recent emotions around her daughter’s semester abroad. Tearful throughout, Luna feels intensely challenged living apart from her daughter for the first time, and is struggling with loneliness.

Her own relationship with her father was close, and her report seems to indicate she was engaged in an expectable process of individuation--where the task is to separate and tolerate difference--before his unfortunate illness. Luna recalls a dream she had in college, and attributes it to her prescient awareness of her dad’s cancer and impending death. Perhaps she ‘knew’ something that was yet unspoken in the system, we can’t be sure; alternatively, her dream may have been a timely response to natural insecurities, typical for someone leaving home for the first time.

Luna’s father did not survive their process and it would seem that it never has come to feel fully safe and sound for Luna to ‘separate’. She describes hers as a life “derailed” and this is potentially her legacy, for then a merger situation would seem to present a far better alternative than the risks of separation. Intellectually she rejects this, knowing better, and this is where her work lies today. She yearns for something lighter, and more lively, in her relationship with her daughter and with regard to her own prospects.

61 Marit - Story of loss of father.

Marit reports that her own mental health problems preceded her father’s death and as a teenager; she engaged in rebellious acting out that was even hard for herself to understand at that time. Her family did not talk about feelings, and she believes her parents were afraid to confront her misbehavior and moods, at a time when she needed their presence. Her older sister left home for college the year before she did, and Marit recalls that when it was her turn to go, she suffered being away, until she sought therapy during her college years and beyond.

Marit’s father died of lung cancer, only six months after the family was told about his illness during their spring break vacation--he was 55, and Marit was 24 when he passed. She graduated college that very spring, and during their last summer together she was able to be helpful at home and spend time with him at his bedside, which helped her feel some closure at the end of his life. She always did have a closer relationship with her father than with her mother, who is still living and now 91 years old.

Marit attended graduate school, and then married, and today she is the devoted mother of three daughters ages 28, 26 and 23. She says her goal has been for her girls to have it easier than she did during launch.

Observations of Marit.

Marit called me after seeing a flier in a coffee shop and reported excitement at fitting the criteria for the study and having a chance to contribute to something meaningful. She was easy to schedule, attended promptly and seemed to share herself openly and matter-of-factly. She says she has carried a lot of worry through the years,

62 about her daughters launching process, as she had had a miserable time herself during the same transition. Marit recalls that it always felt hard for her to leave home, saying she was at least 40 years old before she could visit and go, without noticing a pit in her stomach. Though as we got talking, Marit said she does not see how her father’s death connects to her present process. Yes, she was sad to lose him, but she feels she understands why he died, had a chance to be with him at that time, and did not need him such that his absence impacted her in an ongoing way. If she grieved, and she is not sure, it was a private experience, as her family does not talk about such things--though she does consider them a close and loving bunch, at this point.

Her narrative carries a theme of secrets, and hiding in plain sight, in the language she uses to describe even her early childhood experience. There were also a series of contradictions: her mother is weak and she is “a trooper”; Marit wanted treatment away, then needed to be home; she did not like having secret problems, so simply quit dysfunctional behaviors. And she mentions having relationships with “unavailable men” who were a priest, and a married teacher in college.

Marit’s depression and separation issues, which manifested in high school and then college, brought her first psychiatric intervention. After her father died, she entered a meaningful treatment, which may have facilitated her developmental course. Despite her open conversational style, she presented a complex and layered story that left me wondering about what was not in view, or in our discussion. Still waters run deep. After discussing her launch, and telling me plainly that she could not imagine how her past connects to the present, she came to our third interview and delved into fears she carries for her daughters’ safety, and confided another contemporary story of family secrets,

63 caution, and anxiety. She is preoccupied with aging and dying herself, of becoming absent to her daughters and the impact on them, with keeping her family together, and the potential detriment of trauma and family secrets.

Tawny - Story of loss of mother.

Tawny fondly recalls girlhood chats with her mom, and the occasional lunch together during grade school, but later on, babysitters picked her up from school until she was old enough to just go home alone. Tawny feels overwhelming regret at not getting to spend enough time with her mother, admitting that although her mom was flawed, when it mattered she ‘showed up’ and Tawny felt loved.

When Tawny was 17, her mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. By then, she was the only kid left at home and her parents often came home late from work.

Tawny reports that she had a burden of managing all the stress of shopping and cooking for their household during afternoons in high school. Even worse, her efforts went unrecognized, as her parents did not consider her feelings, nor personal needs. She says she was functioning as a mini-adult, without supervision or parental attention, and that after a while, this took a physical toll.

After a four-year struggle, her mother died at 50, Tawny was 21. The family never spoke directly of her mom’s illness, nor grieved, and her father soon remarried a family friend who was “13 years younger and not a nice person”. So Tawny had to move on; she finished college, worked, and a few years later met her husband during graduate school.

64 Today they parent two children, a son, 17 and a daughter, 21. In three interviews, she says almost nothing about her marriage or the quality of their relationship. Today, her father is still living, though they have minimal engagement and she feels it to be a sad and disappointing relationship.

Observations of Tawny.

Tawny saw my flier on line and reached out eagerly, still it was a lot of trouble setting up these interviews and I had doubts we would get through all three, though when she came, she shared her story colorfully and generously. Each session was emotionally packed, and at times my stomach hurt when re-reading her scripts. The research topic of the study was very important to her, she has given this very subject a lot of thought over the years, and feels that the developmental literature is lacking, inaccurate, for those whose parent died ‘off time’.

Tawny felt a strong connection with her mother when she was young, but mostly remembers feeling unseen and neglected as she grew; she reports feeling ill-considered for most of the time her mother was sick and in decline, and seems marked by profound loneliness, which became even more complicated when her father remarried. For so long, she says she had to strive to be seen, to engage, and it would seem she is still trying to make up for lost time. She yearns for more in her relationships, and feels so strongly about giving her kids what she did not have, saying “I got robbed…my whole life could have been different” if only she had been more supported. Yet she is cautious, when it comes to her children, thoughtfully tempering her exuberance so she does not overtake them and smother them with her good intentions.

65 It’s been a struggle to live through, she reports, yet at the end of the interviews she expressed being proud of herself for surviving, and seems to hang hope on what is coming next with her kids--a chance for a relationship with them, and perhaps then a community she has never had before.

Pricilla - Story of loss of dad.

Pricilla remembers her dad as a hardworking businessman, who lacked confidence, and grew up without much family support himself. Her parents were warm and respectful of each other but their household was very stressful, as her older sister had chronic health issues. Pricilla wanted to go away to college, but her parents didn’t support this ambition, citing financial limits--she recalls bitter disappointment when friends went to college, leaving her behind. When she was 19, Pricilla’s father suffered a massive heart attack and died suddenly while driving his truck on a job. Their family was grief stricken and struggled just to get along. Her mother said she wanted their lives to carry on, and Pricilla indeed felt a need to get away. So she left her small rural town to attend college in a big city.

It felt like escape and a chance for her own adventure, but Pricilla had to work hard to get through school, both modeling and waitressing to support herself, and additionally taking loans. She met her husband during that time, an older guy, successful in business, who waited for her to finish school so they could marry--they now parent 5 young adult children together: a son, daughter, son, son, daughter: ages 26, 25, 23, 19, 16.

66 Pricilla feels that her mother waited forever for her to return home; she never remarried and sadly, discovered that she had breast cancer in 2005, the same year of Pricilla’s sister’s suicide. In the following years her mom suffered from dementia until she died in 2010.

Observations of Pricilla.

Pricilla promptly responded to my e-flier, and set up our first interview with an almost professional demeanor. She came an hour and a half late to the second interview, after “forgetting” our appointment, and 45 minutes late to the third.

Perhaps our talks brought about some growing awareness of mixed feelings about the present situation, though when I asked about this, she said ‘no,’ that she was willing and interested to talk about it all. On one hand, she presents clear ideals and values about her parenting responsibilities and goals, on another hand she has deep unease, in particular in response to one of her sons and this manifests as a concern about ‘right and wrong’ and a wish for a ‘magic formula’ so she would always know what to do. As we proceeded, she also expressed growing dismay about not having found something for herself and says in terms of her life’s work, “I am not quite there yet.” While committed to safely launching her youngest two, she is getting “sick of the home front.”

As she wonders where she fits, she embarks on a series of dreamy associative journeys with me, sharing her wishes and ambitions, riffing on business projects of people she knows and admires in her personal circle who share her passion for healthy food and helping people. All these years, she has focused on her children, and I begin to

67 wonder about the potential meanings of such commitment--a protection from old guilt, or from her grief? In any case, it has further delayed her own launching. She says she is dying to continue with her adventure, to be free, to become her own self.

Mandy - Story of loss of dad.

Mandy feels compassion for her hardworking parents - yet she resented their lack of investment in her education. When friends left for college while she stayed back to ‘prove herself’ she suffered from envy and felt alienated from her peers for the first time.

She wondered if her mom was ‘for her’ or ‘against her’ whereas she knew her father enjoyed her, and it was very easy to talk to him about all things. She was also close to grandparents, had two brothers, and a large friend group.

Mandy was 20, just finally left home and community college to meet up with friends and finish her degree at State U. when her dad died suddenly in an accident on the road. Their family was grief stricken. Yet, her mother soon started dating a younger guy – Mandy tried to understand this, as she knew her mom was now a young widow; but she also felt disgust and like she could no longer stay home, so she left to figure things out by herself.

Mandy dated her high school sweetheart and eventually married him. Together they now parent four children: a daughter 20, a son, 17, and two younger sons ages 13 and 12. She says her daughter is launching “with some bumps”, her son is “just not going” and that the younger kids also have issues around learning and behavior. She admits that her marriage has been under a lot of stress these past years, but says she loves her husband. Mandy’s mother is still living and after some distance in their relationship,

68 she feels they got closer when she became a mother. Also, her mother has remarried a man who is closer to her own age, and who has been a good husband and grandpa.

Observations of Mandy.

Mandy responded to an online posting and agreed to participate in the study; she attended two interviews, though forgot the third interview, and had to reschedule. Her manner is reserved, perhaps cautious. Mandy still has younger children at home, at the same time her older children are transitioning the family into a different stage, one that is bringing up memories and feelings for Mandy from her own history.

More than some of the other participants, Mandy seems to have one foot still in the earlier family nest, longing for a return to her babies and actively in a working phase with her older two kids. She talks less about her own needs and strivings; she is seeking only peace, feeling burdened by memories and feelings of loss in the present. Her oldest son (second child) is struggling- even in danger. Her marriage is good, and yet troubled.

She says she cannot let go of her father--longs to feel protected by him, by their loving, special bond. She calls on her angels--show up I need you now--as a way to think of her dad as being present, explaining, “I can’t lose him”, and “my heart won’t let go”.

69 Table #1. Summary of Organizing Themes 1. Exploration of the concept ‘launch’ A. Common ‘launch defining’ experiences changes feelings of uncertainty external markers of accomplishment internal capacity B. Parent ideals: wish to be good parents for a good launch inspired to do better parent role is facilitator focus on staying connected 2. Challenges of launch A. Kids in trouble misbehavior and dis-regulation need to call for outside help B. Parents’ struggles persistent worries sense of personal insecurity and self-doubt personal sense of loss anger and resentment anniversary reactions state dreams pre-occupations with death 3. Navigating changes during launch A. From early parenting bliss to this?

B. Managing conflicts C. Sense of surrender D. Internal coping dynamics 4. Remembered experience of launch/ Death of parent family denies reality of diagnosis (for families with illness) needs neglected role reversal life on hold/interrupted overwhelming feelings, confusion unprocessed grief/grief as a medical symptom lost family structure/functioning without sense of agency some experience of freedom and exhilaration despite disorientation survival mode – to work, marriage and children 5. New self-experience A. New template B. Grief revisited C. Looking forward D. On the interview process

70 Explication of Organizing Themes A number of common ‘felt experiences’ were identified among these participants during the launch of their children, despite individual differences in the details of their stories. These experiences were identified as themes, as follows: a sense of this life phase ‘launch’ as a definable experience, coming from observations of their children and themselves, along with the formation of ideals for how to be a good parent during this ‘launching’ period.

Additional themes were the experience of feeling challenged during the changes of launch, as children and parents faced struggles. Aware of shifting control, these parents identified the need for coping strategies, to navigate these changes and accompanying feelings. Also, the participants’ recalled personal memories from their own launch, including their parent’s death at that time, and there were common themes within that experience of launch and parental death. Finally, the parents seemed to take note of a new experience within themselves during their child’s launch, one that included a growing awareness of their own personal limitations and potential.

In this next section of Chapter IV are examples from the transcripts, describing the participants’ felt experiences as a parent during launch.

1. Exploration of the concept ‘launch.’

A. Launch- defining experiences.

Participants were asked to explore their concept of ‘launching’ from their present perspective as parents. They shared descriptions of their lived experiences today with their kids, as they first noticed signs of change, and how they felt in response to the

71 changes. They also talked about their outcome expectations, mentioning several possible accomplishments or other external markers to signal the end of launch. Some also distinguished their child’s shifting psychological and relational capacities as launch unfolded.

To explore the participants’ experiences that they felt defined their child’s launching, see the following section of examples which are divided into four categories: changes, uncertainty, external accomplishments, internal capacity.

Launch-defining experience: changes.

Here are examples of how the participants identified themselves in a launching stage as parents, and recognized new tasks their children were undertaking as the markers of a new phase of life for themselves and the family. Often these first signs of change were externally dictated, such as, related to school progression, work or living away from home: I guess for me the launch started when she left to go to college, in the application process. She would not allow me to read anything, no essays or anything. It was okay that she cut me out, but it was also kind of shocking because that had been something that we had shared.

-LUNA

First there's college, when they move away. That's a launching stage. Then there's coming back from college but getting a job working, being financially independent, and just being able to care for themselves and then they're out living independently.

-PRICILLA

72 Some other notable signs of change were behavioral, and parents’ perceived a new or different quality to their child-parent interactions that often involved more strivings for independence on the part of their child: All of sudden, she was functioning in a new way. She only wanted to consult with her peers. This was striking and I did not see it coming--what happened was, she entered the relationship (boyfriend) and—boom--I was not a confidante in the same way that I had been.

-LUNA

I feel like she's kind of taking the ball and running with it, which is what I wanted her to do. I wanted her to take her own responsibility, and you know, cross the T's and dot the I's and know what she was getting into, and figure out the money situation and she did a great job with it.

-MANDY

Launch-defining experience: uncertainty.

Here are some examples of participants’ experiences of uncertainty in these times, as their children’s needs and behavior changed. Kids exhibited new patterns of ‘coming and going,’ and then parents’ sensitivity to ‘leaving’ or a related sense of loss brought feelings of uneasiness. One day a kid might demonstrate high competence and a wish for distance, even resenting parental help…while soon afterwards they wanted close contact again and needed their parents’ support. On the uneasy nature of these changes, parents felt mixed: It's a lot of, like, stops and starts--the beginning of her trying to figure out how she was gonna be an independent person and separate from me.

-MINNIE

73 Launching to me sort of feels like a process, something about it not being definitive; there’s more uncertainty about where it’s gonna end or how they’re gonna land.

She still seems young to me in some respects, even though she's always been the most outgoing and the most socially confident, there's also something about her that makes me feel like she's not grown up yet. And she's the one who misses me the most, and she says that.

-MARIT

When she was 17, she was like, really a pain in the ass, so…she had really that kind of separation. She was really feisty.

And so it definitely has to do with launching, her you know, ‘push me pull me’ and not wanting me to be too involved or over involved. Yeah, there's something about this age--they're ‘in between’.

So, my daughter is in some ways, like amazingly competent. She definitely is like really exceedingly confident in certain ways. But in other ways, she is just really aggravatingly not--and she's going to be 21 in June.

-TAWNY

I hope that she can just kind of settle into a middle ground for herself you know, like not have to feel like the way the world is, is hers to solve you know, because

74 she is a warrior. And I would love for her political agenda to calm down too-because I feel like she's got a lot of naivety with that.

I mean, that was a pretty bad experience for three or four months just because she was so nasty about it, and I'm like, you should be so grateful that you were able to go to college, able to not take out student loans--very stressful, yeah, because it was kind of out of character, and a couple of people tell me that this is her kind of subtle way of cutting the cord.

-MANDY

Launch-defining experience: external accomplishments.

Parents noted new accomplishments such as financial independence, making one’s own place in the world with career and friend networks, as markers of growth.

Here are some ways they outlined some hopes for their children’s development: I want her to have a community. I don't feel like she has to have a child per se but I think when she completes her undergraduate degree and lined up the next step, I was going to say she will have a direction and should be on her path.

-LUNA

So she got a job right out of college. She lived in another city. She’s always working to build, she’s lived in three different cities, because every time you move, you kinda getting out of your comfort zone and for somebody who struggled with that initially, she’s done really well and she’s sort of embraced that and I don’t see her—she’s not coming back home.

-MARIT

75 So, what it means for her to launch is to be financially not independent but stable and knowledgeable, and have an understanding of how to pay bills and budget. I anticipate her graduating college, getting the job, knowing when her income is and then you know, if it's in DC or if it's in New York, being realistic about the cost of living. I would like to see her find some deep friendships and I see her as having babies.

-MANDY

Launch-defining experience: internal capacity.

Participants cited examples of emotional growth, such as achieving confidence, creating an emotional support system among peers, being realistic about limits, and new ways of being in relationship with others, including a growing capacity for responsibility, mutuality, generosity: I think, that when they're launched or when they're adults I can rely on them a little bit more. And that what they'll ask me for would be a little bit clearer, like I won't have to do all the thinking.

-MINNIE

I feel that emotionally, she's launched. That in terms of her maturity or capability to make good decisions--I feel like that is kind of done. I feel I trust the decisions she makes.

I felt so I felt taken care of by her that day. She wanted to feed me, she wanted to entertain me, she wanted to give me flowers and she wanted to share her gratitude

76 and who she is, and I experienced that as really being cared for, loved. So, it's not completely about that, but I feel like my primary tasks are done.

-LUNA

Emotional things - like when you know they hit a rough patch; they have a network of friends that they can rely on. You know, there are so many times when, even I remember myself in that phase, your first instinct is you’re gonna call home, I’m expecting a little less of that.

-MARIT

I would like her to take some more ownership. She’s been a pretty good kid. I feel like the time is right for her to take that responsibility.

-MANDY

B. Parent ideals for launch.

Participants talked about their priorities as parents having been shaped by their own memories and the meanings they have made from those past experiences. They remarked on the remembered quality of relationship with their own parents, and their perceived impact of a parent’s illness or death during that time. As they talked through their values and how they wish to be good parents to their children during the launching phase, some noted feeling lost or clueless, while others simply said they felt strongly motivated to give their kids something better than that what they had experienced.

Parents expressed a strong desire to always ‘be there’ for their children, to remain connected. For some this meant providing structure, or being stable, steadfast, while for others it meant listening as a sounding board or even allowing ‘space’, temporarily. They spoke of preserving ‘togetherness’ through this transition to independence, focusing on

77 how they see their parent roles primarily as remaining present, no matter what happens.

This seemed to mean allowing a lot of room for mistakes, which they prefer to consider fixable, rather than entertain the possibility of permanent damage to the child or their relationship.

The following section has three categories of examples under ‘parent ideals,’ which are: inspired to do better, facilitator, and staying connected.

Parent ideals: inspired to do better.

As parents mused on their own launch experience, all except one expressed that losing their parent at this time of life felt like a profoundly shaping experience. Feeling this deprivation, here are some ways they spoke of feeing inspired to do better for their kids, by remaining engaged and present as parents: My mother died when I was 23 and… I do think about it a lot. I wonder how this impacts my life and my ideas about what's happening for them and what my role should be, because I don't really have a model for that.

-MINNIE

College was a very tumultuous time for me emotionally and so and it wasn’t a really positive experience, so I would go and come, and go and come, and all that kind of stuff—so for me it was more about hoping my children wouldn’t suffer in that way.

-MARIT

So I said, ‘I'm trying to help you with this because I really think that if I'd had more support like this, when I was younger, I would have been more successful in

78 my life, I would have been able to parlay my talents into something that was just more in keeping with me.’

-TAWNY

My particular challenge is losing my dad. I know that a lot of my insecurities developed from that, and I'm aware of that and I do think a lot of what I do - like I don't want my kids to have to deal with a lot of the same issues that I had, that I did.

-PRICILLA

Parent ideals: facilitator.

Here the participants cited a preference for becoming the kind of parent who is capable of being emotionally available, and ways they intentionally try to provide a sturdy, holding function for their kids during this launch phase: I think one of the most important things is to remain present and supportive but also to let go at the same time, and to do that very intentionally--like to reassure that launching adult child that you'll be there if they need you, but also let them try and not need you.

There's so much back and forth and it’s so much like everything you know about parenting--like your kids learning to walk, or learning to ride a bike--they keep trying and there are lot of falling down before they're ready. It is so different than when someone dies. That's the big difference. It's not final.

-MINNIE

79 We laughed at the airport when I took her to the airport in September--I think I needed to feel that I was communicating that I could handle it and that I was strong. I felt like I needed to give her that perception--I tear up pretty easily, and she doesn't--So I was kind of testing myself. I was really trying hard not to dissolve, and I felt like I was able to kind of stand tall and watch her walk away and be excited for her.

-LUNA

I sense that there's going to be lots of steps along the way for her beforehand, which is all part of her process, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. I guess what I'm getting at is, I wanna be open to each one of their transitions.

-MARIT

I care about the balance beam between hovering or doing too much for them, so, that then they're not independent, but supporting them and all, so that they can have what they want.

-TAWNY

I want to make sure that I'm always, that it’s very stable, and as it’s a big family that can be challenging, because everyone has different needs. So I'm kind of a bit like a mother bear, trying to always keep that stability and connection and support.

-PRICILLA

She definitely feels supported where she's like, ‘I don't want you to have to worry about this.’ I said, ‘Well, my worry's not going to go away, but I'm hearing you say you want my place to be as a listener and as an advocate for you.’

