Leah McLaren idolised her beautiful and brilliant mother, whose ‘benign neglect’, yet deep love, affected her childhood. Looking back, she examines their ‘enmeshment’ and how it changed the way she parents her own sons
I was in my early teens when I first heard the clinical term “enmeshment” – not from a psychotherapist, but my best friend at school who, like me, was a precocious child of divorce.
We were close friends, our relationship was open and loving, but she was clear about her parenting philosophy which she openly, in a joking-not-joking way, described as “benign neglect”. Mum absolutely did not attend parent-teacher meetings, she had zero interest in homework or report cards. She did not believe in bedtimes or curfews or family meals that weren’t dinner parties – she was an excellent cook but there was rarely any food in the house.
I thought I was independent in those years but in fact I was co-dependent. What I mean is that instead of feeling my own feelings I was carrying my mother’s emotions; her thoughts and desires became my own. By the time I reached adulthood, this enmeshment was so ingrained it informed everything. When I began to have relationships with men I instinctively tried the same strategy. For a myriad of reasons it didn’t work out., the father of structural family theory.
Childhood enmeshment, in particular, distorts a person’s templates for love and intimacy – arguably our deepest and most urgent impulse after basic survival. The problem with parent-child enmeshment is that, like addiction, half the battle is admitting it’s a problem in the first place.
When I was a small child myself I was never allowed to sleep with my mother: I don’t even remember asking – it just wasn’t an option. But after the divorce, when I was about eight, this suddenly changed – on her terms, not mine. I would go to sleep in my own room only to wake up and find myself in my mother’s bed , she would cling to me and sob and talk about all manner of things – regrets and fears, night terrors essentially – which would not be mentioned in the morning.
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