Last Saturday I co-led a breakout session at the Women & Cancer conference in Kalamazoo, MI that attempted to tackle the topic of how cancer affects adult children and spouses of the women with cancer. I shared my story beginning with my mom's first skin cancer diagnosis when I was a sophomore in college in Canada, her initial diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer when I was an intern in Atlanta and her second reoccurrence and treatment of breast cancer when I was working on my Master’s degree in Portland.
I had heard my mother share her story earlier at the main session and was surprised that when she hit bottom--when she began chemo (on my dad's first birthday since his death) for her second bout of breast cancer, she turned to her breast cancer support group (The Young and the Breastless) at church to talk and let it all out, rather than to her family. It hurt a little. I shared this in the breakout session as part of my story. Of course it made sense that my mom turned peers who knew and understood her struggle because they were experiencing the same things, but what I didn't expect (but probably should have) was the reason given by the moms in the room for not inviting their children into their pain.
Mothers have a strong protective instinct. They don't want their children to hurt. They don't want to tell their children things that will hurt them or cause them stress. I didn't realize this was likely the main reason my mom didn't share as much with us about her low times until these moms shared their stories with me.
And as I shared they learned that children, at least adult children, don't want to be protected as much as our moms want to protect us. We want to know what's going on in our parents' lives and we want to be able to love and support them through it. They have, after all, raised us to be loving and compassionate people. Shouldn't this be directed back at them?
One of the women was able to give words to the idea that for parents to invite their children into their pain is to invite them to further intimacy and deeper relationship. Yes, it hurts us to see our moms hurting, but it also connects in a deeper more real way.
The journey through cancer is never going to be an easy journey. If you are walking through it, let other people walk through it with you. Don't protect them from the pain, invite them into it. They don't want to be alone and they don't want you to be alone.
p.s. yes, I know that when I say, "we" what I say is not true of all adult children...but it's true of more than you'd think.