-MANDY

80 Parent ideals: staying connected.

Here, find examples of how these parents shared the belief that gradual, peaceful changes during this growing-up stage would benefit all involved. They emphasize creating sustained relationships with the intention of remaining emotionally connected even after launch: That’s what I think ties in with having a parent not present for you--for me, I feel like I don't know what my kids could do to make not love them or need them or turn away from them. Like I'm still there, even if I'm disappointed or mad or whatever happens.

I feel like I'm so grateful that we get to not freeze our relationship at that moment, whatever happens. Like we're both different now and we keep becoming different. And that's something I didn't get to do with my mom.

-MINNIE

I would never, not want to be there for her. If she is reaching out or needs something, I always try to respond.

She ended up with an acceptance at Northwestern, and that was a little disappointing because she wasn't going to get to go away from home. I was secretly happy, because she's moving on--but still so close! It made the transition more gradual and then she's here for me. I was grateful for that.

-LUNA

81 Perhaps my father's loss helped with some of that because (my siblings) don't spend a ton of time together but I think the more important piece is that we all get along, and we don't--there's nothing more (important than) getting along. And maybe that's why it's important to me now, too, with my daughters, there's nothing really worth getting in the way.

-MARIT

She's really just not in contact with us enough and she really needs to be. Because I have these moments and I said to my husband this morning, you know my daughter is, I mean I can’t–but because she’s 20 and I was almost exactly 20, you know, when she died.

-TAWNY

I remember reading the book "Raising Cain", by Michael Thompson? He said the main things are, like always to maintain connection, a strong connection and I really value this. I have always, even though my kids, no matter what the stage they are, I hope to still be, to stay connected to them.

-PRICILLA

2. Challenges of launch.

Participants described their daily life during this transitional time and volunteered personal examples of stories about their families to illustrate their experiences as parents.

Some of the anecdotes seemed familiar and fairly predictable, such as choosing colleges, debating curfews, or hashing out expectations around driving or substance use. However, these familiar storylines also conveyed complex interplays of behavior, and highlighted

82 some heightened emotions within these families, so that they were portrayed as challenges and cause for worry.

In this next section find two overarching categories: Kids in trouble, and Parents’ Struggles, each with multiple subcategories as explained below.

A. Kids in trouble.

Many of the participants’ children reportedly suffer from depression, anxiety, and self-esteem issues or are engaging in risky behavior. Not every child in every family is facing extreme degrees of hardship--perhaps only the oldest, or the youngest child, or perhaps the trouble has shifted around, passing among the children at different times over the years. Many of the mothers reported having turned to outside helpers, such as mental health professionals, for support in dealing with their children’s issues.

Under ‘kids in trouble’, there are two sections which organize the examples and indicate the ‘order of magnitude’ of the troubles, as perceived by these parents: misbehavior and dis-regulation, and the need to call for outside help.

Kids in trouble: misbehavior and dis-regulation.

Here are some examples of how the children within these six family systems have exhibited troubles in daily living: She and my older daughter both got into a lot of trouble, just regular teenage stuff, but there were things like drinking, drugs with older guys as school. Then she got arrested for drugs, was on probation and lived at home again.

83 My 19-year-old is really impulsive and jumps into things so quickly and ends up having a lot of problems. She took a job in adult entertainment and of course didn't tell me and then of course I figured it out; I did lose my mind a little bit. I was like, this isn't safe.

-MINNIE

I sensed something was wrong almost immediately as we were driving her there.

With the entire nineteen-hour car ride, she said nothing. She had two roommates and everything. But she wasn't eating. She wasn't peeing. She was, I mean she was like shut down.

So but my middle one, she's had like some really, I mean, extreme things. Like a couple of years ago, she had a phantom pregnancy, she was completely freaked out and literally ended up having the physical symptoms of being pregnant because she was so convinced that she was pregnant. And so they ended up putting her on meds and getting her anxiety to come down.

This last time when she had this anxiety thing we were coming back from a trip and the eclipse was happening that day and she stupidly looked at the eclipse. But she spun into, like she was partially blind. And then she has a physical reaction, and so then they did all these different tests, they ruled out that she damaged her retina, blah, blah, blah. She couldn't sleep at night, and she thought her life was over basically.

- MARIT

84 My younger son was having some struggles. He's in a better place now but he doesn't feel confident in his own, in his own accomplishments, and school was hard for him. He always just had a lot of anxiety, just school or attention issues, focus issues and so forth.

So at the end of high school he just hated the whole college application process, it was a struggle. I just felt like I couldn’t reach him, I really was so worried, I knew that he was partying and it was not healthy for him.

I mean I am ashamed of it, because I like tried so hard to keep my kids going like in a positive direction where, I told you about the whole manic episode when they did the blood testing like he had marijuana in his system. So I feel like this was the perfect storm, the anxiety, the chills, then he had the high fever. -PRICILLA

I talked to (my daughter) every two days or something like that, but then we would be ready to finish up conversation she’d just break down in tears. So that's kind of when I knew. She has some depression in the past and you know, she's, like I said she she's pretty hard on herself you know, her anxiety and depression.

So, this guy assaulted her at their Homecoming time. She did the rape kit and has the ability to press charges. She doesn't know what she's going to do. You know, part of it was you know, the drinking.

85 We're going through some trouble with my 17-year old, who isn't exactly launching but he’s been out of the house for six, seven months. We may be launching him in a way we never thought, because he may end up being kicked out of the house--or we may end up taking him to the recruitment center and putting him in the service. I don't know.

Like here's how it goes down: Kyle got expelled from school in August. Max was on the brink of getting expelled like 6 months later. I would be emotionally ragged for a pretty long period of time and then Joey started acting up and we got Kyle in order, then Max would start acting up then--it was like just a game of Whack-a-mole.

-MANDY

Kids in trouble: need to call for outside help.

In this section, find examples of how according to these parents, the degree of pain for the kids and within the family system has necessitated calling on external support resources, in order to bolster the functioning of the family group: But now, she’s you know she’s seen a psychiatrist. She’s on medication. She’s, she’s not in counseling because she’s in too much transition.

-MARIT

So, she started going to therapy, which was in the eighth grade and she was really, we were having these difficult arguments and I was actually concerned about the effect that my anger had on her.

86 I tried to go for this person who does art therapy and so it was good that she had a trusted adult that she could talk to about things. I still thought it was better for her to have someone she was talking to rather than floating around in the world. Last summer when she was in New York I thought that I had found this place where she could have neuro-feedback.

-TAWNY

Prior to that, he had like a breakdown basically. He got this, he had this high fever after he went to a wrestling game and he went to this dance. He was like, he got very chilled and he's always been sensitive to this, so he came down with high fever. He was sick for several days, got very dehydrated and it was a terrible manic episode. He actually had to be hospitalized.

-PRICILLA

He's been medicated. We've been to therapist after therapist etcetera and in 8th grade he got a ton of trouble and almost got kicked out of St. Mary’s.

He was suicidal and I ended up having to call the police on him because he wouldn't go to the hospital and he had taken too many prescription medications, yeah and so, from there he went to Evanston Hospital, then to had to be transported to Indiana, and he was in a diagnostic hospital for six weeks and then we moved him into the RTC program.

-MANDY

87 B. Parents’ struggles.

Parent participants talked at length about the range of emotional responses that have arisen internally in response to the vicissitudes of this transition period with their children. Highlighted here are several clusters of expressed vulnerabilities: profound worries, insecurity and self-doubt, a sense of loss, anger and resentment. Additionally, several participants expressed affective distress through their reports of psychological experiences, identified here as anniversary reactions, state dreams and preoccupations.

Recall that an anniversary reaction is a term from trauma literature describing when distressing feelings (from mild to severe intensity) accompany memories of a traumatic loss or event that are triggered because of a time cues, such as a season of the year, a day, a date, or hour (Mintz, 1971). For these participants (Minnie, Marit, Tawny, Mandy) the experiences are associated with the death of their parent, or they have become aware of this occurrence in their siblings, in relation to the death, thus lending credence to the idea that there is emotional residue from the death that is still present for these participants.

Two participants (Luna, Tawny) shared dream material, which could be understood as “state” dreams as they have had them recently, or repeatedly and were recalled during the interviews in relation to our conversation about loss. Self state dreams were initially recognized by Kohut (1977) in the Restoration of the Self, to name a type of dream, related to trauma, wherein the dream material is not seen to be a signal to associative processes, but instead can be interpreted at the level of its’ manifest content, using the analyst’s knowledge of the patient’s vulnerability and life situations.

Paul Ornstein (1987) elaborated on this concept to say that the self state dream reveals

88 the dreamer’s perception of acute or chronic “self-disturbance,’ and that the dream functions by offering namable imagery in an attempt to bind anxiety.

Additional information comes as several members of the group exhibit a notable pre-occupation with themes of death, which are demonstrated in different forms. For example: two participants (Minnie and Pricilla) have manifested their general worried feelings into active ‘warnings’ they shared with their children, possibly as pre-emptive efforts to manage their own expectation of premature death. And two other participants (Minnie and Marit) shared anecdotal experiences in detail, which were uncanny experiences of life-threatening health crises they experienced as younger adults, which then completely resolved. One participant (Luna) recounted a series of intimate experiences of death/loss throughout her adult life course, involving spousal/friend suicides and her own multiple miscarriages. Finally, several participants (Minnie, Marit, Pricilla, and Mandy) actively worry about the possibility that one of their children will suicide; while three mothers (Minnie, Tawny, Mandy) have reported integral bodily harm (rape/assault) on their daughters.

Under this heading of ‘parents’ struggles,’ the following textual examples can be found organized under these several sections: persistent worries, self doubts, personal loss, anger and resentment, anniversary reactions, state dreams and finally, a preoccupation with death.

Parents’ struggles: persistent worries.

Participants share examples of their experience of profound and persistent worries:

89 They took too many risks, and as a mom I would be afraid--I was really scared of like taking an overdose or something like that. These things are so horrible but also so consuming, because then you have your focus on like, okay this can't happen.

As much as you have to keep a little baby from rolling off the bed or something, you have to keep a teenager from--I don't know. It took up all my time to like figure it out, okay the goal is to have your kid, graduate from high school and stay alive.

It was just sort of like this constant panic, because I knew that in the middle of the night like I'll get called by the police or I'll have to go do something or I'll have to like--I just felt like, when is this ever going to end?

-MINNIE

Yeah. And I really, I really want her, it’s really important to me that, that she get her traction because it’s really hard for me when she doesn’t have it. Well I, you know, ever since I had my own struggles, I’ve really tried to work my whole life to stay away from it so I’m worried that, you know I take, if I take too much of her situation on, like her pain, and all that kind of stuff, that it’s gonna bring me down. I don’t wanna be that. I don’t like it to happen.

-MARIT

I was feeling scared, but I was worried about over-intervening because of the type of kid she was, that there would actually be push-back and that then she would be

90 less likely to talk about, so I would not have any evidence and if she would continue doing really stupid stuff then I would not know anything that was going on. It like, she's going to do something stupid and something bad was going to happen to her.

You know, I was worried that she would get sexually assaulted. I was worried she'd get in a car accident.

-TAWNY

I really was so worried. I knew that he was partying and it was not healthy for him. But his launching process was, there were so many other factors in the process with him.

You know, I just wanna make sure they're safe, and that they have, they're safe that they stay safe and so forth…

-PRICILLA

You know, I'm scared. I mean there’s a lot of fear you know. She's got all these great attributes but there's been a couple times over the last year where I've seen her drink and be a bad drunk.

I feel like my husband and I have been in constant worry for one or the other of those boys or my daughter, being a panic. You know, her senior year she was you know sneaking out running away. So, you had that drama going on you know, then you have the drama with my husband and my daughter fighting.

91

The constant worry is their impulse control, he’s so over the top and it's like once you get things back in line and you feel like, okay. They're not going to be impulsive and be doing something dumb that's going to cause them harm or injury or somebody else--then the situation changes.

-MANDY

Parents’ struggles: self-doubt.

Participant-parents also talked about struggling during this period with chronic feelings of personal insecurity and self-doubt: I felt like when they were younger it was so easy to focus on what to do, like, you have to feed your kids and bathe them, and I started noticing when there were more choices like, where should the kid go to school or how should I punish them, or things like that, then I started realizing, ‘well, this is a little bit harder,’ and I felt like I was a little unsure of how the world worked…

I was thinking--should I've done that differently; I wonder if I should have been a little bit more selfish as a parent and just done what I wanted to do?

I kept thinking maybe I'm doing something wrong, maybe I'm going about this wrong. Things like that are really hard for me to figure out. I'd have to keep grounding myself.

-MINNIE

92 I mean, I just find that when I'm feeling all vulnerable then that's the place where I reside, in my late teenage years. Maybe even late twenties, that, you know around that loss--just this feeling of fragility.

So, yeah that's the only time when I feel like I sometimes have a hard time staying in my role. I mean I do a little bit. I mean where and when it's happening, I don't ever respond in kind. What happens is I just kind of implode emotionally. I feel vulnerable and I don't know if that would happen if I you know, if I felt silently my age or something.

-LUNA

And (she was) having like anxiety attacks. And so, I didn't know what to do.

But emotionally and, where they're at emotionally and socially in their lives, sometimes I look at it and say you know, is there something I could've done differently or whatever, that would've made it easier or would've made it different?

-MARIT

Just, I know it's not good to compare yourself to others, but I'll always kind of look at somebody that, they have a father that was in business, or that they could really bounce ideas off of, it and it's like they really gave them a sense of security, when their parent was able to sort of give their input.

93 I have plenty of insecurities and they've stemmed from I guess, things like challenges. We all have our challenge but my particular challenge is losing my dad, I just can't help myself. I start worrying about like all my deficiencies that are going to you know get in the way of, I feel like I guess I'm just not smart enough, I'm not organized enough, I'm not—I just can't make it happen, it's just like it just haunts me.

-PRICILLA

I just freaking fell apart—I couldn't—I started crying and I couldn't stop. I couldn't have any vision about anything and so--I just like shut down and couldn't get out of bed for like, 2 days. And so then, they called my psychiatrist and they put me on some meds for couple days and I think like in my mind, I went into this fight or flight mode, and I had no more fight. I find myself in that mode quite a bit.

I know that my kids saw me completely hysterical several times over, ‘what are we going to do? Is this the right thing?’ I can't really help it this is just who I am, so, I feel like he's been robbed a little bit of his youth or childhood.

-MANDY

Parents’ struggles: personal loss.

Participants also related personal anecdotes that show how profound feelings of loss are coloring their present exchanges with their kids: I reacted more just by isolating myself. My thought was, this is what they need right now, I guess. I imagine that I would like to have my mom invite me for

94 coffee, but she, she wasn't there. But it doesn't mean that my kids had to want that too and yet I felt a little bit rejected.

-MINNIE

I was immediately interested in talking to you about the launch of my daughter because that has been powerful a powerful experience. And then, it was after our phone conversation…all the wires connected. I had just never made an association with the loss of my dad. After we hung up I dissolved in tears. It was really powerful.

I'm just struck by the well of grief that I think will always be there. I don't think that it's a matter of I haven't done my grieving. I think it will always live there.

So I was really kind of taken aback and surprised.

I just didn't anticipate this. I never saw this coming. You know—I hadn't thought about what it would be like to watch a child—well I feel like I could cry right now. Just because we're talking about [cry] that’s just a very, a very lonely feeling--just that she isn't really a part of my life in the physical way.

I think I'm going through some, a little bit of agony, because she's probably European, first and foremost. She was born and raised in France until she's 14 and half. And now that she has met a man who's European, I'm kind of seeing the writing on the wall. I'm not quite sure she's going to come home to me, to my neck of the woods. That is very painful for me to imagine.

-LUNA

95

I was really feeling really sad--and I was also feeling, you know, people feel taken advantage of by their twenty-year-old kids. I mean, that's just, you know, they just do. But, I also had this keen awareness of what it was like to not have a parent during that time.

-TAWNY

Parents’ struggles: anger and resentment.

Some of the parents noticed feelings of anger and resentment arising in connection with their parenting experience at this time, perhaps related to memories of loss or lack, which in turn are creating a feeling of envying their children for what they provide to them; here are examples: As they got older—in some ways, I was really proud of them becoming more independent and then in some ways I resented it, because it took something away from me. I felt proud of them and happy that they could do things on their own.

But I guess, I just had this feeling of not being needed.

-MINNIE

I'm feeling a little frustrated right now, I want to be more in touch and she has a very busy life. She does a million things all the time, and it's hard to find the time.

-LUNA

So, we had a really difficult relationship like when she was in junior high maybe even her first year of high school. I was screaming and yelling at each other a lot.

96 Something happened—she was really taking me for granted, like in a way that it was for me, seemed even beyond what is you know, normal and stuff like that and so, I was very upset about this because of this loss that I experienced at exactly the same age and I didn't even have a mother

-TAWNY

It was completely conflictual—and I could not for the life of me understand it— you could choose anywhere and you choose those two places, those two states.

So, I'm like, ‘you’re turning this into just a shitty experience for both of us.’

I just really maybe saw a side of her I didn't really want to see again, and it also made me think, ‘well, this is it for you, yeah, you are 18, go! See you later. You can go do this if you want, you know, like Miss Big Shot’.

-MANDY

Parents’ struggles: anniversary reactions.

Anniversary reactions are emotional responses that connect one to a remembered experience, often a traumatic experience, on a time cue such as the same time of year, or season or in this case, perhaps a certain phase of life. A number of participants reported an awareness of an anniversary reaction in themselves, or their siblings, where they felt a re-awakening of the emotional recall, intensity, reverberations were stimulated, or triggering memories: She (mom) got cancer when she was 46. I remember last year when I was 46, I just couldn't wait for my birthday to come to turn 47 so that year would be over. I just thought like, I don't have a plan past that. My plan was to get to that point

97 and then hopefully everything would be okay for the kids, because they cannot count on me past that.

-MINNIE

I know for my brother it's been different transitions in his life. It's been very emotional for him, and it's very much connected to him in the loss of my dad, because he was 16 when he didn't have a father figure. You know what I mean.

Like when he had children, after he had his first child, his wife called me and said, ‘I think your brother could use to talk to you. I think he's really struggling with not having your dad here.’

I think when I turned 55, I thought a lot about it, and I thought, ‘Man, this was when his life ended.’ So it becomes, often so at transitions, but like when my husband was turning 55, I was really worried that something could happen to him.

His dad died in his 50s, too.

-MARIT

With Francine now being the age being the age that I was, when my mom died.

Even on my birthday it was like, but I wasn't associating it with my losing my mom, because I had struggled with major depression over the years anyway.

My sister went through huge things when she was the age. Or even the age like my mom was diagnosed and she actually had a couple of health scares that were—so, but for me it was more, I did go through something, but I didn't feel

98 like I was worried about dying. I was just very, very depressed the year I turned 50.

I think that's what happened. Because my mother- I might- my birthday's August 14th and my mother died September 6th, and so I feel I have a real sense memory, like seasons, and the feeling of the air and sometimes even smell, when you get sad about something, you're not even really sure why and then you're like ‘oh, yeah’, this is kind of what it felt like, when a sad thing happened.

-TAWNY

(My brother) wants to blame everything on dad and the reality is like, blame time is over. He’s married, yeah, (three kids, they’re 16, 12 and 8) Interviewer: So 16. How old was he when your dad died?

My younger brother, he was just between 15 and 16.

-MANDY

Parents’ struggles: state dreams.

State dreams are understood to be associated with trauma memories, and can be interpreted differently from other dreams, for the content is taken more directly as relevant. A few dreams that are mentioned by two participants (Luna, and Tawny) are noteworthy for their mention of disturbed affect, grief and a state of anxiety during transition - both seems connected to memories they are sharing in the interviews and the significance at this life phase they are revisiting through their children: I had a nightmare two days ago where I was, my daughter was on one side of the street and I was on the other side of the street. We're walking on opposite directions, and I was trying—I personally thought I wasn't going to call or I didn't

99 call out to her. I don't even. When I say it, it sounds like I made a decision but I'm not sure that's the case. But I kept trying to get her attention. I wasn't even waving; I was just trying to—there were no other people around. She just walked right by. And I told her about it. She said, ‘That's horrible.’ It was the most sedate quiet nightmare. I woke up and the feeling was—just bereft.

-LUNA

Yeah, and so, I have a reoccurring dream and I don't think I associated it with what I was just telling you about right now. I always knew it was like, an anxiety dream--it's the end of the year at college and I'm packing to go and either somebody is waiting to drive, I'm catching a ride with somebody or someone's taking me to the airport. And, I'm packing and there's all of these vessels for packing in the room so, sometimes it's a variety of suitcases, sometimes there's boxes and I need to be done by a certain time and I still have so much more to do and I don't know if I'm going to make it. And, I've had that dream you know, I don't even remember dreams that much and I can tell you that I've had a version of that dream a lot of times.

-TAWNY

Parents’ struggles: preoccupation with death.

In participant’s stories, a preoccupation with death shows up in various forms, from more active injunctions to more subtle, albeit prevalent, associations to life threatening illness, or past personal losses such as suicide.

Here are two examples of cognitive constructions in the form of mantra, or preemptive warnings that certain parents (Minnie, Pricilla) are giving to their children.

100 These cognitive constructions can be seen perhaps as taking action to defend against perceived danger, and thus potentially an attempt at mastery over fears: I've come up with these very clear ideas of what I need and don't need. And I feel like I don't need to have a long life. I don't need to see my kids grow up. And I don't know why I feel like that's wrong to say that. But I feel very firm about it.

I have to be really careful about over-saying like, you know ‘if I die, this or this…’ Because for me that's such a comfortable thing to say like, I mean I feel like I could die at any point, and it'll be fine just like, that's life. But if I mention anything like that to my kids, they start crying, it's very strange. I think it should be a normal thing like, I could get hit by car I mean, anything could happen.

In the early times when (my daughter) was a baby or a toddler, my mom was still such a presence in my life, like I will go visit her grave and I just had to do a lot of stuff...there was paperwork and there was just stuff in her handwriting still around, and my dad didn't change the voicemail on his home phone answering machine. It kind of taught (her) like when you're a grown-up your mother is dead.

