Ch. 15 Family and Life Span Issues – Blog 3
Hazan and Shaver’s Model of attachment styles are described on p. 470, and Bartholomew’s Model is described on p. 472. I appreciate how Bartholomew elaborates on Hazan and Shaver’s avoidant attachment style by splitting it into two groups: dismissive and fearful. In earlier chapters, it is mentioned that there seems to be an increase in narcissistic personalities. With that in mind, it makes sense for there to be a dismissive attachment style which reflects a positive self-outlook but a negative view of others.
The section following the attachment styles discusses different turning points in parent-child relationships. One turning point mentioned is jealousy, which occurs when a child feels one or both parents show favoritism toward a sibling. Although this is not a common turning point, it caught my attention because I recently read an article in Psychology Today that talked about mothers having a favorite child. In one particular study discussed in the article, researches found that 80% of mothers over the age of 65 admitted to having a favorite child. Some of the women interviewed in the article used a nom de plum due to their shame and embarrassment for disclosing this taboo-like information. I think you can see favoritism among siblings, too, where certain siblings get along better with one of the other. Familial relationships are unique in that you can’t choose them. You don’t have a choice in whether or not your personalities will mesh well with your siblings, parents, etc.
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3 comments:
jdmlNT,
I found it interesting what you said about the article you read. You said that it was mothers over 65 who disclosed who their favorite children are. I started thinking about that and I thought that I bet it would be easier to have favorite children when they children are grown up and on their own than when the family all live together. Since some adult children might move further away than others, some might call more often, some might work harder to maintain a relationship with the parents, and even some might end up successful and some might not. I think it would be easier at this later point in life to favor certain children over others.
I really like how the book goes over the different type of attachment styles as well: avoidant, ambivalent, etc. I also blogged about these styles and am glad the book went over them, because we all go experience these different types of relationships throughout our lives. I always like when I experience a concept regularly in life and then have words/description to actually describe it fully. I find that in different stages of my life, as well, I am more prone to utilize a certain type of style - like when I don't care that much or am just over battling it out with people, the avoidant style attracts me.
Yes, I have heard similar things as to what you read in the article about having a favorite child. You’re so right about how you can’t choose your family relationships, they just happen that way. I think for those mothers it really does come down to which child does their own personality mesh with better and that determines who their favorite is. Like my mother for instance, I do feel that my sister is her favorite child and I am my fathers. This of course is just based on my own mere observations that my sister is more like my mother so they can understand each other better and what is going through or how they will react. They can “go to bat” for one another because they can see themselves in the same shoes at times with different things. And my father and I the same. So yes, I think that there are more parents out there than we realize that have favorites. I think its ok, just so long as a parent can still love the other child in some way, it happens, favorites sometimes just can’t be helped.
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