I CHANGED ALONG WITH HIM

by Olya Cherentsova

[Olya Cherentsova grew up in Moscow, married an American and moved to the USA in l98l at the age of 30. She is an artist and lives in Texas.]

When Chris lay in my arms newborn and helpless, and looked up at me with remarkably knowing eyes, we both understood that we are linked for life by that just severed umbilical cord. I also realized that my need for Chris is no less than his for me. His growth would simultaneously be my own personal development.

It has always seemed to me that partnership is important in relations between parents and children, so I shaped our relationship not simply as mother and son. My methods of upbringing and what I conveyed to Chris represented my belief in the friendship between mother and son, and also my desire to include what to a large extent I was deprived of in my own childhood and I think is necessary for a child to mature. Our children's moods often reflect our own. They instantly pick up our slightest irritation as well as the changes taking place within us and, lacking confidence in themselves, they interpret all this as dissatisfaction directed at them. A child has the natural need to know that he is loved, and from this he draws support and finds his own self. As Chris has bitterly cried out to me when angry sparks flew between us: "All I want to know is that you love me." Boys need to believe in mother's love no less than girls do, in spite of the stereotyped notions of many people that a real man should not express emotions. Through all our years together, I instilled in Chris that the strength of a man is not in being reserved and estranged from those near to him, but in having the courage to open up and know oneself. When out of pride we close ourselves to others, hiding our hurts and weaknesses, we create the illusory conviction of strength. Firmness of character and willpower is not in suppressing feelings and being unwilling to express them; it is in self revelation and the ability to understand others. Chris has never been ashamed of our friendship and has never in the presence of his friends hidden his attachment to me. Even now, when he is becoming an adolescent and in this transition period somewhat shies away from showing his feelings, he is still tender and caring when we are together, just the two of us.

His aspirations for independence were noticeable early on and I supported them. Remembering my own past experience and preserving his and my emotional ties, I tried not to enslave and perpetuate that unconscious dependence of his on my opinions which comes with all strong relationships. Often parents arrange the futures of their children from a desire to mold them in their own image, without taking account of the child's own aspirations and aims, which leads to pressure in the choice of professions, friends, mates, and so forth. We often nurture in children what we would like to see in ourselves and at times make them shoulder tasks which they are not up to. Once Chris said to me, "You want me to be perfect and that is impossible. Like you, I am always going to make mistakes." I have tried not to ask too much of him and have always helped him in his initiatives, even if they went against my wishes in some way, because I know how important personal choice is for him. In learning to make right decisions and finding one's own self lies liberation from the complexes that entangle us in childhood and that we struggle with our whole life through.

When I grew up my Mama advised me to analyze things, as it were to discuss them with "a second Olya." That was uncommonly courageous of her considering the conditions of the society we lived in at that time [the Soviet Union in the l950's and '60's]. The majority of us did not know or understand our own selves and didn't try to understand. Although Russian literature and philosophy always called for self-analysis, which Nikolai Berdiaev, Dostoyevsky and others wrote about, many people subconsciously turned away from this on grounds that it is better not to know the truth which would create conflict within themselves and with their children who in consequence later on when they were grown up, repeated the very same mistakes.

Ignorance of oneself generates a lot of illusions and stereotypes which then become the norm that is thoughtlessly adhered to out of an inability to make one's own decisions. My mother's advice has served me well in life and in raising Chris. His capacity for self analysis awakened early and he often surprised me with comments profound for his young years. Even in our skirmishes, when we were in deadlock, he would assume the role of grownup and help us both resolve the argument with dignity and, to my embarrassment, he conducted himself in some ways more judiciously than I did. It has to be added that I put a lot of effort into explaining to him the difference between firmness and stubbornness, which it took me many years to learn.

Upbringing is not only the parents' struggle with the child, but also the child's struggle with himself. The whole complexity of parent-child conflict derives from gender interrelationships -- the alliance of father and son, two men, and the alliance of mother and son, a man and a woman. The relations of Chris with his father, Kyle, are in many ways the opposite of his with me, which were always more emotional and intuitive. In character we are very similar, and recognizing this has brought us closer together. Chris and his father, besides their mutual love, connect on the level of intellect; they are more reserved in expressing emotions to one another, as is so in Kyle's family. From his father Chris inherited the traits of being cautious and circumspect and wanting knowledge, and to the same degree he gets from me his love of art. So, genetically and by his own choice he has an aggregate of his parents' strong and weak characteristics that form his own nature in the most harmonious way.

Raising Chris has changed my own once so solid views on many things. What did not interest me before became, as he grew, also part of my life -- for example, the enthusiasm for sport. In recent years because of Chris, I gradually got drawn in, convincing me yet again that our children influence us no less than we influence them. I always approved of his wanting to take part in sports, not because of the prevailing view that a man must be an athlete, but because I supported his strivings, and also I consider that good physical form is an assist to good health. Many times I have discussed with him about sport, regardless of its value, not becoming the sole aim and thereby slowing down one's mental and spiritual development. I would like to end by saying there is no greater pleasure than seeing the well-being of one's children thanks to all one has put into them. Equally, there is nothing harder than seeing their disabilities as a result of the mistakes we have made.