I mean, that was what I knew. It's really hard for her to be growing up and realize that I'm alive, because that's not what I told her would happen.

-MINNIE

I'd always told my kids, like I would say, ‘you got weak genes whether or not you want it.’ My dad died of heart attack. My mother struggled from depression.

Any kind of alcohol, any substances that are unhealthy--you may think you're

101 okay but just know, you have weak genes and this can awaken a dormant condition.

My dad died when I was 19 and my brother was only 16 and like I'll say this like, ‘You know, my brother was only 16 when my dad died’. Like, I would tell them at 17, if you were to lose your dad now, you can't imagine how that would impact your life down the road, right?

-PRICILLA

Along these lines of preoccupation with death, following are two other examples of intense worries participants have formerly faced regarding their own health. In both instances, they reported a scary course of exploration of some mysterious, potentially life-threatening illness, which then turned out to be nothing, and passed:

I feel like (my death is) a very practical reality. I feel like this is what I expect-when I was 33 I was really sick for a year; I had a rare blood disorder.

They knew I was sick but it was like--now I'm thinking like wow, I wonder what impact that had (on my kids)? For me the biggest stress about it was that I had to go to the hematologist and oncologist and stuff but like, whatever it was, I'm totally fine now--it was just some kind of weird blood disorder where I was like covered in bruises and I had fevers and--I just remember having to get over this thought of like, in my mind I was gonna have some kind of a solid tumor, like my mom, like that's how I'm going to die.

And then finally I was like look, if this is what happens, it happens, and then I was totally okay with it, and then I got better.

-MINNIE

102

But the weird thing is, I got this car accident and I was in my field placement in the agency, and then I ended up in the hospital. So that's—I just got some really bad whiplash, then the next day I couldn't get up.

And then, the doctor misdiagnosed me. He diagnosed me as having Ankylosing Spondylitis, which is a debilitating condition of the spine. And I was like, what?

The doctor at Children's were like, it’s so unusual for a woman of your age. And then, I thought I was going to have this debilitating condition.

-MARIT

Finally, Luna recounted two situations from her life story, which were profoundly intimate and seemed to relate to this recurring theme of life and death, which is always near for these participants: He was a free spirit and I loved that he was a free spirit and he had manic depressive disorder, which I didn't know until I was married to him and, we were married for four years to the day, and he committed suicide.

It's one of three pretty intense suicides on my life. They all happened in the first week of March, one’s on my birthday, one’s on my mom's birthday and one the third of March.

And I had, for what it's worth, I had four miscarriages before I had my daughter and had a couple after that, I just kept getting pregnant. I was trying not to get pregnant. It was very painful.

-LUNA

103 3. Navigating changes during launch.

The participants discussed how it feels to parent their children in the process of growing up, all noting that young adults seem different, no longer sweet babies who were so easy to love. Conflicts cause affective arousal and tensions around ‘difference’, as parents find their children making choices that fall somewhere between bewildering and unacceptable. Parent and child are newly asserting themselves and exchanging feedback with energetic disagreement. In this process, parents also say they are coming to recognize an internal shift and the need to surrender some of their tightly held control.

In these stressful times, participants talked about coping strategies they use in dealing with so many changes and disruptive feelings. Perhaps in response to the memories that are stirred, the participants also described personal and creative psychological constructs related to their parents, and the death of their parent, which seem to function as protective gestures, transitional objects or affect containers. Slogans, or words to live by, like self-talk or mindset all bind anxiety and fantasies, angels and other ideas of afterlife all serve to preserve felt connections to their lost parent in some form.

To see examples of the data related to navigating change and conflict during launch, here are the following categories to organize the participants’ quotations: from bliss to this, managing conflicts, surrender, and other internal coping dynamics.

104 A. Navigating changes: From bliss to this?

Early on, parenting felt so easy and kids and parents were lovingly aligned; especially when contrasted to now where the parent and child have different viewpoints.

Here are examples of the shift occurring: I think the phase where they were little was sort of perfect. I loved being a mom.

I loved (having) them, I don't know. The older one is 22 now. When she was a kid she was so attached to me and she kept saying, ‘When I grow up I'm gonna marry you.’

My oldest daughter was very close to me, very loving, very attentive and I would try really hard not to tell her how to be or not to demand things from her. I think that's probably why it was also so hard when she became a teenager and rebelled… like immediately as a teenager, and it was so different for me, all of a sudden that I thought like, ‘Oh I want to let her be whoever she is, but like, I like who she was before.’

-MINNIE

I went to a speaker as part of the FAN series and one of the things that she actually talked about how would you have your little boy, he's like your little boyfriend, you know, like he wants to be with you. He wants you to lie down with him, so he can go to sleep and so, Sam is my youngest. He was definitely like that and I remember, even though I was exhausted, trying to be as present as I possibly could and to really drink it up.

-TAWNY

105 Oh, God, I loved the babies. I loved the babies. They were just so fun to have and hold on to and smell and whatever. You know, the older ones… like I just left the house. I was pissed. I'm like, one’s lying in bed watching Netflix. He doesn't know where he's going to school next year because St. Mary’s didn't take him back and he doesn't have a job.

-MANDY

B. Navigating changes: managing conflicts.

Here are some examples of the complex family situations in these systems: Minnie did not want her needs to show, and was afraid of seeming ‘selfish’ and this was likely in connection with her perception of own mother’s ‘selfish’ behaviors from the period before she died. However Minnie did have needs and when they were not met, this also created a different problem for them. Luna and Tawny also struggled with wanting more from their child in terms of time and attention, and found their child turning away now, towards others. Marit spoke about trying to assert herself in a new way, so that her kids will hear her point of view, and factor it into the big picture as they grew up she wanted to take up more space, which added friction to their already tense dynamics. Pricilla and Mandy talked about negotiating boundaries and making decisions, where their ideas of what is right are different from their kids’ perspectives.

Some anecdotal examples of managing conflicts resulting from changing family dynamics: Give them space and minimize my own needs without--this is the part that I found so tricky, I didn't realize how many needs I would have as they left and how hard

106 it would be for me so I felt like I kind of tried to hide that a lot because I felt like it was selfish, but then I ended up having less communication with them.

I remember when she left like the first two or three times she left home she's like, ‘I'm never gonna get home again’ and then she got ‘I'm never gonna live here again’ and now she's like, ‘I'll come stay here a couple of weeks’ but, yeah. It's not all or nothing, and maybe I also I wanted a little bit more all along, since my experience was that nothing, of not having my mom.

-MINNIE

I think I was having the urge, but not following the urge to call because I wanted to give her - I would say, I'm trying to figure it out. I think now, I'm feeling a little frustrated right now, I want to be more in touch and she has a very busy life. She does a million things all the time, and it's hard to find the time.

Or I'm just open to what might be, but just to letting it unfold. And just kind of checking in ‘Okay where am I now? Can I tolerate this?’

-LUNA

We sold our house that we raised the girls in. That was very sudden, again, my husband like making a decision and so he kinda decided in January that we were gonna sell the house and then, it’s May and we were moving out. It was hard for me. But I think it was even harder for them. My oldest would refuse to come to the new house for a while. So that was another big deal, like they really were unhappy about us leaving Evanston. I always say, ‘You know we're actually

107 closer to downtown than we were before.’ So for me I've made it work. What am I going to do? I got to make it work. But there were conversations about it, like how are we gonna deal with this moving forward?

They still do complain. They think it's too small. It's hard to all be together when it's so small. What is going to be like when we have kids and da, da, da. I was like, ‘I know, we'll worry about that when we get there.’ But I did tell them that for me because at first, I was not happy about it. And—but I told them for me, it's made life, simpler. And I like that.

-MARIT

It first started with me saying to her, ‘I feel bad because we don't spend time together when you're home over breaks,’ so she's like, ‘Oh you know mom, it's kind of passive aggressive, you know’ and she had a point, ‘it's kind of passive aggressive for you to say that, if you don't make a request.’ So then, I requested time.

The fact that when I was the age, she's having this conversation with me, my mother was dead. So, and it was one of the times after she had done this a couple of times and I think also that it preceded by like some kind of Facebook post where people were talking about their parents being annoying--I was furious about it and upset about it like the second time it happened like I think I was sobbing about it.

-TAWNY

108 I really wanted him to maybe go to a different school to like go just before Indiana, like get steady, you've been through a lot, but he wanted the experience all of his friends were doing and so forth. He loved Indiana. Of course, he did.

So he started, I went against my better judgment and let him start at Indiana. If I would have made him go elsewhere, quite frankly, the way he was, he would have sabotaged that. He would be mad about it. He would have been and he may have dropped out and wouldn't have gone back to school.

We gave him a choice, and well, he fell on his face. He did flunk out, the story he learned was, well we let him make his mistakes. Now he is embracing Loyola, and he understands that he has issues, he has problems, it's okay.

-PRICILLA

I said, ‘Look, I am not going to be mad if you don't want to go back to school, don't go,’ and she just burst into tears when I said that and I feel like that was the turning point, like I gave her back control. Three or four days later she came back and she said, ‘Were you serious?’ I said, ‘I was.’ I was very serious. ‘This is your choice but I'm also serious that I'm not going to own this choice of you staying home for a semester. This has got to be your choice.’

I think that was really a huge thing for her. ‘Did you really mean it?’ It's not that I've ever gone back on my word. It’s that she gets so built up that she doesn't hear what you're saying or she's swinging so much that she doesn't realize that you're meeting her halfway or that you're saying one thing because she's just too busy.

109 I have faith in the fact that she will get out there in the big world and realize that her belief in this particular thing is not accurate--I don’t want to impose my belief on her because--I want her to come about it.

-MANDY

C. Navigating changes: sense of surrender.

Here are quotations from parents who are reflecting on how seriously they have taken their parenting role, and how much they wanted to ensure a good, safe and connected outcome for their kids. And yet, despite all good intentions, the kids have different ideas of what they want and what is ‘good.’ At some point the parents say that they realize that ultimately they no longer make the decisions about their kids’ lives. On the parent’s feeling of shifting power and their sense of surrendering control, here are some examples: It sort of feels like, a little bit of, that I just gave up for a while—because I feel like if they don't talk to me, and I don't know what's going on with them, I don't know where they are, and it wasn't this launching I had imagined.

And also recognition that I don't have a lot of control, and that's how it is. But I mean, realistically, me saying, ‘Listen to me I'm your mom. I'm going to tell you what to do,’ it wasn't working anymore…So then I switched into, ‘All right, we'll just see what happens.’

So I think I also don't worry too much about her (anymore) because she has landed on her feet so many times. Maybe that's the feeling I'm going for more is

110 like, their danger or their risks or their, even their successes, not impacting me quite so much.

-MINNIE

I just really have let her call that, be the initiator. I think I’m proud of her. I was excited for her. It was such a shock because I just didn’t ever, I mean, you know it intellectually that they’re going to leave, but it was—I don’t want her to leave.

I don't know how I would feel if she decides to return to Europe after she graduates of after graduate school. But, I'll just take it as it comes.

-LUNA

I'm worried about him. I'm worried about his future but I'm also just worried that he has the sights set really high—but there's only so much I can do, and there's only so much I would do, like I'm not going to do it for them.

I really do modulate the amount of input I give them because I think the kids have to have their own lives and need to figure some things out for themselves-and some things they can't figure out, I mean they do need assistance.

-TAWNY

I know other parents were kind of like, ‘what doesn't kill you makes you stronger’ and they're like ‘they'll figure it out’ and in a way I admire them for having the gumption to like to follow that philosophy but it's—I can't compare myself to that, because that is not the way I operate and I have to own my choices.

111 So it's kind of the same thing with James. It's not that like I have this need to be doing something for him, whatever. It's just that like, I just want to make sure that everything is in place with him, but then again a child is not a house that you could turn off the lights and just go, as if I have to have him, to make sure he's at this perfect state before I step away.

-PRICILLA

But I’ve surrendered what’s to happen, is going to happen. It didn’t matter how many different ways I tried to affect change in my son—at the end of the day, it’s him that has to do the work, not me. It’s not going to come unless he does it.

Kyle begged for him to get out and trust him, and let him have a second chance and I finally came to this place where I can't do it for him. I can only you know, set up the rat maze. I can't make him go.

I'm like, you're not going to find peace until you make that shift for good--if he's going to fall, he's going to fall and we're going to be there to support him and help him get back on his feet but you can't stop him from falling.

-MANDY

D. Navigating changes: internal coping dynamics.

It seems that each of these parents in some way has resourcefully found a way to try and cope with the loss of their parent by using internalizations of the prior relationship to keep themselves emotionally steady. These are essentially figurative ‘selfobjects’ that they have turned to over time, for regulation during times of stress, the significance of

112 which will be explored further in the discussion, Chapter VI (Kohut, 1991; Hagman, 1993). Examples of some internal constructs that have been used imaginatively and effectively as coping strategies and as attempts at making meaning are as follows: Like maybe there's nothing. Maybe she's like an angel watching me.

I remember having some sort of an imaginary conversation with my dead mother just saying, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ And the response I got back was so cold.

I mean, of course, it was all on my imagination, the way I imagined she was saying was, ‘How should I know? I've never been through this. I didn't have to raise you at this age.’ Because she had cancer from when I was 17 until she died six years later. She was really sick that whole time. I couldn't turn to her for help even in an imaginary way.

Lightheartedness is also just a way to make it all work, because it is very heavy and I think that's part of also having a parent die young is you want to also be dead, or be done, or be whatever, and your life keeps going, so you have to figure out a way to kind of, play along.

I have tried to find older women to like, fill that empty space and it's always gone so not quite right. When my kids were little, I was a piano teacher and I remembered joining like a piano teacher’s association or something and it was all these old ladies right, who taught in their living rooms. I just remember being so

113 excited like, "Oh I got to hang out with old ladies and I didn't really put it together for a while. I was really missing not having mentors.

-MINNIE

One of the things that I got--he gave me culture. He was constantly bringing books into my life, sharing New Yorker articles, taking me to the art museum to introduce me to Bergman Films. He. Music. He just. He was really a cultured intellectual person, and he--I feel like I got my love of the arts from him. My appreciation of sort into the full range, and I felt very understood by him even without words.

-LUNA

And then there's always been a part of me that's sort of like I don't really have a sense of what I believe in about afterlife, or if there is or about heaven or hell, and whatever. I don't know where I am on that, but at least I feel like it's one thing I can hang on to like I'll be able to–you know, I won't be alone. I'll be able to see him, and then when I die, I guess I do believe that.

Yes. And also for my mom, that I know that. I know she - I'm pretty sure she believes because she's a strong Catholic. That she's gonna see him again. So that makes me feel okay about her dying as well.

-MARIT

(My mom) took me to get stuff for going to school and I still have the sewing kit that she put together for me, and you know, it wasn't actual Tupperware but it was in a plastic container with a lid. And we bought each of these -things and I still have, these like needles that were like twenty-nine cents for the whole package of

114 needles, there's probably like one needle left in it but I still have it. And so that's kind of a great thing, that I still have that.

-TAWNY

It's like I won't let myself feel sad. It's just kind of my philosophy like you deal with what you were dealt. So yes but everybody just makes their way in the way they can, and you just go with the resources that you have, and just try to do to your best ability.

-PRICILLA

I was talking to my mom and that’s when it came out, where I was like I’m really pissed off at dad. I’m like for once in my life I really need him now to step in and guide this kid to a better place and that whole idea had been something that had been brewing up inside of me, and I finally let it out and let my mom in on it, because I’m like, that did shape my faith too. I’m like I’ve got, you know, some great people up in heaven and where the hell are they?

It makes me mad at my dad a little bit, like where are you? I need you right now, you know, like I need you to guide this kid! I’m not asking you for anything big, you know.

And I don’t know if other people experience that or not—but I have never really looked for that direct connection, like show me a sign.

115 But I feel like at almost 50, I can say that it was about time somebody showed me a sign and I really wanted it, and it really, really bothered me that you know, things were not answered. Yeah and to let go of that hope, would be letting go of my dad and I just can’t, I can’t do either, you know?

-MANDY

4. Remembered experience of launch, including death of a parent.

In the second interview, each participant responded to an open question asking for memories of their own launching phase. Note that for all but one of the participants, the death of their parent was presented as the defining experience of that time while other events seemingly conformed to, or arose, in response to the illness or sudden death of a parent. For those common accounts, the participants’ experiences shared many similar features, which are summarized below.

See excerpts for the following categories of these shared experiences: family denies reality of diagnosis (for families with illness); needs neglected/role reversal; own life on hold/life interrupted; overwhelming feelings, confusion; unprocessed grief/grief as a medical symptom; lost family structure/functioning without agency; some freedom and exhilaration; survival mode – finding work, marriage and children.

Family denies reality of diagnosis (for families with illness).

These families denied the seriousness or significance of the parent’s cancer prognosis, focusing on the possibility of a positive outcome to the exclusion of acknowledging the possibility of death; in sum, these families did not assist the participants with processing feelings of uncertainty or fear:

116 They were like sort of pushing me away by protecting me from knowing what was going on. We were a family that avoided all feelings,

I also hated the way that (mom) was so positive about her cancer, like always saying that she was gonna get over it and get better, and go into remission, and so I felt betrayed by the fact that she couldn't overcome it, but also that she gave me a lot of false hope.

-MINNIE

I think we all sort of knew, but you know, it felt like we wanted to put all of our hope in the treatment. It was the idea that he could—I don't think we talked or even acknowledged it as a terminal illness for a while”.

-LUNA

He just said you know, ‘it is not looking great. This does not have a great outlook. It’s going to take her a while to feel better now’ and yet without coming right out and saying, ‘she's probably gonna die in one to three years.

-TAWNY

Needs were neglected.

While parent was sick, dying, or immediately after the death, participants report that they found themselves with limited attention from parents and were left feeling alone: I knew she was still there, and when she got sick she wasn't, I couldn't trust that she was still there.

117 I was running around all the time and I was trying manage her, like helping her treatment, and pick her prescriptions and doing all this stuff and I would get home and I just feel like, ‘are you not going to have any time for me? Can you not drop what you’re doing, and just go get me and talk to me?’

I felt very alone.

-MINNIE

-LUNA

I actually called people to tell them we were cancelling the office because she had died and I didn't say who I was, and that whole thing was really weird. And nobody said, maybe she shouldn't be doing this.

I think, people that was part of the loneliness of having this loss when you're young is that, people just can't relate to it.

-TAWNY

Role reversal.

As parents became consumed with their own needs, fighting illness or coping with loss, these participants described being left to commandeer household responsibilities in their stead, while their own developmental needs went virtually unrecognized – the family roles were turned inside out: I was a lot of help was when I was at home, it was my role to make everybody else be fed, and smiling, and be happy. It was very strange that they could count on me for this. It didn't occur to me at that time to say no.

118 Even before she died when she was sick I had to accommodate her all the time.

It's a very final end to being parented, to being taken care of.

-MINNIE

He's sick. I'm at school. They can't figure out what it is. And then he starts to have excruciating pain. So when I come home for the holidays that year, he and I go to Mayo Clinic and my mom stays behind and I go with my Dad and stay in a hotel. It takes them a while to get to the bottom of it. He's treated with some psychotropic meds to control the pain, like prolixins, so he's starting to hallucinate. Anyway, I was his support while he was hospitalized.

-LUNA

I came home and it turns out my dad needed, well my mom needed help caring for my dad, so I was at home caring for him, and then he died.

-MARIT

I paid the bills and I did all the stuff in our family, because that's stuff that my mom did.

-TAWNY

She had this like kind of the snake-ish side of her sometimes, where she would make me feel really guilty about my younger brother. I hate that he’s alone, but I don’t really need to be taking care of anybody right now.

-MANDY

119 Life on hold.

Participants explained the pull to be home and nearby when their parents were sick, of willingly interrupting their own life to help, and be close at the bedside. College, or life with friends seemed to get suspended for a time: I wanted to come home because I felt like a lot of stuff was happening, and for a long time it really felt like she could die at any point--like it took her a really long time to die.

I didn't know how sick you have to be, to die; but I don't know, like when they said maximum you're going live six months, like every day after that six months I was like, ‘Today is the day.’

-MINNIE

So I went home and he began to decline, and there was a surgery they did and I stayed home, and after the surgery I was his primary caretaker during the day, and that meant changing a really horrendous wound.

I think I probably went home every weekend and you know, he was definitely down well under a hundred pounds.

-LUNA

I would ask, ‘Do you want me to come home?’ And he's like, ‘No. Things are fine’ then I talked to my sister about it and I'm like, ‘I think I really should go home’ and she said, ‘Well, maybe you should just call and tell them and not ask us, if you want to.’ So that's what I ended up doing, I did go home.

-TAWNY

120

I just didn’t know what I was doing and so when my dad died, I’d been at college for a year and a couple of months and I decided to finish out the semester there and then move back home. So I did that -

-MANDY

Overwhelming feelings, confusion.

Participants recall feeling intense feelings, mixed-up, or confused by the family changes, and added pressures at that time: I was so dizzy and so burdened by her still being around and being sick because I had to do all the stuff I would have had to do anyway. When she was so sick at the end that she basically unconscious, then I just felt like we were all suffering.

We were just waiting for her to die.

When my mom first died it felt very unfair to me that everything else kept going on, like that felt very sad to me. I feel like in some ways I grieved so intensely than I felt I couldn't live without her; I was so drowning in grief.

-MINNIE

I really don't remember, maybe she, I don't remember. I don't wanna be making that up. I can't even tell you. Okay, he wasn't sick at that point but then within the year, he became sick. In the first, it was like a cold or a flu or virus in April and he didn't get better. Meanwhile, I'm still in college, and I'm struggling with some depression.

121

By mid-February, I was despondently depressed. I just don't have a memory of whether it was directly connected to his illness or not, but I'm sure that must have been hugely contributing. Anyway, I was desperate. I felt like I wasn't sure I could keep myself safe.

