Some more research:
https://archive.nytimes.com/parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/when-parents-stop-being-stupid/
Quote:
"Mark Twain famously said:
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in seven years.”
Now word from England is that Twain was ahead of his peers, but only by about a year.
A site that asks whimsical survey questions as a way to attract traffic for its corporate advertising clients, reported last week that the age when the average child gains new respect and appreciation for his or her parents is not 21, but 22. Of the 5,000 20-somethings who responded, 70 percent admitted they’d thought they “knew it all” in their teens, and more than half said they now “miss having their parents look after them.”
It took leaving home to bring about this insight. The newspaper quotes an explanation by a poll spokesman:
When they start having to make their own decisions about finances, food, relationships and health, this is when they realize the extent of their mum and dad’s input to date. All of a sudden mum and dad are a force to be reckoned with, they are no longer taken for granted and their advice is suddenly more valuable than anyone else’s.
The years before this realization dawns — when they are still in the “pod people” stage of adolescence (i.e., “possessed by an alien force”) — can be an endless time for parents. Two pieces of wisdom, both passed along to me by dear friends, have gotten me through.
The first is the mantra “they’re in there.” You just keep speaking to the child trapped inside the pod and have faith that he still hears.
The second is a parable, which goes something like this:
You start out, and you are raising a dog. Your dog is thrilled with everything you do, and wags his tail and licks your face and follows you around like, well, a puppy. It can be challenging, and a little messy, but oh the exuberant and unwavering love.
One day, out of nowhere, you come home and the dog has vanished. You are now raising a cat. Your cat walks out of the room when you enter, and refuses to come when called, and sniffs suspiciously at whatever you feed it. You learn to choose your battles carefully and not make any sudden moves.
Then, years later, again out of nowhere, you arrive home, and a tall creature says, “Hi Mom, can I give you a hand with those groceries?!” And once again you are raising a dog ….
Now, it’s not as if respondents to the poll survey reported going to sleep at 21 and waking up with a changed perspective at 22. For many (about 20 percent) the moment of transition was when they became parents themselves.
That was my moment (I am still waiting for my children to have theirs), and it happened during a family vacation in the mountains. My father loved mountains. A good percentage of my own childhood travel involved me and my siblings crammed in the back of a tiny rental car, driving toward something Dad thought was majestic. “Can’t you at least pretend?” he said when we didn’t ooh or ahh. “Grunt so I know you’re still back there.” And grunt we did.
My boys were 6 and 9, and complaining in the backseat of a (far larger) rental car in the Grand Tetons, when I had a sudden flash of how my father had felt. On my cell phone, with the snow capped peaks looming in the background, I called him and offered an apology that was decades overdue."