-LUNA

I'm thinking in my, I'm not thinking this like a conscious progression, progressive thought, but I'm thinking in my head ‘well Dad said this was really serious, but look at her, how great she's doing’—the part of it to me that seemed like it was gonna be terrible, just didn't seemed to be happening.

-TAWNY

I had to say, ‘Mom, he’s died’. And as you can imagine, we all just fell apart. It was a shock. Shock. Confusion. We called the priest.

So, he was like right there when we found him, (truck pulled to the side of the ramp) and he was like slumped over. And so. You know we always felt--I mean I felt so bad that you know he died alone.

My dad's dying was just--I mean our family was just not in a good place. It's a bad - a very depressing situation. Why did this have to happen?

-PRICILLA

I was pissed, I was so mad. I was mad at him, I was mad at God, I was just mad.

More sad than mad.

122

I feel like that semester after my dad died, those four months are erased, gone from my memory. But the ones prior to that, leading up to that are so vivid like everything is so vivid to me up until the day after his funeral.

-MANDY

Unprocessed grief/grief as a medical symptom.

Most participants do not recall having anyone to turn to, or a way to talk about their feelings at the time of their parents’ death. Accordingly, their feelings of shock or grief either seem to have become a kind of detached experience, or were addressed via psychotropic medication, or became associated with other physical/medical treatments: I think when my mom was first dead, I felt very guilty about saying anything bad about her. Because I feel like it was rude. She was dead.

That was also partly why like I didn't feel like I did a lot of the grieving. I didn't have space to think about grief as grief, or to understand it, because all the stuff was happening.

-MINNIE

The night my dad died, my mom was in the kitchen doing dishes when he took his last breath and I was sitting right beside him. I remember being filled with indignation--like why aren't you here?

I just feel like it was hard for her to hear.

-LUNA

123 Maybe I feel for her that she's never really been one to, even to this day, I don't think she really opens up whatever's going on in her head. She's very private.

I think it was hard because we were all grieving so much in our own ways, and because of our ages, I don't know. And extended family members, they were grieving because they had never lost anyone young, you know what I'm saying?

So it was pretty much--you got to do your little grieving on your own. -MARIT

One of my mother's friends who was at our house basically yelled at me for making so much noise. I remember going into my room, I was sobbing uncontrollably and I had actually seen the psychiatrist a couple of times because of what was happening. And so I had the good sense to call him.

-TAWNY

I don’t think I needed words. I don’t really think I was really talking then, I just kind of dummied up so, I don’t know.

It was awful. I was so sad like I remember--I think that’s the first time I ever got an anti-anxiety pill or something like that, because I remember my aunts, and my mom over whispering about me on several different occasions because I was so lethargic, and like just so introverted.

-MANDY

124 Lost family structure/functioning without sense of agency.

Without a home base, participants described how they felt lost, like the sense of themselves got dropped, and instead feel like their own storyline is somehow incoherent.

By extensions, similar accounts are conveyed of how their personal agency was compromised – they report events ‘happened’ at that time, implying that their agency felt suspended, things felt random, and they pressed onward, just falling into decisions: I mean I still had my sister, but that was also like I had to pretend that I wasn't taking care of her because my dad was supposed to get the credit for it, that was when I felt like, I need to have a baby because I need somebody to love.

I mean, I made a lot of decision for that moment but I didn't realize that I was choosing my partner in life but yes, but interestingly like it didn't seem to be a big deal to me, like the loss of my own mother was so intensely painful.

-MINNIE

I just feel that that was not something I did very well, and the perhaps it did have a lot to do with having lost my dad. I'm sure I got together with my first husband because he was a link to my dad. I know that. I don't know that it was ‘meant to be’ except for that, I was kind of hanging on to that.

-LUNA

She's not a nice person. She calls most of the shots. He was absorbed with that family because that's where he was, and they were younger kids and so that they lived with her and him. She could have been a better stepmother in a lot of ways.

So that was a thing that changed everything.

125

When I left college I did it by myself and when I graduated my stepmother and my father came to my graduation and I remember just crying because nobody was helping me.

-TAWNY

I floundered a lot to try to figure out what I was going to--I’d get some jobs and it would be okay. But I also I still look for some steady cash, study income. I was also waiting tables and then going to school. So, it was a lot. I got state residency, so I got even more like financial aid or whatever, scholarship money, because if you were a state resident you got a little more of that. So, I figured out all those things...

-PRICILLA

Yeah, so about a year after my dad died my (mom) started dating this guy who was just closer to my age, or right in between--so he was ten years older than me but ten years younger than her. It was a joke.

I don’t really remember the rest of that semester. It’s just kind of autopilot.

Well, when I tell the story, it just sounds so choppy and like weird and like, yeah, just a lot of moving parts but yeah, I mean like for me to be back and forth from school and then back and forth between Milwaukee and Kansas City and like it just sounds funny.

126 It’s just hard to tell. I mean it’s a hard story to tell because I can’t figure it out how to tell it with it making sense. Does that make sense? Like I feel like when I tell the story it’s just like people have a hard time following it, because it’s such a chopped story.

-MANDY

Some experience of freedom, and exhilaration despite disorientation.

I remember driving to the city and feeling liberated. In addition to her $200, I had about, I don’t know, $1200 in the bank. That’s all I had.

At that time, I was kind of exhilarated with the sense of adventure.

-MANDY

-PRICILLA

Survival mode.

External markers of launch oriented the participants to social priorities such as finding work, getting married and having children; all of these being ‘action’ options that would seem to move them forward, towards making a new life of their own: I felt like, I need to have a baby because I need somebody to love. My brother asked, ’What’s wrong with you? Most people cry and eat ice cream, not go and have babies!’

It seemed kind of a selfish thing to do to have a baby, but also it didn't seem like a choice it just seemed like this is the only way I know to live, to take care of a baby.

-MINNIE

127 Before my dad died, in those last five days my dad said, you know, you don't have to marry Sean, who we had just met when I moved to Omaha. I still said ‘yes’ to marrying him. My point is that my dad knew that wasn't right.

-LUNA

I worked in advertising, well I worked--I didn't know what the hell I was doing when I got out of college but a few months after I got out of college, I got a job in an Ad agency, I was the secretary 'cause I heard that was a good way of getting in.

That ended up being true, I was in advertising for a few years. Decided I wanted to pursue acting, which is something I had wanted to do before, took classes, bartended. Realized I didn't have a thick enough skin to do that, so that was a relatively short-lived thing, but I was very sensible about it 'cause I learned how to bartend 'cause I knew I couldn't wait tables 'cause I'm too uncoordinated. I don't have a good enough memory, even bartending, I had a hard time memorizing stuff. I bartended and I was trying to write, but I couldn't write 'cause I couldn't finish anything. And then I went to graduate school in California, and I met my husband in Los Angeles when I was in graduate school.

-TAWNY

I mean now, I get the sense of being overwhelmed and I've, you know like my roommate like she had taken off a semester, she wasn't as intent. She was a little more like, ‘Oh, if had to wait another year, and put off getting my degree for another year, that's okay.’ But, I wasn't like that.

-PRICILLA

128 I was just like I’m getting the fuck out of here. I need to be dealing with this?

Yeah, like I understand like go, have fun. Live your twenties—but I don’t need to be witnessing this.

(Mom) gave me $200 and said ‘See you later.’ I was launched.

-MANDY

5. New self-experience.

For these participants who all lost a parent during their own launching phase, parenting their own children since then has been a common experience and it seems that coming to ‘live through’ this life phase of launch again, now as a parent, potentially presents them with new opportunities, in addition to revisiting loss.

For example, when these parents expressed a story with a positive outcome for their children (and all did cite examples where they felt that at least one of their children was growing or even thriving), they seemed to also experience a sense of wellbeing themselves. This can be understood perhaps as a vicarious sense, or, if they associated that outcome with their own effective contributions, then it may be thought of as a boost to their own self-esteem—as if the success of the child became a shared success. Simply surviving this launch, despite deeply seeded fears, might have profound effects and lead to meaningful change in the family group.

As participants reflected on their experience of launching phase now as parents, they noted recollections of old feelings of loss associated with their own parent’s death, as if the dormant grief was re-awakened. As their children grow absent due to

129 engagement with peers and their own pursuits, they no longer preoccupy and the old grieving process, long paused, now re-engages.

Participants said they encountered another kind of grief, in addition to the old; now more acutely aware of what they have missed along the way all these years, without parental support. Seeing their children who are ‘making it,’ and benefitting from their parental support, means acknowledging ‘what might have been’ for themselves if things had been different – and so they spoke with poignant awareness about limitations in their own lived life.

Finally, with the opening that comes with children leaving home is a forward orientation. Furthermore, given the chance to speak about their experiences through this study, and to have some concern expressed for their sakes, seems to have stimulated an exploration of their own long held hopes and dreams for their own personal development and a new, articulated sense of future opportunities.

This section of the data on a new ‘sense of self’ is divided into four sections in order to present these expressed feelings and processes in detail: a new template, grief revisited, looking forward, and comments on our process.

A. New self-experience: a new template.

When the children have successes, and family relationships were going well, the participants seemed able to relate warm, prideful feelings that appeared to bolster them through a sense of belonging, and as members of an intact family. Insofar as they felt responsible for these successes, and like contributing agents of their children’s growth, their own self-esteem was boosted. In effect, it would seem that these new healthy and

130 thriving lived experiences might set down powerful new intergenerational expectations for the family’s future reference. Here are some examples of a new template: I've been so impressed. She's so mature. I think I'm in a period where I'm so struck by how much I've grown as her parent. How much I've learned from her and how much I will continue to learn—both the process of watching her make decisions and watching how she thinks through things, how she analyzes the situation and a level of maturity that is just really remarkable. Actually, I’m kind of thinking, ‘Oh, that's how it's done.’

I think she's much more socially savvy than I was. I feel like I'm watching somebody out of need, that I didn't know the things that she knows when I was her age. I am very proud.

-LUNA

So there's like the fact that I'm reflecting on my upbringing of them. You know and I'm looking at how they are now, and I'm really happy with the way they are.

She has confidence in herself, so that makes me feel confident.

-MARIT

Also, the paper she sent me to edit, (it had) a lot of really private things in there.

So, that's another thing. That was really sort of amazing that she was sharing it with me…

He (son) was like you know, so, when my mom gets really mad at me, I just know that, that's how she gets sometimes. Yeah, he knows somehow, he is able to just

131 see who I am and this is not who I am--this is just me, when I am upset. So, that's kind of amazing to me about him, and I'm grateful that he can separate that, (but it’s also bad that I don't control it better!)

… it's always a little surprise because you have to like, know that my son is--I don't know if I showed you a picture of my kids? Did I show you a picture of them? (pulls out phone to show me). But now, he's even, has thicker eyebrows and he just looks really old and he's six-two! So, that's the other part of it, when he hugs me he's all hard and really up high in the sky and my daughter is—she's more affectionate now and that's happened like, in the last year and more appreciative, too

-TAWNY

I appreciate that he calls us and asks, ‘You know this is what I'm doing,’ and I appreciate that he takes some advice from us, like my oldest son I'm very happy that he even calls me when he's annoyed with his girlfriend about this, saying ‘Do you think this is normal or whatever?’

I'm proud of him in the way he's built this (business) from nothing, totally his ideas, something totally independent. I feel like that he's had the confidence to continue to build something. He's persevered (even though) it hasn't gone so smoothly along.

-PRICILLA

132 She owns it. She owns the consequences. Not the 17-year old woman-lawyer, ‘are you out of—what are you seeing and what are the consequences.’ No, she's very much different now. She has a lot more integrity than she did.

Because I trust her--even though she does not like what I had to say about drinking too much or drinking this kind of thing or going too far, but I trust that she heard me and I trust that she will pull that out when she’s doing, going through these things.

So I have as much faith in her as I do in God. I have faith that she will be okay because she is a smart kid and doesn’t want to screw up.

-MANDY

From this new vantage point, as parents and children live through this transition together, there seems to be discovery of a new kind of comfort and belonging. Might this be understood as a re-establishment of equilibrium, of a balance, which was lost at the prior disrupted passage of earlier launch; the following quotations illustrate this new feeling of stability found in togetherness as a new template: I mean I feel like, we're kind of going through this different phase where I feel like they're much more grown up now and so sometimes we'll sit and we will just talk and it's kind of what I was craving. But through the initial launching phase, we couldn't do that.

Yeah, I'm just thinking, like every once in a while, we'll come up about something really dangerous or dumb that my kids did and I'll say like, ‘Like I can't believe

133 you're still alive.’ Like surviving a car crash or something like that. And I'll think, like those moments really made me think I might lose them.

I do get a little something that's very, very healing and very, just calming in a way that that abrupt break is not calming and soothing at all. It just felt so, like final and so--also you feel so--like powerless.

-MINNIE

I think it's the process, I feel like being a parent pushes me to be best person I can be. It doesn't mean I always achieve that. But then there's always another pair of eyes on me, watching me as model from the time she was little. I just always had to just to use the highest sense of integrity. If emotion, if anger overwhelmed me in some situation that I really didn't want to give in to that. I wanted to maintain my composure, and maintain my maturity in a way that maybe if I hadn't had a child watching, I don't know what would've happened.

We're both kind of alike. That has been an interesting part of my relationship with her. We are often thinking about the same thing at the same times, though out of the blue. It feels deeper than modeling. It feels like it's just something that's in her genes, but that has really made the connection for me just even stronger.

Being her mom has been the thing that has made me my most adult self. And I feel like I feel so grateful for that growth, that opportunity for growth. I think it's the richest experience I have had, and I have sort of a bias. I feel like when I'm

134 responsible for her that I am, almost always, fully in my role as her mother and you know, a mature adult.

She said like she described it and she said, ‘You would love it here, mom,’ and I thought that was interesting. I mean I'm not really thinking yet about a potential meeting, yet it was interesting that she imagined me in that picture.

-LUNA

And Jane doesn't really like to read but she's reading now and what she's reading are things like I remember doing when I was in my early twenties. The book she had, she was like, ‘Mom I have to show you this book. It's the coolest book.’ It was this book and it was about a lot of little short sayings you know, reflective, and she's like, ‘Oh my God. I look at this every night before I got to bed.’ And I was looking at her like, I can remember in my life, sort of looking for meaning, and so it was kind of fun to experience that with Jane. She's probably the one that is most like me in spirit. I think she thinks deeply about a lot of things and I probably underestimated that in her but I can see it now.

I’m really fortunate. We all, well they enjoy time with me and I enjoy time with them. They planned a party for me for my birthday and my retirement so that's kind of exciting for me because we've never had a party. It's like a celebration of life more so than anything else.

-MARIT

135 The time even that we had this communication about this, I was very emotional about it and really angry and really upset, so I did (tell her), and she said, ‘I understand.’

Being in touch with me, she's really tried to do a better job with that and has developed more empathy about the situation. Like, I don't want her to feel guilty or bad about it.

I think it's an opportunity for her to see something that she has, something that she takes for granted and, not like, I don't mean like, overly grateful, just notice that it's something that is you know, that's like a gift.

-TAWNY

B. New self-experience: grief revisited.

Within this area of new self-experience is a section of comments mostly from the third interview which had a somber, more reflective quality as the participants considered and addressed their losses, then and now. With greater reflection and awareness, they recalled the premature death of their parent and also recognized other experiences they missed, as a result of losing their parents too early--such as being known by their parents as an adult, not belonging to an ongoing relationship. In addition to formative experiences, here they cite feelings about how these limits impacted their lives, and note their own aging now, while assessing what is possible for the time they have left; they also now face the “on-time” death of their other parent.

136 In this section, find variations of grief that the participants reference in their new self-awareness: deferred grief, missed experiences, time limits. On deferred grief (now re-awakened) grief: I think I tried to do stuff like that, like kind of always come up with action and things to do, and ways to be busy, that I think a lot of that painful isolation when my kids took off was a little bit of what was the grief. It was like, ‘This is that feeling I've been trying so hard not to feel.’

Definitely very alone (now). I think for a while I thought it was going to be a great opportunity like, finally I can do whatever I want. I can move somewhere else or...learn something new. I still feel that way a little bit, but I'm less optimistic about it now.

And I feel like this whole launching process (now) is horrible for me because I finally have to deal with the sadness. I really avoided it for all these years by kind of honoring my mom by being great mom and a fun mom, and doing everything she did, plus making it a little more my style.

-MINNIE

Mine was really it was not a smooth launch, and it took a long time and I was really confused for a long time and I really felt the absence of my dad for a long time.

-LUNA

137 There is a part of me that wants people to know that about me like, that I haven't had a mother for 35—God, I don't even know how many years it's been? It's been 40 years, actually. F--k, that's unbelievable.

Loss is loss and I know people that have had their parent die in the last few years and I have a lot of empathy for them, but I also have just felt like, ‘Oh my God, this is how they're feeling,’ and they're 52 when they're parents are dying. I see them grieving and I also see what kids are like when they're 20 years old, and I'm like, kids are not done with their parents.

-TAWNY

The participants contemplated and seemed to also come into a fuller awareness of lost life experiences in relation to the off-time death of their parent: To be in the back and forth with them, I love that, yeah. I can give them much more because I'm around. I'm here. But also—I get a lot from them, from this experience, and I think that made me feel really sad about this whole sort of exploration in thought, it was something that I hadn't really thought about (my mother)—what an opportunity it is for me as an adult to fully experience this phase of my kids becoming adults.

I feel like that's such a gift that I get to know her in that way and experience her growth. And it is sad, but I feel like I recognize something that (my mom) didn't get that I wasn't aware of before.

-MINNIE

138 I didn't feel free and I didn't feel happy and joyful (in my 20s), like I thought they seemed to be feeling. So that's another thing I lost, I felt like I lost this really seminal developmental period and I think it kind of derailed me. It took me a long time to get on my path. Yeah. That somehow has ties in with staying nineteen or you know, but I never thought that my perception didn't get to go through to some level.

I find myself thinking, ‘yeah we need to have some fun together’. Because she wasn't missing me when she was having a party. I think we're both pretty serious people. It doesn't mean we can't laugh and have fun, but we have this sense of humor, but I think it's something might be a little hard for us to find that together.

Well I'll see. Yeah. I think that would be really nice if we could infuse our relationship with that.

-LUNA

Oh, when I was in grad school I dated different people, but it was trying out. I had a person who I still think about, a guy named Peter. He was probably the closest thing to a safe intimacy for me. It was a special connection, he understood me, thought he could help me be happy. I think he was searching for something too; he was very supportive. He’d come see me and he was always very frolicking, always sort of really like a cute, little, loving kind of a person.

I wanted to have children, and so I sort of married Jay because he had a good job, he was a Catholic, he wanted to have children, and I felt he could be a good

139 provider. He's a good person; we have fun together. I feel badly some ways, but at the same time, I think, we're in a similar place. We tried marital therapy once and it was awful, it was terrible, I didn't like the therapist.

-MARIT

So, they didn't really have on either side particularly attentive grandparents and so, that was not happy, that whole area is a really unhappy area for me because they were, my kids were great kids. She would've come and visited and taking care of them or have them come see her. And, my kids have noticed how they don't have that.

It's not even like they're like super far away. So, now my dad is, in the last couple of years his health has deteriorated more but he was a very active in his 80s, like until he was like probably like 88. So, he’s 91 now. So, that part's been just, that's a constant source of hurt for me.

-TAWNY

Like I had like a bucket list. I wanted to, you know, go to school. I did want to work. To have a good career that I had worked on, and I wanted to travel and so like, I have these things that I was like checking off and you know, traveling was definitely one of them. I mean I've tried—we've tried to take our kids to a few of the places before.

140 I mean sometimes I'm like, I am turning to myself and I wonder why I haven't, you know, accomplished more personally? I'm like trying to kinds figure out maybe you know what my next chapter is going to be you know?

-PRICILLA

I think it definitely shaped and changed who I was. I mean, the hurt of somebody being taken from you and that, you know, shaking of my faith and who does God think he was, taking my dad, you know, all of that played into a lot of who I am today, for sure. And I got back to my faith but it shook it, yeah.

I do have that longing. I wish they had that. I wish that they would have had a relationship with him, the guy I know. Yeah, I think they would have been just over the moon you know, about him and you know, it would have just been fun to see their interaction…and do I feel like I got robbed of that. You know, he certainly got robbed of that. My kids did too.

-MANDY

Another area of discussion came up around a new felt sense of time limits, which includes the present experience of one’s own aging and mortality, as well as facing the decline of again parents, or the death or decline of their other surviving parent. Examples of these issues expressed in our talks are as follows:

I've been losing her (mother) and I feel like she's almost gone. I don't feel like I can any longer pick up the phone to call her if I just want to talk to her about something. That part is gone and yeah, it's a different thing. I feel like it's like a completed life cycle instead of an interrupted life cycle. I think I feel ready for it and I feel like it's time honestly, that's kind of a hard thing to say.

-LUNA

141 I really wonder what she thinks about death. Like nobody's talking about it. We talk about it but at the same time, it's sort of like, I don't really wanna talk about it, I don't wanna make her sad, but I wonder what she thinks. She's 91, so I know it's imminent. And then when that happens, it's like I'm part of the next generation because there's no more old people left. [tears]

I mean I’m gonna be turning 60 in May. I told one of my sisters that for me there's something about this being 60 that is kind of scary for me 'cause I feel like now, well before there's always been so much more time ahead.

Mostly, I think for me is that I don't wanna miss out on anything with my daughters. And for me, they're the most important thing. I've always let them be.

I've tried not to be overbearing--they’re gonna be fine without me, but that's what's always so painful.

-MARIT

C. New self-experience: looking forward.

Participants’ reflected on their sense of their own lost launch, and their assessment of now having the possibility of something new that is ahead – possibly a time for reconstituting some personal goals and taking time for themselves. Some participants have been working at a new professional identity, as something of their own outside of home life. Others, who have worked all along, are seeking more personal time, a more inner experience that has been missing in the busy-ness of daily life as a

142 mother. Participants addressed new experiences that to some extent have seemed to come alive now, an organic moment, even in some ways enhanced or catalyzed by the interview process and becoming a participant in the study. For example, Pricilla, after verbalizing her long held doubts and fears, seems energized and starts to riff on her many dreams and ideas. On reclaiming one’s own launch the participants said: One thing that happened for me recently, that's really changed my whole experience now of my kids growing up, is when I became a social worker.

I got placed at a cancer hospital for my internship, I didn't choose it, it’s what they gave me. I went through the getting sicker and sicker from cancer in a dying process, with a couple of patients really intensely, and it was, it was enough. Like I did it. I somehow did something I hadn't been able to do for all those 20 years and got to a different place, where it was just kind of quieter and a little further away from--it was just like a gift like, oh.

It was totally transformative for me, going on as an adult--that was a huge piece sort of parallel to this raising kids thing.

-MINNIE

But I wonder I'm not quite sure how I'm going to move beyond that. I mean I just find that when I'm feeling vulnerable, that's the place where I reside, is my late teenage years. Maybe even late twenties, that, you know around that loss. Just this ongoing feeling of fragility.

143 I feel like I want a little more, and more than I think I ever have felt it; I feel a little bit of maybe greediness? I don't know—and it's been bothering me because I feel like I'm kind of self-consumed. Like I don't have any more to give. I have my mom, I have my daughter, and then I have my dog. I need a break!

-LUNA

I'm kinda moving towards retirement. So and this week, they interviewed a bunch of candidates to replace me. So I found it kind of an emotional week. I thought at first like, I don't care you know. And then it started like, you know, it's hard to imagine somebody replacing you, you know. ‘Specially when you feel like you brought something you know, to the place. It's not necessarily the end of my career, I'm retiring from schools. I know we're going to travel, but I know that my biggest fear is being with my husband all the time. I'm just thinking that might be kind of lonely, that's my big thing.

So, that's another reason why I think I need to go back into therapy because I worry about that loneliness. And I definitely had it over the years with him because I probably, picked him because he wasn't going to smother me, but at the same time, he doesn't give me everything I need and I don't know if I'm ever going to really find the answer to that.

I like to spend time by myself, I kind of enjoyed being able to go back to that in my own home. Like in the mornings, getting up, not having to answer to anybody, you know, or have a conversation if I don’t want to, it's grown on me,

144 it's simple, we got to get rid of a lot of things. And so life is a lot simpler and so I kind of like that.

-MARIT

I do not care if people know how old I am. Sometimes people will say to me, ‘You shouldn't tell anybody your age!’ and first of all aside from the fact that's so sexist and ridiculous, the other part of it is, when you have a parent who dies when they're 50 and you're almost 60 and you think that your kids are not grown yet, I'm almost actually bragging about how old I am. I feel like it's honestly it's a victory. What it takes even people who live in good circumstances—what it takes to make it through a year is really a grind.

I have a lot of respect for myself, and looking back, a lot of appreciation for how lonely and hard it was, to have children and not have help.

-TAWNY

I'm healthy, I should be able to do--but you know, the truth is I'm 51 and you know who's going to hire a 51-year-old that hasn't worked in years? I've done plenty of volunteer stuff and so forth but like I haven't got my graduate degree, I haven't started business or you know something like that.

With my family I feel like I've supported them, I've nurtured them, but that doesn't--that still doesn't give me satisfaction for my own success like my personal success you know.

145 I mean like I'm sick of the home front stuff. I definitely want to do something, like out. I'm ready to kinda channel myself into something else right now. I just can't help myself—I start worrying about like all my deficiencies, that I just can't make it happen, you know it just haunts me.

-Pricilla

There was an expression of new hopes and dreams, which meant different things for different people, and included such priorities as having a home of one’s own and a community of friends, focus in now on whether marriage will last without children present, and attention finally paid to long dormant career ambitions: I was here, new to this city, I decided to go back to graduate school and it' s been something I've wanted to do for a long time. I was taking care of my mom; I was single parenting my daughter fully for the first time. Just trying to make a life for us here and handle all of that. But what I long for is a sense of home. To have nice things, and by that, I don't mean--I mean beautiful things. I don't mean expensive things or I just mean things that are really scenically pleasing.

I just really want a sense of community. It's hard to do it at this age. So I just really want to be able to have, I dream of having like a film group, having a big wall, where I can have a big screen and project independent, foreign or—and with poetry too. And maybe going to the art museum, although, I tend to do that by myself. Yeah that would—I really would love to have that.

-LUNA

146 I just don't know what it's going to be like when we're both full time at home, and reconnecting in some ways. Right now, we don't have any specific plans but he wants to go to Italy. And there's a lot of places in the US we haven't been.

Maybe I'm afraid that I'm going to be consumed by it or I don't know. It's always been the kind of thing I've always wanted. I was raised a Catholic, I went to school all the way through high school. It's always been a sort of a scary thing to me because there's a form of intimacy with, to me, and a vulnerability if you're going to be a spiritual person, and I've always wanted it but I've always been scared to death of it.

-MARIT

You know I guess maybe like if it would be a business, it would be like I've always believed like everyone's work you know, guess the German part of me.

There's an old German saying, ‘Work makes life sweet.’

I'm trying to figure out, I think I'm like obsessed about keeping everybody healthy and healthy food and stuff like that, then I cook a lot. So, that could launch a line of very healthy Mediterranean based foods. That's what I would like to do, so I am working on these recipes—it's a bit pressure but I haven't really dug in yet every day.

147 And I feel like for me to be able to give jobs to people, to create a company where people would really like their jobs--that would give me tremendous personal success.

So for me to get that fulfillment where I can ultimately see this whole new world, I have to kind of jump into and flail and struggle and so forth and I just hope that I have just the strength to deal with that and make it happen.

-PRICILLA

D. New self-experience: On the interview process.

During the course of conducting interviews, it seemed from the comments that there was something new and significant for these participants about the process of being asked about this experience in their lives, and of telling their stories and being heard.

Here are some comments that capture the tone of gratitude and the sense of the process feeling like a catalyst:

I found this is just so interesting to be able to think about it and this way into—I felt like I kept thinking about our two conversations and feeling very like a must supported in my own exploration, that's thinking about this sort of in a larger context of you doing a research, I just felt like it was a good feeling.

I feel like even more than thinking about it, like talking with you about this has really pushed me to do certain things. So before I talk with you the first time, I kind of had this project going on where I was trying to just get all of my kids'

148 childhood stuff and organize it. And this project--I mean I started this like when they were babies. I just could never get on top of it, right? I just had boxes of like art and report cards and all that kids' stuff, photos. And I had it like on my longterm to do list. And somehow, talking with you and we had this semester break, like I just really prioritized.

Like I'm going to get this thing finished because when my mom died, she had made a baby book for me. And like half a baby book for my next brother, but nothing for the younger kids. I went to my dad's house and I found like all the boxes of stuff and I sorted through it and I tried to make some kind of like baby bookish thing for my siblings. And I felt like that was--it wasn't my job. So I felt resentful that I had so much work with that. But I also felt like my siblings don't want something I put together for them. Like I don't know. It would've been nice to have something from the mom. So I finished this huge project of like organizing all of my kids' stuff into plastic boxes. So they can just take them with them.

I feel like that was very healing. And like that sort of the final touches on it where I bought these like fancy boxes, not super fancy, but like--it was a hard project to figure out. Like a box that would be see through but big enough to hold like a lot of the stuff but small enough to be--that it wouldn't be too heavy because it's a lot of like papers and photos and stuff. And I just organized it so perfectly that I felt like, yeah, I just felt like it was--it was almost like a work of art. Like, this is it.

149 I'm ready, like I can let go of your childhood. And I feel like that moment only happened because of this conversation.

It's really true. Something changed in my life because of having an opportunity to talk about this. And I'm grateful for it.

-MINNIE

It was nice to revisit the how meaningful my dad's role was in my life.

Absolutely I feel incredibly safe (in our talks together).

And then I never thought ever until the topic of your dissertation came or your study came to my awareness of the connection between my daughter's age, and the age I was when I lost my dad. I know it's powerful, I know there's something there, but I'm never quite sure exactly what it is.

This has been a very poignant time for me, to launch my only daughter. I had never made a connection between feelings that I may be having now, with my own parents when I was her age. That just was a revelation. I felt like I revisited that idea (of developmental arrest) as if it was new and with the full wave of feeling, and I think just being so plainly aware of it has helped me move a little bit further.

I'm just delighted to being able to help, just really—I really cannot put into words.

It has just been very, very meaningful and it feels like I have just gotten more

150 clarity, and more, and more resolution, and put some more pieces of the puzzles together. I feel more ready to launch myself, having to put a lot of this together.

Thank you so much.

-LUNA

Let’s see, so I saw the flier and I saw that it was for a (research project for Clinical Social Work) and I saw the, like the age range, the fact that it lost a parent at a certain age, and that I had, you know, just everything about it just as, like, I just felt I fit it.

I was kind of excited about it. I actually talked with a colleague, a school social worker colleague, and I said I might get to participate.

-MARIT

Well, I think this is important research and even when I was in graduate school. I was when we’re studying adult development, there’s absolutely nothing about how loss of a parent at an early age changes this entire trajectory. That really caught my attention and I thought that it was a scenario that really needed to have more research on it, it because it was completely false.

I actually have been thinking about what you're doing this research about, as my daughter's 20 and that's the age that I was when my mother died.

-TAWNY

Yeah. So, I hope I helped you. I'm appreciative of you. I mean, this has really helped me kind of think about some stuff. It makes me want to go talk to my

151 mom. You know. Like I said earlier, I've always just chalked it up to - she doesn't, she was just on go-mode. There was no plan, you know. And maybe that's not a good assumption. Maybe she did have a plan.

It's kind of jolted me to like- you know, I'm going to make the time to do it this summer. She's turning 70 and you know, I do think a lot about if something happens to her, I would have a lot of regret, that I didn't do more with her. She's also got this disability that's causing her not to be able to walk. And so—I do also have this like fear of like, I'm so in the weeds with my own family and my own kids that I need to pause and go do something with her. That we are just spending some time together, you know. And so—t his talking has started a plan. So I think that would be a thought that I had not had before you and I were talking about this. So some good things are coming out of it.

-

MANDY

Conclusion The IPA method is commonly used to explore complex phenomena around nuanced issues of identity; thus it is well suited to this study, which sought deeper appreciation of a parent’s perspective of the launching process. A single open-ended question led into each interview, what followed were candid descriptions of lived experiences in the present and past, with stories often weaving between both periods.

The open structure of the interview allowed tracking of internal processes and for idiosyncratic storylines to emerge, better for discovering the truth of each participant as

152 they shared their personal descriptions of launch.

Immersion in the data included cyclical text reviews and notations, adding and revising thematic notes, an analytic process that included attending to recollections of the participant’s manner and demeanor, perceived feeling states, and other emotional registrations of the participant’s experience. Like in a clinical situation, empathy is considered to be a primary tool of data collection, and similarly here serves to inform the researcher in data interpretation (Kohut, 1959). In Chapter IV, the data (verbal quotations) were presented in thematic clusters, called organization themes, and showed common patterns of experiences that emerged, despite the subjective details being particular to each participant. Continued sorting and sifting of the data eventually distilled the psychoanalytic essence of the participants’ experience into the ‘findings’ of the study; the patterns that characterize psychological experiences for the group.

Thus, the ultimate findings were based on the researcher’s holistic experience of the participants during interviews, in addition to her own lived experiences and knowledge of theory–called a double hermeneutic process of meaning making (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009). From the immersion and in-depth consideration of the data set, five ‘findings’ were discerned in the course of review, which are listed in the table below and then summarized. Following this brief outline, a full discussion of these ideas in the context of existing theory, can be found in the following chapter, Chapter V. The findings put forth are meant to represent the overall quality of experiences seen by the majority of participants in this study; in some cases one or two participants may not be in sync with the majority.

153 Table #2 Summary of Findings 1. Parents experience child’s launch as an existential passage 2. Parenting ideal is to ‘be there’ 3. Parents feel ill-equipped 4. Parents reach a point of surrender 5. ‘Living through’ launch brings new opportunity to self

Summary of Findings From the data one sees the experiences of a group of parents who are in the midst of launching their child. This particular set of parents also experienced the prior death of their own parent, during their own launch. Some of their experiences seem ordinary, possibly common to many or most parents who are launching their children, and some have a coloration that seems shaded by earlier memories of loss. These comparisons and potential meanings will be considered in the following chapter as the findings are explored in relation to existing literature. An assertion regarding the findings is that there is a qualitative difference for these parents who have a sensitivity to loss, and that difference comes down to a matter of degree--that there is level of intensity and perception of raw affect in the mix of experiences that speaks to prior trauma in association with the developmental transition under study.

154

Chapter V

Discussion This study began with my interest in the dynamic interplay between parents and their children during the launching phase. Presently I am a mother of four children, all in a process of launching, which naturally brings back memories of my own experiences at that time of life including my mother’s unfortunate death by cancer when I was 20 years old. I am also a psychotherapist in private practice, working with individuals, couples and groups using a contemporary relational framework and I am an advanced candidate for the doctoral degree at the Institute for Clinical Social Work. My personal investment in the research topic called upon me to prepare before conducting the study, by exploring my own feelings and assumptions through therapy, consultation and journaling. During the interview process and subsequent analysis of transcripts, I took notes to track my personal reflections, responses, memories, feelings and dreams in association with the participant interviews and collected data.

Since there is relatively little literature available that explores the intra psychic experiences of parents as they are in the process of launching children, and minimal literature on experiencing the death of a parent at the launching stage of development or its impact over time, the motivation for this study was to learn from participants about the essence of both phenomena and any interactions. This study was formulated as an exploration of the phenomenon of launch from the parent’s perspective, for a group of

155 parents whose own parent died while they themselves were launching. Primarily we explored how they feel about the family shifts occurring now and about their role in those dynamics. Yet looking at these parent’s experience in particular allowed me to explore their earlier experience of loss and also their ideas about how a parent functions from multiple perspectives. This included the meaning made from the earlier experience of launching without a parent and how that shapes their values and expectations of events in the present.

As a clinician who subscribes to the usefulness of empathy as the tool of data collection, the interview process was unstructured and simply asked participants to reflect upon and share their affective experience from which themes could then emerge.

However my dedicated interest in their feeling life may have become somewhat of a symbolic encounter. A willingness and ability to witness their condition and our shared interest in their past was felt as significant, and made a new lived experience where there had long been a void. Perhaps this attention and sharing has set a new path in motion for us all.

Findings 1. Parents experience child’s launch as an existential passage 2. Parenting ideal is to ‘be there’ 3. Parents feel ill-equipped 4. Parents reach a point of surrender 5. ‘Living through’ launch brings new opportunity to self

Parents experience child’s launch as an existential passage.

During the course of three interviews, the participants described their current experience of launching their children today. With somewhat typical pride and

156 hopefulness the parents began by identifying external markers of change in their children, which seemed to indicate a growing independence; they also alluded to developing psychological and relational adjustments they noticed or anticipated. The participants named achievements of the phase, such as financial security and new social networks; beyond external accomplishments, like finding work and making a new home they also highlighted social-emotional milestones, such as: making decisions, taking initiative, being generous. For many of their kids these fairly normative, expectable changes toward functional adulthood were indeed happening in due course, and brought unconflicted pleasure to their parents (Kloep and Hendry, 2010).

As the conversation deepened however, participants went on to recount some vulnerable experiences they have felt during the vicissitudes of daily living, as their children grow up and entered the launching phase. They presented hardships, which (for Minnie, Tawny, Pricilla and Mandy) included increased frequency of arguments, feelings of anger and frustration; as well as considerable worry over what they felt were their kids’ bad decisions, or bold and reckless behaviors. Except for one participant (Luna), all others said that one or more of their kids were struggling emotionally, and in response they felt deeply troubled, even fearing impending tragedy. Luna, who did not immediately fear for her daughter’ wellbeing, instead felt ‘agony’ and worry for herself, saying she felt awash in a powerful despair. Both Pricilla and Mandy confided that they each have sons who have been hospitalized for drug use, and they fear their sons’ suicide.

Minnie, as well as Marit have each faced extreme issues with at least one of their three daughters (depression, runaway, drugs, adult entertainment, need for homeschooling,

157 anxiety, phantom pregnancy/pseudo-blindness), which have raised their concern--not only for their daughter’s ability to thrive, to outright fears that they won’t survive.

During the course of the interviews on launch, several participants seemingly deviated from the stated topic of inquiry, delving into stories of health crises they themselves have experienced in past years. The frequency of these citations began to suggest a theme related to this question of viability: Marit was hospitalized in her late 20s; after a minor car accident she was thought to have a rare spinal disease, which was later ruled out. Then Luna reported having been in close proximity to three suicides during her 20s, the deaths of family members or close friends - and said that she also suffered 4 miscarriages before she was able to carry her daughter to term; Minnie reported having been diagnosed with a rare blood disorder in her early 30s, where she feared for her life, but which was successfully treated and resolved. It seemed these participants were directly and indirectly communicating fears around issues that had life and death intensity: would their kids make it and would they, themselves survive? Did these accounts, woven together, suggest a preoccupation with existence itself, and would this hold significance to family functioning in this group? In looking at these allusions almost as if they were responses on a TAT test (Thematic Apperception Test), the subject of the research in its broad question about launch became in essence, an interpretable prompt (Walker & Balk, 2013).

The salient takeaway from these narratives seems to be marked worries about safety and survival, which emerged as a theme. Though the details of each story differ, of course, the observation of intense activation was observed across the group of participants who all seem to be living in persistent fear of an extinction level event. Their

158 preoccupation around these issues is relevant for the study, potentially characterizing the phenomenon under review, as it is distinct from other reports we do have of the parent experience during launch or empty nest--usually more benignly distinguished as periods of ‘the blues’, with darker feelings sometimes accompanied by relief or even optimism (Bouchard, 2104; Green, 2010; Kloep and Hendry, 2010).

Though some disruption and related discomfort are likely to exist on a continuum in any family system during the changes experienced in launching transitions, yet these participants’ reactions registered as significant, notably anxious responses, that seem potentially linked to the prior death of a parent they experienced at the time of their own launch: a traumatic response. A traumatic response is distinct from a traumatic event; it is ‘not an event but the response to an event, and represents an enduring adverse response to an event’ (Allen, 2001, p. 6). Indeed, this would then imply that for these participants, the earlier death of a parent was traumatic, for “in children and adolescents, the death of a parent is almost always traumatic in the disruption it brings to the ongoing life of the family and the flooding of the child’s experience and integrative capacities” (Samuels, 1990, p. 22). While not many studies on parental death during launch exist, research has shown that the impact of any death is likely to be greater for young adults, because of the fragility of self at this time of life (Servaty-Seib & Taub, 2010). Many studies have focused on the effects of parental death during childhood and perhaps those findings are somewhat applicable to understanding the participants in the study who lost their parents before becoming emancipated.

The shared history for this group is that everyone has experienced the death of their own parent at a vulnerable time, during the years that they themselves were launching;

159 that is, during a process that leaves them somewhere “in between” childhood and adulthood (Arnett, 2015). Arnett’s research conducted specifically on the impact of divorce during emerging adulthood showed measurable hardship for those without at least one parent (Arnett, 2015). Perhaps this corroborates an assertion that likewise, a secure base was meaningfully unavailable for the participants in this study who lost their parent during launch due to death many years ago. Instead of seeing launch for their child as merely an optimistic time of finding oneself, of functioning independently with satisfaction and purpose, the present finding depicts a set of parents who are experiencing their child’s launching time as ‘an existential passage’ where life itself is at stake. This morbid emphasis suggests that for the parents there is either ongoing disorganization, or renewed upset, as their traumatic history is triggered by their child’s launch in the present.

Colarusso studies of intrapsychic development paid close attention to the importance of ‘time sense’ in the maturational processes, and in relation to reality testing as a child grows; he also wrote about risk if one faced the insecurity of early parent death, equating such an event with the loss of potential for an essential sense of internal safety (Colarusso, 1998). Along these lines, more recently, Balk, who has studied adolescent bereavement extensively, concurs with the notion that adolescents are more vulnerable to encountering any death at this particular time of their life. To the extent that ‘leaving home’ requires a confidence in the notion of relative safety then, an untimely parent death messes with that expectation at a critical moment (Balk, Walker & Baker, 2010).

Specifically, this group of parents could be thought of as carrying an internalized traumatic off-time encounter with death, where they were forced to comprehend an

160 absolute finality before they were emotionally and cognitively mature enough to process it (Colarusso, 1998). Trauma is defined psychoanalytically as: A breakdown that occurs when the psychic apparatus is suddenly presented with stimuli, either from within or without, that are too powerful to be dealt with or assimilated in the usual way. A postulated stimulus barrier or protective shield is breached, and the ego is overwhelmed and loses its mediating capacity. A state of helplessness results, ranging from total apathy and withdrawal to an emotional storm accompanied by disorganized behavior bordering on panic. Signs of autonomic dysfunction are frequently present (Moore &Fine, 1990, p. 199).

Given the nature of dissociated affect, a common byproduct of a traumatic experience and particularly so when unprocessed, then the question that naturally follows is how this affect might appear in the family system of these participants later on in life, such as when they are the parents and their own children are launching. Presumably the children of these participants are impacted by their parents’ mindset and level of functioning, and psychoanalytic theory supports the notion that trauma is potentially transmitted inter-generationally (Faimberg, 2005).

Thinking of launch today with raised awareness of social-contextual interconnectivity and mutual influence within family systems, so it follows that a range of feelings might be happening simultaneously for the parents of launching children (Kins, Soenens and Beyers, 2013). As a child’s autonomous strivings overthrow the existing order in a family, these upheavals of authority will possibly feel uncomfortable, especially so for the parents; and yet presumably such normative changes prove

161 manageable with adequate coping skills. Dilemmas that arise in the usual family around letting go and subsequent life choices the children make are sometimes met with accompanying angst or consternation, but minimal serious drama (Arnett, 2015; Kloep and Hendry, 2010).

Empty nest studies have found a range of parental feelings, frequently sadness, after children leave, as parent’s roles are reorganized; other noted themes include ease or pride once feelings of loss have been mitigated (Bouchard, 2014). Some mother’s go so far as to describe the experience of children’s leaving home as acute sorrow, akin to bereavement, which must be worked through in a course of adjustment (Green, 2010).

This study looked specifically at the parent’s experience of launching their children in a broad sense, and the resultant data yielded expressions of feeling across a spectrum of emotions that included sadness, among others like anger, worry and personal insecurity.

Insofar as a ‘home’ is understood as a co-created milieu, and an intense quality of amorphous fear was observed in this group (these parents seem to be triggered in their present experience of launch) there is possibly a concurrent emotional resonance happening in their children’s experience (Hoffman, 1992). Families with catastrophic life events in their histories have been shown to feel an impact later, one that becomes apparent during the vulnerability of reorganizations and life transitions such as launch. If their internal cognitive working models, affected by past trauma, do in some ways shape parental reactions today, then this sort of intergenerational influence would appear to yet be understudied (Love and Murdock, 2004). This research attempts to address this need, raising awareness on how parents’ functioning in their roles may possibly impact their children’s home-leaving processes (Mitchell & Lovegreen, 2009).

162 So what is the quality of experience for the kids of these participants, who must sense their parents’ constant perception of danger? While some turbulence is expectable in any family during adolescent transitions, it seems imperative to be curious about the underpinnings of these struggles facing these particular families, especially in the context of the parents’ reported fear and the potentially complex meaning of fear in these systems. These parents have described their children as experiencing troubling emotional states and behaviors, and to the extent that we accept their reports as accurate, can we wonder if on some implicit level the kids are responding to their parents’ perceived fears - out of awareness? Perhaps there is some way to understand the confluence of these conditions as linked (Faimberg, 2005).

This study was designed to expand the understanding of any psychological interplay in the parent-child dynamic during launch, which may facilitate or otherwise impact these family transitions. Using the parent’s account of their experiences has been a way to make a foray into this relational space to explore the potential impact of prior death and therefore, the transmission of trauma.

Parenting ideal is to ‘be there.’

Once their parent died, no participant recalled an instance of feeling they could rely on their surviving parent for physical or emotional support. For Minnie and Tawny, their two surviving fathers remarried immediately, making new lives apart. Of the four mothers who survived their spouse, only one dated and remarried, and though all members of this group stayed in contact with their mothers, participants did not receive help from their mothers in navigating their own grief, or in their transition into their own

163 adult lives. This condition, described by Hagman as ‘double parent loss’ is particularly damaging to a developing individual, who is then left to manage their grief, and growth, without sufficient supports (Hagman, 1993).

In the recollected accounts of launch, these parent participants described how they were essentially launching alone, prematurely relying on only themselves, even sometimes tasked with taking care of younger siblings as a parent would. This is far from Kohut’s (1984) description of the optimal ‘selfobject milieu’ necessary for a child’s growth, or ongoing psychological health. For continued development and to thrive, their parents or another adult substitute were needed, to attend and providing a stable, receptive, nurturing and attuned selfobject matrix (Leone, 2007). However, instead, the individuals in this study say they became de-centered from their own personal agenda at launch, and reported being left to scrape themselves together, to somehow find a way forward, disconnected from the earlier life they had known. Unmoored, a few forged families of their own right away, or worked at career-seeking briefly, before finding a mate and having children. Their aim seems to have been focused on practical matters, surviving in a physical sense, and making a new home.

Arnett claims that during emerging adulthood, ‘self-centeredness’ is an important requisite for moving through the stage successfully; this experience was notably missing for participants of the study during the time of their own launching (Arnett, 2015). These participants all achieved physical separateness from their home of origin, and created “successful lives” by the usual accounting of earlier theorists looking primarily at external signals of achievement. But less clear is how they may have lost out on other, internal potentials of selfhood as they came through the launch process without a parent

164 or other parent figure (Shane, 1990; Stolorow, 1992; Leone, 2007). In times of grief, we now know that mourning happens interpersonally; we no longer believe that the aim of mourning is to simply detach, rather, a modern understanding of mourning is that process must transpire, of coming to know the unique meaning of the lost relationship, and integrating this sense and the loss into one’s personal narrative. Hagman described the ‘role of the other in mourning’ as multifold: a facilitator who must help acknowledge the reality of the loss and work though shock, hold the affects, and help with symbolization, which means putting it all into words. In the absence of safe, supportive relationships to perform these needed selfobject functions, this process is nearly impossible, and leaves the aggrieved with raw, dissociated experiences which potentially become disavowed self-states (Hagman, 1996; Ringel & Brandell, 2012).

This kind of rich interpersonal environment, had it been available, might have facilitated an adaptive grieving process, and continued the launching with a different outcome for these participants. In order to try and assess the meaning participants were actually able to make from the meager support in their former lived experiences, and to know how they carry their loss today, consider their articulated values for themselves now as parents as clues (Palombo, 1991). When asked about their role as parents in launch, they clearly expressed a desire to take good care of their children, a passionate wish to provide and protect with care, and most of all an intention of staying connected.

This group placed a profound emphasis on facilitating a gentle, peaceful, joined transition for their kids, summed up here as parents “being there”. In hearing their ideals for facilitating launch for their own children, the message implicitly conveys their informed

165 perspective of the destructive impact of permanent separation, as something to avoid at all costs.

Their ideals for launch have manifested as a “negative model”, meaning their model is derived from their past experience and then constructed to be the opposite from what they knew and lived as they themselves were going through launching stage. To contra indicate former feelings of abandonment and aloneness, their present ideal as parents is to ‘be there’ for their kids, to facilitate and support, and to move from a parentchild orientation of relating to a partnership.

This sounds relatively harmless, hardly strange and in some ways it even sounds fairly typical; some might go so far as to say that a parent’s investment in the child’s world is necessary for emancipation to an adult level of psychological independence, and can only occur when the adolescents’ striving is supported and sponsored by their parents (Bloch, 1995). Again though, the stated values of these participants come with affect residue, and so raised a question about the meaning and impact of such intensity. For the interviewer, these communications were perceived as affect laden, sometimes urgent, and the participants’ best intentions perhaps belied an unspoken subtext. In essence, was another message getting conveyed, along with the more conscious cognitions around being a good parent, which is: the most important thing is that you don’t die. The communication that there is something terrible to fear, becomes a secret message underlying all the positivity (Faimberg, 2005).

Proper support at the time of their acute loss, in the context of a trusting relationship, might have yielded a more integrated outcome for the participants, with raised awareness and an intact language process around their loss. Perhaps the degree of

166 need would be different today and thus their values might sound less urgent, more conscious, more nuanced (Hagman, 1996). However, as earlier grief was minimally processed it is present as a felt encounter during the interviews, such that one wonders how it must be felt at home, in daily life. These participants have had little experience handling intense emotions, as by their own account prior grief or related symptoms were medically treated (Ringel &Brandell, 2012). Not only did they miss needed support during powerfully felt emotions of loss, but they also missed processing all the other vicissitudes of this life stage and were deprived a safe and reliable home base (Arnett, 2015).

If these participants had had parents along the way, perhaps they would be functioning differently now in terms of their own sense of themselves as adults. In Hagman’s book, on New Mourning (2016), a few articles address the important role of the ‘other’ in mourning processes and furthermore, the impoverished state of a child with double parent loss; the child is left without object, or selfobject to help mitigate the loss of the object, and they assert that this magnitude of loss has hobbling consequences developmentally (Hagman, 1993; Shane & Shane, 1990). Indeed, these participants spent their early adult years piecing their lives together, finally landing in homes they created for themselves, in a somewhat rehabilitative gesture. Marian Tolpin identified regressive behaviors as actually adaptive strivings, when they are constructive attempts at getting thwarted narcissistic needs met. As such, while one might argue that the ‘decision’ to start a new family before these participants were quite grown themselves is potentially misguided, instead, by shifting the lens and focus on the ‘forward edge’ interpretation of events, we might see this maneuver as likely to be useful toward their ultimate well-

167 being, given the alternatives. As young adults, they identified with their missing parents by becoming parents themselves, which got them situated in a family romance once more (Tolpin, 2002).

Given the Shanes’ perspective on object and selfobject loss when a parent dies as creating a void in the family and for the grieving individual, then this issue of identifications and roles seems deserving of further consideration. Have the children of these participants, got some potential to replace the deceased parent/other parent, in service of their parents’ psychological needs? What is the likely fate of such an arrangement, if there is a reversal on some level, of parent-child roles? And of course, what happens later on to this new ‘needed relationship’ when it becomes the child’s time to leave the home and move on (Stern, S. 1994)?

Participants recounted their early years as parents with warmth and joy, a hopeful time. Having young children at home in their care was portrayed as a fairly rosy picture that somehow turned murky as their children’s ambitions brought new friends and new locales into view. When these parent participants were young people themselves, and lost their parents, their helplessness in the face of death was one significant dimension of their own personal needs, which went unattended by adults in their world; it follows that they would feel destabilized at any harbinger of that former helplessness. As an antidote to that worry, it naturally follows that they would strive to maintain control over their household, to contain and protect themselves from feared (and remembered) harm.

Despite their genuine and professed excitement for their kids’ growth and pride in their capabilities, it follows that as parents these participants might only be able to convey a message mixed with worry, likely felt as constricting to the child. As inevitable

168 conflict stirs, and since strivings and conflicts are perceived as confusing or threatening in this system, then participants end up feeling helpless, which speaks to the carryover of earlier unaddressed grief. Perhaps it is split-off anxiety, which then laces their simple edicts for a peaceful and co-operative transition. How can we imagine that the kids respond to such implied or expressed limitations? We could not ask them directly in this study, but their parents’ reports of extreme behavior indicate that some of these children seem to be engaging in their parents’ worst nightmares. Could this be interpreted as a pushback against a sense of being over-controlled? Are they unconsciously acting out the fears and anxiety, on an unspoken cue? In proving the limits of their own abilities by going to the very edge, are they trying to meet their strivings for growth, at the same time giving all those in the system a chance to work through these fears with a new outcome?

Their behavior may be serving some need of the parents or the group--sometimes at the expense of taking great risks, they implicitly pose a worthy challenge, ‘let’s all survive, this time?’ (Faimberg, 2005).

Enactment (Aron, 2003) is a clinical term that refers to a behavioral sequence of expressed unconscious material that needs to be worked into awareness. This follows from the belief that unformulated experiences need expression and their expression is an attempt to undo a psychological ‘stuckness’ that is acting as a block to healthy mental functioning (Stern, S. 1994). In this parental group, their preoccupation with death and their fear is being brought to the child, who is approaching the same transition where disaster struck. Despite intentions to support their child’s growth, instead, fear is possibly being transmitted intersubjectively (Stolorow & Atwood, 1992), the exact opposite from what the parents would hope to bring to their child, and also the opposite

169 from what the child does need. The parents are unaware of their infringement, and how in their fluctuations they are not maintaining the role of parent in the steady way that is essential for successful development of the young adult (Blos, 1979).

Interpersonally it presents the children with a bind, for then their own strivings and growth are registering to all in the family as an incomprehensible threat to their parent, who clearly cannot manage; and as a result, their own growth feels even more risky than it would otherwise. On one hand they hear encouragement and expressed confidence, but then, another message bleeds through: don’t leave, because the world is scary and bad things happen.

When in enough trouble, these mothers have resorted to calling for outside help to support themselves and their kids, just as they were shown how to do--when their parent was sick or died, the doctor was called to medicate grief. While this appears on one hand to be a cycle of repeated medication of affect, and the employment of external support systems in lieu of internal stability; for purposes of discussion, and still using a ‘forward edge’ interpretation (Tolpin, 2002), one might also say that the very act of identifying a problem and advocating for help from other authority figures has likewise been an important adaptive development, for it keeps the system open and available to receiving input (Bowen, 1985). The participants are overwhelmed and so reach out for help, which is ultimately adaptive, as they are striving to get their family systems regulated, using new relationships to meet old selfobject needs. At this same moment, the children who have heretofore been functioning as selfobject containers for the grief and anxiety of their parents are outgrowing their usefulness in that role.

170 To use a relational lens for further analysis, as the kids persist in their growth, they are now disrupting the system, triggering both old and new fears, since their growth and movement is perceived as a potentially dangerous repeat. In their infant-child positions they were the new objects, potentially meeting the relational needs of their parent, in lieu of their deceased/absent parents (old object). This configuration may have served the group well for a time, allowing consolidation and new life experiences for the parents to take form; to this extent the children and family life together have presented healing opportunity. Now, at launch, they are possibly bringing yet another new opportunity, which only at first seems unwelcome and threatening. Once again, these kids become receptacles for their parents’ projections, and once again they are functioning as both the old object (death/parent) and a new object with a chance for a new outcome. They are giving these parents a chance to reformulate traumatic experience through a new relationship wherein the outcome is survival, not death; and yet this opportunity came into being accompanied by severe angst (Stern, S. 1994, Boston Change Study Group, 2013).

While these parents had missed an earlier chance at reflective meaning making at the time when their parent died, it is somewhat tragic to consider that a dysfunctional silence has continued to shroud their emotional life in many ways, to the present time.

All participants indicated surprise at seeing my flier, and seemed to have had their interest piqued by the idea that anyone would even recognize their experience or feelings as something worth talking about.

Even though each participant identified themselves as having been in a course of therapy at some point during their adulthood, yet not one had made an explicit connection

171 between the illness/death of their parent and their reported ongoing depression and anxiety. While they all acknowledged pain, and attempts to avoid pain, following the death of their parent, they did not necessarily think of themselves as either having grieved or not grieved. Every participant spoke of having changed course several times during college, either switching schools or taking time off before graduating - oftentimes in direct response to what was happening at home, helping with their parent’s healthcare or attending the deathbed. But they did not consider this significant, nor attribute meaning to these impositions for their own development. They were not curious about whether this disjointedness made an impact, often simply citing ‘confusion’ as they recalled memories from that time, as they were figuring out their own lives. They said they have not talked reflectively before about the death of their parent, and that was one reason they took interest in becoming a participant in this study--somebody finally asking them about their feelings. Only Tawny said she had felt prior resonance with the topic being raised, as she recalled reading developmental theory in graduate school, feeling that her story was different; she didn’t fit the theory, because of having no parents.

During the interviews the participants at times conveyed a feeling of ‘there is nothing to say’, suggesting a condition of being cut off from any sense of meaning in their experience. With this came a felt sense of desperation, much like quicksand, as they declared the recognition that grief is not gone; feelings of confusion and despair were felt in the countertransference. In relation to these conflicting feelings perhaps their highminded ideals for “being there” to facilitate a perfect launch were also somehow understandable as existing on multiple levels. How might these ideals be defending

172 against deep feelings of grief, aloneness and nothingness that represent the parents’ offtime death?

This study set about an exploration of feeling life that honors multi-layered scaffolds of meaning as part of a humanistic effort at understanding, driven by a belief that the complexity of these situation demands our attention in the clinical encounter. It is important to maintain respect for presentations of unresolved grief as a separate diagnostic category, rather than just seeing individuals superficially as manifesting anxiety and depressive disorders (Pivar & Field, 2004). In 2013 the addition of a DSM category was established, Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder (PCBD) and in 2018 the ICD11 included a related diagnosis, Prolonged Grief Disorder. Both of these developments point to an ongoing and evolving interest in the complexity and subjectivity in grieving processes and to that end, this finding in this study has implications for social work practice, underscoring the need for attention to grief work, both at the time of loss and along the life course.

Furthermore it serves as a reminder to clinicians to investigate multiple potentialities in family dynamics, as the patient is not equipped to arrive and present their problem straightforwardly. These parents have had an ambiguous loss to the extent that the death of their parent has gone virtually unrecognized, nor symbolized (Hagman, 1996) and so it is up to the clinician to be curious in the process of conceptualization.

Finally, clinicians must not only be aware, but also come prepared to do the work of encountering painful affect, as the passing years do not necessarily diminish the felt impact of raw unprocessed psychic pain. Without these measures, the silence, which we recognize as its own trauma, will be enacted and perpetuated.

173

Parents feel ill-equipped.

The participants in the study expressed feeling stressed as they have tried to parent through the turmoil of this life phase: emotional conflicts with children, differences of opinion and/or agenda, and the resulting fears and sorrow in response to children’s choices. As these challenges arose, the participants reported feeling overwhelmed, and some expressed despair that they have ‘no model’ for how to even do this--though, in fact they do have an experiential model. Their prior lived experience of launching during which time their parents either died or withdrew, has given them an unfortunate model of disorganized affects; feelings of loss and confusion, absent parental guidance, and that is the scant internal resource they have to draw on today. Stolorow, in his work on trauma within the realm Intersubjectivity theory has articulated this notion that traumatic death can be ‘shattering’ to the self, and said that it is only in the context of healing relationships that a sense of self can be reconstituted. From that perspective, the participants’ disorientation might be understood as complex processes that are actually expressions of their memory bits and unresolved grief (presenting as anger, irritability, sadness, frustration, fear), artifacts from the earlier launch period when they were sorely isolated (Stolorow, 2007).

These women appeared superficially as though they ‘moved on’ after their parent died; they are functioning ‘well enough’ and have made lives for themselves. Yet perhaps they have been carrying something silently, as participants noted during their talks with me that they felt surprised by their depth of feeling, and by their own language as they started to speak with intensity about their needs, their anguish. As we began to

174 explore memories and feelings together, they expressed feeling unsure of themselves even in the process of telling their own stories; Stolorow (2007) refers to this condition as “ontological unconscious”, a post traumatic, body-based self experience that is less accessible to articulation. In reflecting on their parenting, they felt regret that perhaps they are not quite the sturdy supporters for their kids that they had wished to become.

These participants believe wholeheartedly that they have an important function to perform as parents, and feel compelled to relationally manage the reorganization of launch, where the desired outcome is viable adulthood for their transitioning child.

Though this interpersonal process is not explicitly stated in the literature, it is an idea they propagate through stated values: they feel accountable to their kids and comfortably assert there is a two-way dynamic at play.

Yet, parent-child dynamics specific to launch have not been parsed in the literature to any great extent in terms of interpersonal mechanisms, processes or tasks. One relatively recent exception is perhaps in the negative, as when there is “failure to launch” then sometimes the parents’ role and function has been examined more closely; likewise in the example of helicopter parents, where parental anxiety creating dependency in the system has been seen as a factor that could impair the child’s leaving process (Lebowitz, 2016; McCullough & Rutenberg, 1988; Mitchell, B. & Wister, 2015).

In a recently released parenting book, The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired (2020), psychiatrist Daniel Siegel and Tara Bryce identify how parents have an important role during childhood, encapsulating ideas from the literature of attachment that communicate in a catchy, modern way the importance of ‘showing up’ (Bryson & Siegel, 2020). They

175 outline four ways that parents’ function to provide psychological essentials to their kids for optimal growth; for a child to thrive they need to be safe, seen, soothed, and secure.

These factors, summarized, sound similar to the participants’ ideals of ‘being there’, and likewise they too imply the portent of an absent parent. According to Siegel, a parent who ‘shows up’ over time, lays groundwork for the launching stage, as security is presumably internalized by then.

For the participants in the study though, their parents did not ‘show up’ at launch, they died or left/became incapacitated; this lived deprivation is how the participants have come to know that parents still matter very much during this transitional time. The sense of themselves as “ill-equipped” parents, held true across all six subjects’ accounts, regardless of which of their own parents died, how they died, or the quality of the relationship to the deceased. While the sense of deficit arises in our discussions about their present parenting, more likely they feel a more diffuse sense of enfeeblement, coming about in connection with the devastating loss of their parents.

Their struggles have been multifold: the trauma of an early encounter with death, while they were immature; an added problem of lack of support/grief processing; and finally, the missing function of a parent at launch (Shane & Shane, 1990). Certainly once their parent died, they were not launched while feeling safe, seen, soothed nor secure, as Siegel (2020) recommends. The phrase ‘lost launch’ is useful, to denote the participants’ sense of their own missed chances and stalled development, having transitioned largely alone. When the death of their parent occurred, no other support system, outside of peers in some cases, was in place; some even poignantly noted (Luna, Tawny, Mandy) how they felt significantly isolated and alienated from their friends, who could not relate to the

176 death of a parent at their young age (Palombo, 1988). They did not process grief in the company of others, or put their experiences of loss into language, which might have resulted at least in some cohesive narrative as an inner structure to use in the process of moving forward (Ringel, 2012, Stolorow, 2007).

What participants described was how after their mother/father died at such a tenuous developmental juncture, their time having parents was abruptly terminated.

After that, ‘things just happened’ according to Mandy, and life seemed to fall into place without a sense of their having any real agency in decisions. Without material resources or a home base, or even guidance, they scraped together plans. Some of them (Tawny and Pricilla) had experiences of exploring and trying on career options, as Erikson (1956) had suggested, but they also said it was a truncated and stressed version of this ideal.

Three (Minnie, Luna, and Mandy) ended up marrying the person they were dating at the time their parent died, and the others met their spouse within just a few years, after minimal explorations and feeling vaguely that they forewent other dreams to establish security; fairly soon after their parents’ death most all had moved along to the next stage of their lives by either getting married or becoming pregnant.

Their own process of psychological separation from their parents was derailed by the consuming experience of what was occurring in their family, around the pressing matter of parental death. Though they each exited their family homes, in some ways they seem very much to have remained emotionally fused with that turbulent ‘home life’, paused developmentally at the time of death. In this way, they feel stuck (Luna has felt 19, most of her life) interminably seeking some fulfillment from their own parent who died; a consequence of this is seen in ongoing identifications with their child-self who

177 feels ‘robbed’ and the subsequent confusion of roles they bring to parenting, as they sometimes wish to be their own child. This manifests as longing (Minnie, Luna) for time to sit and chat with their daughters, in the ways they can never recapture with their own parent; or sometimes hot anger bubbles up (Tawny, Mandy) along with exclamations expressing the sentiment: you don’t know how lucky you are, you have a mother/me.

Their own kids are now needing to establish a sense of trust in themselves as separate beings and these parent participants, who feel they have a role to play, cannot fully lend themselves to this process; instead of being a steady and secure base, the participants feel a prevailing post-traumatic uncertainty, where “everything seems precarious and subject to sudden destruction and chaos” (Ringel, 2012, p. 73). No spoken sentiments can adequately convey an internal calm and courage when it is not a known and lived experience; rather there is a powerful pull toward chaos, and repetition of the traumatic separation (Faimberg, 2005). Given the struggles the families are facing and our knowledge of how trauma can be transmitted between generations, particularly when there is unconscious pain related to trauma, then prospects for the participants and their children might appear grim.

However, theoretical counterpoints that offset foreclosure on these families’ possibilities for the future do exist. At any given juncture, there are multiple forces in play, and just as surely as regressive pulls might bring about one outcome, I believe in the potential for lived experiences in therapy, or in the intimate family circle, to bring about improved outcomes–in particular for those who have been derailed by a later stage trauma, and have had a good enough relational foundation of experience. Intersubjective theory asserts that psychological life is a series of “bidirectional influences between inner

178 states and environmental factors, between the inner reality of the child and the relational bonds with caregivers.” This philosophy of intersubjective fields was articulated as an essential truth of psychological existence, and clinically it is used to understand trauma as treatable in the context of healing relationships (Ringel, 2012, p. 73; Stolorow and Atwood, 1992). For families it does present as a hopeful idea that ongoing interactions between the parents and the parented might be useful, in such a way that cognitive restructuring, or new “organizing principles,” will allow for new expectations to take hold (Stolorow, 2007).

Likewise the model presented by Bendicsen’s notion of the transformational self, situated in a post-modern paradigm, also considers human development to be ever evolving and motivated by the seeking of regulatory experiences and facilitating environments. He sees growth phases as unfolding along a generalizable timetable, and yet Bendicsen also acknowledges sequential flexibility and generously suggests a lifelong opportunity for growth and learning. Even though in the prior discussion we established that these parents began their families before having psychologically launched themselves, they might yet find ways to right their developmental path in the course of other interpersonal dynamics. Bendicsen saw adult selfhood as a process of becoming integrated (which he sees as a function of brain development, attachment strivings, and systems theory) and according to him, humans are complex adaptive systems in an ongoing process of construction and reconstruction (Bendicsen, 2013).

We have seen these participants resourcefully adapt emotionally, insofar as they created a new family dynamic as a haven; in becoming parents themselves, they usefully ‘joined’ psychologically with their own parents in role. They have also organized

179 internal experiences of their lost parent, to maintain a sense of attachment to the lost object, as a source of comfort. Examples of the creative adaptations they discussed included (Minnie) ‘fantasy parents’ who they consult in their minds, and imagine the answers; (Tawny) a souvenir as a touch point; (Minnie, Mandy) believe their parent is an angel who guards or guides them; (Marit) borrows a sense of safety from her belief in afterlife; (Minnie, Pricilla) use self-talk, a mantra or mindset they have formulated to use for direction or relief. Congruent with Hagman’s coping ideal, these internalized protective constructs have become selfobject surrogates by sustaining lost attachments beyond the grave. To acknowledge the meaning of the lost parent relationships and actively maintain ties through these constructs, is considered to be a healthy adaptation (Hagman, 2016).

The psychological constructs are soothing for the participants, which according to Siegel (2020) is a basic and essential parenting function that they have been missing since their own disrupted launch. Furthermore the ability to self-care in this way demonstrates a mentalizing capacity in the participants, which, along with examples of their mindfulness in parenting, show an innate potential for growth and organizing new information. These are markers Bendicsen identifies as indicators of affective regulatory capacity and show potential for making best use of interpersonally driven developmental opportunities (Bendicsen, 2013).

For the participants their present work will be to achieve yet another shift in identifications, as the kids grow and leave home. Perhaps in this next transformation they will be able to allow ‘separation’ from their child with a new sense of the safety in aloneness that we consider to be trust. The destabilization occurring for participants due

180 to their children’s needs and strivings during launch likewise makes room for intrapsychic and interpersonal shifts, which to the uninitiated might look and feel quite alarming due to intensity of affect. While these opportunities have been presented so far as potentials available in the relational configurations of families, clearly the advantages of therapeutic assistance along such a course cannot be understated; in particular, a clinical setting with sensitivity to the needs of a complex family system, and grounded in awareness of the layered presentations of grief and development would be optimal.

Time has been passing, everyone in these systems is aging, and several participants reported having had to see their ‘other’ parent reach a point of decline, or even death; now is presenting an important time for sorting out to occur for time is limited. Even seeking membership in the group of interviewees for this study, a chance for reflection and input from others, shows the receptivity these participants hold for interpersonally influenced, progressive, meaning making efforts. Becoming reflective themselves, is deemed a mark of the onset of maturity (Bendicsen, 2013).

Parents reach a point of surrender.

As previously described, the parent participants in this study place high value on stability, closeness, and connection; understandable in the context of their prior traumatic loss. They come to this life phase without knowing experientially that struggles-including interpersonal struggles and issues of control--are a natural (not dangerous) part of this launching process. In response to the challenges in their homes during this time, some report experiencing confusion over what are appropriate boundaries, and have

181 noticed their own tendency to protect, overcompensate or control in their role as a mother.

Parenting young children called for protectiveness, yet growing children naturally seek space of their own. Arguably this distance is needed for a maturing child to learn, to try out his or her own skills, and eventually acquire a sense of trusting oneself (Arnett, 2015). The shift from providing protection and guidance, to stepping back and trusting their child is proving to be a tough balance for this group to negotiate. Participants say they feel ‘confused’ and concerned about managing boundaries, and have a pressing desire to ‘do it right’ or in the best way possible; they allude to their underlying fears, or intense worries about harmful outcomes if they “mess up”. These parents did not have the experience of feeling safe as a separate self in their own young adult experience, having lost dependable adults that they had trusted. When they left home without parental support it felt decidedly unsafe and these insecure feelings are likely connected to memories of the disrupted self states felt at the time of their parent’s death (Hagman, 1995).

Minnie and Mandy report feeling like they are ‘under surveillance’ now as parents, and worry constantly about getting in trouble, for some reason. Pricilla has her version of feeling “in the wrong” which for her is a haunting, guilty feeling. Though they come to their role with zeal, it seems they do not trust themselves as the parents--much less trust their children, and again, they communicate a prevailing sense of ‘high stakes’.

Is Pricilla’s sense of “guilt” informed by a memory of her leave-taking, after her father died? She has recalled feeling ‘sorry’ at abandoning her mother and siblings when she left home to study and work. At the time, perhaps she felt there was something ruthless

182 about her need to step away and advocate for her own ambition, when the others there were mired in a terrible grief. Was there some sense of survival guilt, as her life went on, in the face of her father’s demise and her mother’s loss (Hagman, Chapter 8, 1995)?

Minnie, too, has spoken wistfully about her mother’s inability to live on, expressing a poignant sorrow that feels apart from her own need to have a mother as an advocate.

For these participants it would seem that the space between them and the children, needed for successful launching, feels threatening. They are minding the boundaries vigilantly, whereas, had these parents acquired a sense of secure separation from their original homes previously, then their child’s leaving today might not feel so terrifying. In negotiations, they report new levels of friction in the form of arguments, fights erupting over changes in: how their child now prefers to schedule her own time, desires privacy, chooses new friends as confidantes in place of mom, enjoys a boyfriend. And as the kids are being drawn into recreational activities outside the family, or tell about a new wish to move away, or to study in another region, these pending options feel risky to the parents.

As we talked together on these subjects, feelings of grief were evident in seriousness of mood, the registration of raw emotion in the researcher, through observation of tears, narrative cadences or broken sequences, including silences, tensions, or jumbled disorganized speech. Though they are locating the danger outside and at far distances, in the form of drugs and other substances, sexuality, accidents, and other amorphous unknown perils; yet, the most imminent danger is really their own perception, a memory, and thus an inner threat that needs to be addressed for their own psychological emancipation and the benefit of their children’s process, too.

183 Earlier harmony in the house has become disrupted with the approaching “deadline” on what had felt like idyllic, contented family bliss, up to this time.

Heightened reactions are noted on both sides, and parents report a new sense of ‘not liking’ their child, of anger, and of attitudes that are ‘ugly’. With this sense of a divide, of difference, a notion of ‘meanness’ came up. Not that anyone is trying to be mean, they say, but the question of ‘shoving off’ comes up when Tawny talks about her frustration with her daughter over hurt feelings, and she likewise recalls her own mother being ‘bitchy.’ Likewise, Mandy brings up ‘cutting the cord’ with her daughter as a product of their fights, and Minnie spoke of distancing from her girls, emotionally retaliating once she felt rejected by them as they preferred friends to spending time together.

The pathos of the classical Oedipal crises with its’ dilemma of ‘kill or be killed’ is useful to consider as an underpinning in this exploration of maturation, with its painful issues of de-idealization and the struggles of succession. Reflecting on the data, there were a number of allusions to participants’ memories of anger or disappointment in their relations with their own parents, which might be relevant in consideration of their agitation today; for past conflicts with parents were not resolved and the relationships ended tragically in death or desertion. Two participants (Minnie, Tawny) were in a state of high conflict with their mothers in their final years of life. Two (Luna, Mandy) were in idealizing relationships with fathers, and two (Marit and Pricilla) were warm but distant, and reported some degree of frustration with that lack of closeness with their fathers. Any complaints they felt in their own relationships to the deceased were likely unexpressed at the time of death. We can think of these as normative conflicts around ambitions and strivings that possibly became concretized by the loss; if so, then what

184 purpose does ‘confusion’ come to serve as a possible expression of their ambivalence, guilt or fears around their own power, which may have become inhibited in conjunction with their parents’ death? Where might any frustration live now, and has it arisen in relation to their children’s more promising prospects at the time of separation and individuation?

One’s ability to tolerate difference in relationship is a mark of psychological wellness, even suggesting that conflict and difference are essential ingredients of healthy relationships; without which one can never fully be known (Benjamin, 1995). Kohut and others wrote that ‘optimally frustrated’ disruptions are needed in the parent-child relationship for a healthy sense of self to emerge, one that is rooted in reality and capable of being with others (Tolpin, 1971; Beebe & Lachmann, 1994). A set of papers by Winnicott from the 1950s set out similar criteria for the development of one’s sense of self, based in the capacity for awareness of the mother’s separateness. It is through coming to know the other (mother), that the basis of regard for others is established, and of mutuality (Winnicott, 1958). For Benjamin, who has been dedicated to exploring “difference” and its significance in the realms of love, sexuality, and aggression, optimally there is pleasure in difference. Benjamin asserts that mutual recognition is actually a quite nice experience and she attaches a fundamental experience of pleasure that gets linked to that moment. For this to occur one must essentially first recognize one’s separateness and a sense of relatedness can follow. The ‘moment of recognition’ is the emergence of capacity for play and partnership (Benjamin, 1995; Stern, D. 1985).

The participants in this study report current difficulty tolerating conflicts with their children, and seem averse to allowing expectable separations to take place. Because

185 of this, one might reflexively assume during a clinical assessment that there are underlying character issues, seeded far back from their early development; something that might or may not have been worked through during their own launch, but got thrown off course given the many problems in their selfobject milieu at the time their parent died.

Yet, rather than assume that the trouble they are having today is related simply to earlier seeded issues, or a problem with allowing separation related to an overinvestment in the child for selfobject needs unmet in early development, as an exercise in openness, consider this alternative or additive conceptualization.

For these participants were striking in their tender consideration of their children as individual people, and the interviews presented many moments of recognition of their kids’ unique personalities and needs. They did not seem to be parents who saw their children as extensions of themselves, as their accounts of their children’s plights were sensitive and nuanced. However, the data does suggest that a related issue prevails, in the here and now: the participants have been getting selfobject needs met by their children with regard to their post-traumatic stress. Insofar as they are being emotionally regulated by their investment in this present family relationship, it has served a containing function during the young family years (Stolorow, 2007; Boston Change Process Group, 2013).

The ‘illusion of control’ has served as a psychological construct that binds fear, and to the extent that such an organization has been keeping them intact, then the matter here may be more intimately connected to a fear of ‘letting go of control’ than ‘letting go of the child’. It is not so much that they want to keep their kids close, nor hold them from their due experiences, but perhaps their holding on tight represents true confusion as they strain to keep everyone safe, and do everything right.

186 In the midst of so many conflicts, the parents portrayed themselves as passionately dedicated to helping, steering or otherwise working things out for the benefit of their child; they pleaded, provided, tirelessly trying to make it all right, until they described a moment finally, in response to feeling overwhelmed and worn down by the tension, when they had to adjust their orientation and see that they had no more fight.

For a few it was more subtle, but nonetheless, they went from agonized fretting to ‘giving up,’ letting go,’ ‘stopping worrying.’ They had to surrender. And it was this shift: coming to this point of throwing their hands up in the air, yielding of control, this gesture of surrender, which seems to be the essence of launch. When they have given up control, it is a moment of realization that they as parents are left with only trust. It is not a trust that nothing bad will happen, but coming to the understanding that there are limits to what they can do, and in some form trusting that this is enough.

Is this salient recognition particular to this group, because of their own loss, at the time of their own launch; and related to a milestone regarding time-sense and reality that was missed previously (Colarusso, 1988)? This would be something to explore further and to contrast with the experience of parents who are launching their children, and who have not had the experience of prior parent loss at the time of their own launch.

However, for these participants, the acceptance of their own limits, their powerlessness, appears to be a concurrent maturational marker in the parent psyche, acquired as they launch their children. Relinquishment of the limits of their own power involves accepting a difficult and indisputable reality; surrender in this context symbolizes the establishment of a new boundary for these parents, who are finally letting go of the over-control reaction, which was in response to post-traumatic stress. In letting

187 go of the child, they are also finally letting go of the specter of their deceased parent, and perhaps able to resume grief from a more stable position. At this point they may be more equipped to come to peace with the idea of mortality, including their own. If this is the case, then the parent is psychologically alone (separate) for first time as an adult themselves, able to accept limits of death and reality.

With this shift of control would come a new opening; ideally an opportunity for the child to feel their own agency, competence, and even sense a new ability to give to others--including their parents. The new capacity for mutuality suggests an emergent partnership between parent and child and this felt sense is evidenced in the data, as parents talk about the pleasures of receiving care from their child, of forming a new partnership, of being able to speak to their own needs in a new way without causing harm. This feeling of a new sense of community with their grown children brings a reward of finally belonging, and of a secure base. Indeed, Benjamin asserts that intersubjectivity is its own reward and its own pleasure. The separateness of mother and child, and any two individuals for that matter, exists on a continuum and insofar as one must be separate to know that another mind exists, and can recognize you--and even be recognized in return--she asserts that this separateness and difference will optimally coexist in delightful harmony (Benjamin, 1995).

Participants do describe experiencing a glimpse of potential in the relationships with their children bringing optimism and joy. With the shifting roles comes a possibility for enhancement that feels generative and healthy. As they suffer and survive, parenting a child through the launch stage seems to present a new sense of what the relationship can bring--mutuality, and a new sense of being known and belonging. These participants did

188 not have a chance to resolve conflicts with their parents, be witnessed by their parents, or have the chance to discover the power of trust. New themes of peace, healing and hope are associated with a sense of what may now be possible in their own personal lives.

An assumption made in the course of this discussion has been that participants have been engaged with their kids in a compensatory process, to facilitate the achievement of something for themselves that was missed earlier in their own development due to their parent dying (Boston Change Process Group, 2013). While it may be that a reparative process within the intersubjective milieu of a family structure alone has merit and healing potential (Leone, 2007), my overarching intention in this discussion is to raise the clinicians’ awareness of interpretable dynamics that may be used in a clinical course, to expand ones potential for reaching a profound empathic understanding, which is considered the most significant mutative factor in the therapy process (Ornstein & Ornstein, 1996). This greater awareness and potential will hopefully diminish the specter of these families’ functioning being seen automatically as pathological.

‘Living through’ launch brings new opportunity to self.

These participants all greatly enjoyed becoming mothers and having young families, yet as their children grew and approached the launching stage, this very growth seems to have stimulated memories and fears of the parents’ own launching phase, the time when their own parent died. With kids leaving, old grief was reawakened, yet so was the potential for a different outcome: survival. In the process of ‘living through’ the challenging changes of family dynamics, something in their individual psychology has

189 shifted during this launch. Perhaps a new internal template has been made, as their organizing principles get reworked and they moved from a place of fearful dread to a place of greater acceptance of life’s vicissitudes. Within this process, an expression of their emergent need for personal development was perhaps the biggest surprise of the interview data. Due to the traumatic hardship of their own parents’ death during such an important transitional phase, these parents suffered a ‘lost launch’. Through new lived experiences in the family they created, and the launch of their own children came an opportunity for growth (Bendicsen, 2013; Hagman, 2016; Stolorow, 2007).

With the old, deeply buried feelings of grief getting perturbed during this launch, another separate but related perspective became visible; years and years of other losses, which were rooted in the original death experience, came into their view. With this new awareness and mourning process, the participants realized how they never did get to know their parent as an older adult, or be adequately witnessed by their parent as they grew, made choices, married and became a mother (Benedek, 1959). They did not get an experience of their parents as grandparents, and neither did their kids. They were never able to acknowledge their parent as a person, or to make up with them, forgive them, or to offer compassion. They were never able to join their parents, adult to adult.

Recognizing all of these losses meant coming into contact with a complicated new flavor of grief, and eventually with growing maturity is coming a new kind of acceptance that requires giving up on the hope for ever getting their needs met by their parents (Hagman, 2016). Luna said, grief is not gone, it will always be there. And yet alongside the child’s chaotic memories, felt as confusion, helplessness and ineptitude there is something more now to help them manage and explore. Participants talked wistfully about: the job I

190 never had, the man I once loved, shelving my chance to travel, missing my fullest sense of my own potential, a peaceful family life, what I might have been with just a little support. Now, with the foundation they have made for their own family, in some way serving to support them, the participants are able to venture into this more articulate, deeply felt grief space, which also seems to have a reflective capacity. Perhaps through identification with their children, who are now being adequately parented (by them), and who have a floor beneath them, comes a new potential for continuity and integration for themselves (Bendicsen, 2013).

If development for the participants had stalled, became stuck with the gum of unresolved grief, it is recently being loosened with the shifts occurring in this phase of their children’s maturation process, and they are living through it together. Like many other mothers who reach the empty nest years, some of the participants say they feel a new sense of energy as kids move on and time opens up; yet the deep meaning of the shift, the poignance of the loss, and so many layers of meaning are what distinguish this group’s experience from the ordinary launchers, as these participants felt mixed at best, and some felt merely sad and uncertain about what’s to come.

The literature on the empty nest explores the experience of parents who have come through the launching phase, and find themselves on the other side. One is never ‘not a parent’ but as individuals who no longer have children at home, there is often the feeling of a new kind of perspective, the potential of newfound time, and mental energy that is now available for oneself. Many parents who reach the empty nest feel mixed feelings, including sadness, at the loss of the child and nuclear family as it has been, yet

191 after a time of adjustment, the mixed feelings generally resolve toward optimism (Bouchard, 2014).

For these six participants who are currently in or coming through the launching phase, at some point during our interviews together we did move through their sorrow to arrive at a sense that something good is coming, ahead--felt as an opening--a sense of possibility amidst a range of emotions that could best be described as a poignant reflection. The mood felt complicated rather than buoyant or joyful, as we sweetly and tentatively played with ideas, unpacked their desires, considered their options for change.

Living through the fearful expectations in a relational context wherein new meanings are being made, seems to be bringing these parent participants into new relational configurations within themselves. To really come into one’s own, in unchartered territory, now living on beyond and without her parent, the emotional challenge is to modify the conceptualization of even the aforementioned internalized parents and go forth to take what is left of life, as central agents of their own destiny.

Minnie comes to realize that her fantasy mother cannot answer her questions because she did not live through this parenting stage, has no wisdom to share. And Mandy feels this stinging disappointment that her ‘ask’ of her angel-father does not carry potency as she wished for his protection. They remain loved and cherished internal objects, yet the participants must yield to a self-state where their longing is modified and they are willing to rely on themselves; this new sense of reality with its limits at the same moment opens up possibilities for participants and they are charged with an imperative to use the time they have left.

192 This symbolic shift for the mother is an opportunity for launching anew, and the participants seemed to feel cautiously optimistic about the potential of a recatalyzed process of authentically finding self. What they say they want for their kids is also what they want for themselves. To some extent their decision to volunteer to help in this study was like claiming their own space--perhaps finally a chance for visibility and viability.

The study is about parents launching children today, and it also attunes to a subjective sense of a ‘lost launch’ from a psychological perspective. The participants saw my flier and said - that’s me, I fit there. All remarked, how strange it felt as this subject was not something they usually talked much about, at all.

As Stern defines ‘now moments’ in his book, The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life, he tries to isolate and define intersubjective experiences that lead to meaningful change. He says that ‘presentness’ is key and that within a dynamic encounter there will be moments that are intersubjectively created as “moments of meeting.” Through mutual acknowledgement of shared experiences, these moments of recognition shape reality, as they become “a landmark reference point” in an individual’s narrative. To some extent, the power of a transferential role during the interviews gave our process together a creative significance of this kind. Recognition, as an outcome of our talking has set something in motion to counter the silence which was an important underlying mechanism of trauma transmission these participants have been living. Not only did these interviews allow participants to give voice to a new experience of self, as an agent and narrator; taking part symbolized their willingness to have a new process, as well as openness to joining kindred spirits through their affiliation with our group. Belonging, here, can be considered a particular kind of heightened experiential

193 moment, which by its very definition implies an indirect expression of unconscious material that gets ‘played out’ in a two-way, back and forth sort of communication that feels warm, conscious and connected and to that extent, immensely meaningful for these participants (Spence, 1982; Stern, D. N. 2004; Boston Change Process Study Group, 2013).

Before the interviews ended, all said that the experience felt deep and meaningful, and like a catalyst for some change in themselves. They expressed gratitude for the chance for talking and listening, and their sense of my care. Just as therapy work in a relational context is about putting together a narrative, and co-creating understanding and meaning out of lived experience, so this experience in the process of the study has possibly shifted something for the participants to consider further. Being witnessed has awakened awareness and motivated some action feelings for the participants and now is their time.

Conclusion This study explored the way a parent feels and functions during the developmental transition of launch. The inquiry paid special attention to the parent participants’ earlier parent loss at the time of launch, bringing curiosity about the impact of such a loss on the self and the ways such a loss might inform the interpersonal dynamics between the parent and their own child later. Though not much has been written specifically on a parent’s experience during the launch phase, existing developmental literature shows little evidence that launching today is conceptualized as a time of perceived deadly risk (Arnett, 2006; Kloep and Hendry, 2010). While some have traditionally thought of

194 adolescence as a stormy period and emerging adulthood as presenting occasional frustrations and conflict with parents due to its many changes and stressors (Bryson & Arnett, 1999), in fact, the modern zeitgeist of this period emphasizes upbeat optimism and an expectation of developing resilience (Arnett, 2006). Typical parental worries are around matters of capability and success, not necessarily issues of survival yet for this group, notable fear was detected in the parents’ experience. A question has then arisen about the childrens’ experience of such fear as they try and navigate their transition into the world (Faimberg, 2005)?

Optimally, these uncertainties in the launch transition are overcome by trusting in a parent who provides a sturdy home base, which is hopefully in the process of becoming internalized (Siegel, 2020). For these parents, lived experiences have ‘proven’ that launch is deadly time and they convey their death anxiety in their family systems in unspoken ways (Faimberg, 2005). Despite all indications of smoother and peaceful early years as a family, there was adolescent acting out, perhaps related to the intersubjective milieu and transmitted anxiety. Despite much stress, as they all live through this period together and by seeking help when needed, a shift is happening. With the aging of their children, an understanding is dawning: old grief is still there and will always be there, so much has been missed, and finally though the parent realizes that the death they fear has already happened. Their power is limited, and they surrender to the realization that all that they can do is to hope for their ability to survive, whatever comes. With this acknowledgement of limits, which amounts to letting go, or trust, the outcome is a found sense. A new template is being created as old organizing principles fall away: launch is survivable, and there is the possibility to use well the time that is left, with a renewed

195 sense of hope and the comfort of belonging to a family one created (Stolorow, 2007).

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Chapter VI

Considerations and Recommendations

Clinical Considerations Though not generalizable, the findings of this study may contribute to existing theory on launching, in particular by expanding the understanding of interpersonal launch dynamics, characterized herein as a relational experience occurring between parents and children. Most literature already available approaches the launch phase as an intrapsychic event versus interpersonal, and privileges the experience of the young adult in the process of becoming independent (Erikson, 1956; Blos, 1979; Colarusso, 1998, Arnett, 2006).

This study focused on the experiences of a certain group of parents with sensitivity to loss; these parents had experienced prior parental death at the time of their own launch, and it was found that those earlier experiences informed their feelings and values today. One could also gather that under-processing grief at the time of their parents’ death has impacted how meaning has been made through memories and memory gaps (Palombo, 1991); we also know that unconscious meanings have a greater likelihood of becoming enacted affect in family systems and this would seem to hold true given the observed data as its come to be understood here (Aron, 2003).

As it happened for these participants, the death of their parent and the subsequent dysfunction of their surviving parent left them virtually parent-less during their own

197 launch, in addition to having to contend with grief on top of the usual tasks of the phase.

Given this ‘double parent loss’ (Hagman, 1993), the launching process for these participants became impaired, with long-range implications now being faced by participants and potentially their children (Hagman, 1996). These six participants seemingly parented effectively until their own children were about to launch, and when the existing family organizations became destabilized, changes felt reminiscent of their own shattering loss, thus threatening; but revisiting the launch phase in the present, now as parents, might also offer growth opportunities for the system, as well as the individuals (Stern, S. 1994; Stolorow, 2007).

This kind of exploratory research approach is particularly suited to the purpose of informing clinicians in their work, as the detailed verbal data brings situations to life through the use of thick, rich description, and thus provides multiple possibilities for clinicians to consider when working with particular patient populations. The findings for this group who had faced prior parent death might also have the potential for shared application across other parent groups with similar trauma/loss histories, where development had been impacted due to parental absence at a particular life transition, the launching phase. Another advantage of the study is simply raising awareness of the existing interactive dynamics for all parents who are going through launch with their children and would benefit from considerations around their process.

Clinical Recommendations The study set out to explore the experience of parents presently in the launching phase and also memories from their own launching when their parent died. In addition to

198 the expected sensitivity to loss and leaving, a dreadful and pervasive anxiety was discovered in all cases, which appears to be a manifestation of ongoing, unprocessed grief. Participants, who had not processed grief to any real extent, as they were unsupported at the time of parent death, have received medical diagnoses of depression and anxiety, and have been prescribed pharmaceuticals throughout their adult lives. This information calls attention to the need for clinicians to more seriously consider the diagnosis of unresolved grief as a separate phenomenon, rather than just seeing individuals superficially as manifesting anxiety and depressive disorders (Pivar & Field, 2004). It also calls attention to the myriad ways that a complicated grief reaction might look, and the need to hold this in mind, both in the immediate aftermath of a loved one’s death, and for many years afterwards.

Given our cultural tendency to misunderstand grief or dismiss its long-term power of influence, it is a benefit for clinicians to gain awareness of grief’s complexity through this study, and learn of presentations that are disguised as anxiety or confusion. In a study about launching, an open, curious attitude made space for deep feelings to surface and raw affect was notable even after many years unspoken. This serves to remind clinicians that work with trauma can be a powerful and demanding emotional experience, and may necessitate seeking consultation or supervision to manage any secondary trauma that may occur. This especially holds true when the trauma touches on vulnerabilities in the clinician’s personal history.

The benefits of pursuing such work will have far reaching effects, as the number of students per year who suffer a parent death during young adulthood is greater than commonly believed; roughly 360,000 college students will see a parent pass away every

199 two years of college (Walker & Baker, 2010) and so this study underlines the need for sensitive and comprehensive grief counseling for students and young adults with parent loss during launch. The death of a parent during launching is particularly significant, as parents are still functioning importantly with their children during this developmental transition according to the findings, here. Not only is grief work imperative, additionally these students will need other supports to facilitate the launching transition for their own growth to proceed unimpaired.

This study focused on launch with the intention of prioritizing the parents’ experiences as relevant and impactful in the launching process. By shifting the lens so that launch is seen as a systemic issue, we open up our clinical understanding of the potential for the transmission of trauma around loss particularly when these linkages go unrecognized (Faimberg, 2005). The ideas of protracted grief and the transgenerational transmission in families’ needs raised clinical attention, especially when working in family systems where a parent is struggling with loss during launch, or young adults who are coming to therapy feeling stuck or anxious.

One aim of this study was to understand the impact parents have on launch and a child’s need for parents as they move through launching, which was established as significant. An outcome of this study was the expansion of understanding around parents’ experiences and ongoing adult development. Another key discovery has been heightened awareness of midlife potential and the chance for ongoing or resumed processes for adults in order to reach later life transformation. Below, find a reference list of recommendations for clinicians for their work with this population.

200 Clinical Recommendations when working with Launching 1. Consider the launching situation with awareness of interpersonal dynamics 2. Recognize the ongoing need for parents well into young adulthood 3. Explore family/parental history and learn unspoken values 4. Be curious about developmental stuck points in young adults and older adults 5. Treatment of loss calls for ongoing recognition, understanding of meaning 6. Anxiety and depression symptoms can be signals of complex underlying issues 7. Parent-child conflict may serve a valuable function during launch: do explore 8. Make room for affect and seek consultation if needed 9. Silence is a secondary trauma, aim to put feelings into words 10. Relationships are transformative in therapy and in families 11. Launching can be re-activated along the life course

With a greater understanding of said processes comes the opportunity for clinicians to offer more sensitive and informed treatment. Furthermore, qualitative studies are increasingly useful in curriculums in the fields of psychology, psychotherapy and clinical social work, especially when introduced as a way to augment the scope of empirical trends in those fields, where evidence-based practice is becoming the prevailing paradigm over traditional theories (Sandelowski, 2004).

Limitations of the Study The study lacks generalizability beyond the scope of this specific group of six female participants. Due to a small sample size, emergent patterns are not discernable

201 outside of this group. Self-selection in the initial contact phase of the study may have brought together participants who had a specific need, or who were more ‘ready to reflect’ than others who also meet the criteria, and therefore some commonalities may have led to certain findings according to those unknown factors. The findings may not be applicable or relevant to other parents, including men who lost a parent during launch, and are considering their experience of launching their child today. This study was conducted using a homogenous sample of participants who were all women, racially white, highly educated and middle class living in cities and suburbs of the United States.

Parents who share these experiences and yet come from other cultural, socio-economic, religious, family or personal histories may have experiences that differ from the women in this study due to their potentially different expectations around the concept of launch (which touches on particularly constructed meanings of separation, independence, leaving, etc.) or other factors.

Threats to internal validity include whether or not trustworthiness was established and whether the topic and questions resonated with the participants, such that responses were well generated. While participants seemed open and available, narratives may have been incomplete, or irrelevant or yielded more or different data if there had been more time to make connections. Though acknowledged as a sensitive topic, because of exploring memories around the prior death of a parent, yet an effort was made to frame the study in a neutral way when inviting participation, in order to leave open a range of responses and feelings about the experience of launching today. Finally, retrospective studies cannot be flawless as they are based on respondents’ recollections, they are likely

202 to contain inaccuracies; however there has been an emphasis here on the meanings made by the participants, which are admittedly subjective by nature.

This study was meant to be open ended and exploratory, therefore it was essential for the investigator not to bring undue pressure, or to question in a suggestive or leading way influenced by her own internal experiences, prior leanings, learning, or fantasies.

Bias describes the effect of limitations generated by the researcher’s insensitivity, in a way that influences the collection or analysis of information. Bias can be transmitted by the researcher’s limits, the theory used or imposed, or in the participant’s reactions to the query. Efforts have been made to address and neutralize bias through consultation with teachers and other colleagues in the process, from design, through execution and analysis.

Recommendations for Future Research In suggesting that the process of launch is a co-created process of family change, the study approached the phenomenon uniquely from the parents’ perspective. In the exploration of launch phase as a bidirectional experience the process of negotiation and co-recognition occurring between parent and child was unpacked. There is much room for additional study of this idea and from this parental perspective, as existing studies on launching are primarily focused on the experience of the launching child.

Within this small qualitative study, a working definition of launch was established, loosely understood as the encouraged process of a child becoming independent, identified by markers such as jobs and new home, partner and parenthood, as well as internal capacities for realistic limits, partnership, generosity and expressions of gratitude. The idea of independence was inseparable from the notion of taking

203 responsibility and decision-making. As this was examined, what seemed most salient in the interpersonal realm for parents was the feeling of shifting control as they move from a family organized by parental supervision and the need to provide protection, to a new sense of self and autonomous functioning for the growing child.

A topic for future study would be to delve more deeply into what signals this transition and brings it along, considering the shift as a systemic series of intrapsychic and interpersonal events. Participants communicated an awareness of their own internal changes, which seemed to correlate to this desire in the child to take up independence in a process marked by struggle. They noted a felt sense of letting go, or surrender of control, and an acknowledgement of the limit of their own power to protect their child. This transitional moment was felt significantly to the participants and yet, is this similar for all parents, even those who do not hold a prior sensitivity to loss or consider themselves as having had an impaired launch? Was this shift, the sense of surrender, resulting in a kind of trust, actually a delayed developmental accomplishment specific to this group, a coming to being of something that had been missing for these parents, particularly related to their prior loss or lost launch? Having now made this shift, are they better able to provide a secure base, as is recommended (Bryson & Siegel, 2020)? Or was this felt shift a common experience for all parents during launch, and a psychological correlate to the kids’ readiness to fly? A study of greater numbers, would allow immersion in narrative accounts for parents who do not identify with prior loss, to make this comparison.

Other seminal theory, such as the Motherhood Constellation, (Stern, 1995) has offered the idea that at certain phase specific developmental transitions, in particular around becoming a mother, having one’s own mother functioning in a role of witnessing

204 is essential to the facilitation of this process. In Parenthood as a Developmental Phase (Benedek, 1959), the idea of interpersonal transactions with the newborn as presenting challenges and opportunities for revisiting and reworking parts of the parent identity, suggests the arrival of a new internal organization of concerns. According to Benedek, parents bring an image of the baby to the baby, colored by their own fears, ambitions or wishes for immortality; so a question arises here which is, do parents go through something similar in the launch phase, ideally holding hope for the child’s future as they are letting go or is something quite different taking place? Does this concern become irrelevant, an irritant, as the child is perhaps in a process of shedding such concern? For the parent exiting from this phase, perhaps there is something to be explored regarding their internal shifts and more focus on identity changes as they relinquish active parenting.

This study focused on launching from the perspective of parents and by focusing on a subgroup of parents who were sensitive to loss, the current upside for changes come laden with meanings that run deep, and carry the burden of what might have been, for all these years. The meaning assigned to seizing their own potential now is likely more complex than feelings about openings or new beginnings that might come up for someone who did not have the same history of loss that the members of this group share.

Aside from the need to shine light on groups that do not come with the complication of prior parental death, other ideas for future study include an interest in learning more about the father role and experience of launch, as all participants in this study were women. Another area of interest is exploring more thoroughly the issues of conflict and guilt, and competition and envy, which are all feelings that typically go along

205 with traditional concerns around succession. When it comes to ceding control, is freedom won or granted? Is it even freedom if it is given as a gift? If not, then conflict seems an essential ingredient in the passage between parent and child and these topics would make for interesting and useful future studies.

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Appendix A Consent Form

207 Institute for Clinical Social Work Research Information and Consent for Participation in Social Behavioral Research “How Parents Experience Their Child’s Launch: The impact of prior parental death”

I, ________________________________, acting for myself, agree to take part in the research entitled: “How Parents Experience Their Child’s Launch : The impact of prior parental death” This work will be carried out by Paige LaCava, under the supervision of Sponsoring Faculty, Dr. Karen Bloomberg.

This work is sponsored by and conducted under the auspices of the Institute for Clinical Social Work; At Robert Morris Center, 401 South State Street; Suite 822, Chicago, IL 60605; (312) 935-4232.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of parents, presently aged 36-60 years old, who have children in the process of launching (aged 18-24 years old).

You will be asked to reflect on your current parent-child relationship, as well as how you feel that the loss of your parent during your own launch, impacts the present process. The purpose of this inquiry is to broaden understanding in the field of psychology about how parents experience the process of a child’s launch, from an emotional and reflective perspective. The inquiry will encompass the participants reflection on the earlier loss of their parent during their own launch.

This information may be useful to the fields of clinical social work, counseling and psychology for expanding our understanding of the parent-child dynamics in launching, with the benefit of extending clinical insight when treating patients undergoing complications of “launch”.

Procedures used in the study and the duration: This study will take place in the course of three 60-minute interviews, conducted in a neutral, private office space, to be determined or Skype. You will be given a gift card worth $25 for your time.

Benefits: There are no direct benefits to you for participation in this study. Payment is not considered a benefit. By participating in this research, you may discover personal information that enriches your own self-understanding. In addition, time and information shared may contribute to expanding knowledge in the field of clinical social work, psychology and psychotherapy practice, and to improving the general society.

Costs: Involvement in this study will not require any costs or expenditures.

208 Possible Risks and/or Side Effects: Potential risks may include the possibility of negative emotional responses to exposure and exploration of sensitive subjects, (although everyone is different, therefore risk level cannot be predicted.) During the interview, you are free to stop at any time, should discomfort or distress arise. Measures will be taken to protect your confidentiality. The interviewer is a trained professional, sensitive to the emotional state of the participant. All participants in the interview portion of the study will be invited to return for an additional evaluation/process visit, not for research purposes. If further support is deemed necessary, referrals will be made upon request.

Privacy and Confidentiality: The only people who will know that you are a research subject are members of the research team. No information about you, or provided by you during the research, will be disclosed to others without your written permission, except: - if necessary to protect your rights or welfare (for example, if you are injured and need emergency care or when the ICSW Institutional Review Board monitors the research or consent process); or - if required by law, for example, if you indicate plans to harm yourself or others.

When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no information will be included that would reveal your identity. Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be identified with you will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission or as required by law.

Only I, as the researcher, and the transcription company I use to transcribe the study interviews will have access to the interview transcripts and computer data files. The transcription company will sign a confidentiality agreement that contracts them to destroy all data after the transcription has been sent to the researcher. In order to protect your confidentiality, I will not write your name on the interviews. Instead I will assign you a pseudonym. I will store the interview transcripts in a locked file cabinet separate from any papers that have your name on them. The list connecting your name and pseudonym will be kept in a password protected computer file. This file will be destroyed once data collection is complete. All interview transcripts will be destroyed five years after the results of the study are published.

Subject Assurances: By signing this consent form, I agree to take part in this study. I have not given up any of my rights or released this institution from responsibility for carelessness.

I may cancel my consent and refuse to continue in this study at any time without penalty or loss of benefits. My relationship with the staff of the ICSW will not be affected in any way, now or in the future, if I refuse to take part, or if I begin the study and then withdraw.

If I have any questions about the research methods, I can contact Paige LaCava at placava@icsw.edu or Dr. Karen Bloomberg, Sponsoring Faculty, at (312) 565-1349.

209 Signatures: I have read this consent form and I agree to take part in this study as it is explained in this consent form. _________________________________ _____________ Signature of Participant Date

I certify that I have explained the research to _____________________ (Name of subject) and believe that they understand and that they have agreed to participate freely. I agree to answer any additional questions when they arise during the research or afterward. ________________________________ ______________ Signature of Researcher Date

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Appendix B Query to Colleagues for Participants

211

Email subject line: Need help, seeking participants for PhD research project!

Dear colleagues: I am conducting research for my PhD dissertation and ask for your help finding participants. This qualitative study is on a topic related to Parenting. If you know of anyone who is interested and willing to be interviewed, please pass this along!

Research Participants Requested for Parenting Study Seeking parents whose children are currently in a “launching” phase!

Participants must have also had a parent die when they were aged 18-24 years old.

See the attached flier for more information. Thank you in advance for your consideration! Paige LaCava

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Appendix C

213

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR RESEARCH STUDY ON PARENTS WHO ARE “LAUNCHING” THEIR CHILD Are you presently between ages 36-60 years old?

Do you have at least one child between the ages 18-24 years old?

Did you experience the death of a parent when you were between the ages of 18-24?

Are you willing to attend three 60-minute interviews in a neutral, private office space, location to be decided?

Confidentiality is assured.

This study will be carried out by Paige LaCava LCPC (Principal Researcher) supervised

by Karen Bloomberg, PhD (Dissertation Chair) and under the auspices of the Institute for Clinical Social Work, 401 S. State St., Ste. 822, Chicago, IL. Please contact Paige LaCava at placava@icsw.edu or (847) 732-6771 if you are interested in participating or for more information.

Participants will receive a $25 gift card.

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Appendix D Screening Interview Script

215

“Thank you for your interest in my research. Again, my name is Paige LaCava and I’m a doctoral student conducting research through the Institute for Clinical Social Work in Chicago, Illinois. There are a few things I need to confirm before we move forward. I’m looking to better understand the concepts of “launching” and the relationship between parents and children at this stage of life. I also have to confirm a few things about you to make sure you qualify for my study. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions now?”

Demographic Questions 1.

How old are you? _______ years-old (if 17 or younger then disqualify; if 65 or older then disqualify) 2.

What is your race/ethnicity?

3.

Where do you live?

4.

What is your gender?

5.

How long have you been married? _____ years 6.

How many children do you have? _____ children Child 1: gender_________ age ________ Child 2: gender _________ age________ Child 3: gender _________ age________ Child 4: gender _________ age________ Child 5: gender _________ age________

Screening Questions 7. Do you have a personal experience with having at least one child going through a launching phase? [Yes/No] If Yes, can you talk about it? If No, disqualify 8. Do you have a personal experience with losing a parent when you were 18-24?

[Yes/No] If Yes, can you talk about it? If No, disqualify 9. Can you briefly explain how your parent died________________________________ [No-if murder or suicide] 10. Is there anything that you can think of that might deter you from participating or providing me with honest answers? [Yes/No] If Yes, possibly disqualify 11. Would you be willing to be interviewed three times for up to 60 minutes? [Yes/No] If No, disqualify 12. Are you okay with being audiotaped? [Yes/No] If No, disqualify 13. Can we set up a date, time and meeting place for our first interview?

Closing

216

Appendix E Semi-Structured Interview Guide

217 Interview #1 1. How does participant recognize and define independence for their child?

Can you tell me a little bit about why you decided to participate in my study?

Prompts: • Tell me a little about your child (the one who is launching).

• What comes to mind when you think about this child becoming independent?

• What does the term “launching phase” mean to you?

• Is there another term you like/prefer?

• How much do you think about these issues before now, our meeting?

2. What is their lived experience of their child becoming independent?

Prompts: • How do you know that your child is launching?

• What was your relationship like with your child before the launch?

• What has your relationship been like since the launching started?

• When do you think the launching phase for your child will be over?

• When the launching phase is over, what do you expect your relationship to be like?

• What do you hope for/expect as you move forward relationally with your child?

Interview #2 1. What was the lived experience of losing a parent during a launching phase?

Last time we talked about what has been happening recently, with your child preparing to …. (go to college, move to own apartment, etc.). I was hoping today that you could tell me a bit more about your own experience at that age….

Prompts: • What was it like when you were “launching”?

• To what extent were your parents part of the process, as you remember it?

• Is this different from what becoming independent was like for you?

Interview #3 1. To what extent does the death of their parent play into the launching of their own child?

Prompts: • In the past 6 months has the death of your parent been present for you?

• If yes, in what ways? Memories/dreams; Reliving of feelings and emotions • Explain what your relationship was like with your child (who is launching) before the launch started.

• What is your relationship like now with that child?

218

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