When Grandparents Are the Significant Attachment Figures of Children 当祖父母是你的第一位依恋对象 (阅读中文请往后翻)

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When Grandparents Are the Significant Attachment Figures of Children

当祖父母是你的第一位依恋对象 (阅读中文请往后翻)

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In the TICP Scientific Meeting last week, Dr. Ruskin reviewed the role of grandparents in contemporary life. He also pointed out that psychoanalysis needs to pay more attention to the second half of human life.

Dr. Ruskin, based on his personal experience and his patients' experience and from a psychoanalytic perspective, mainly talked about the benefits of the supportive role of grandparents in a person's growth process. In Western culture, grandparents are not heavily involved in grandchildren's lives, so their involvement is considered precious. It is precious indeed, and the supportive involvements are indeed precious in all cultures.

There is a saying, supposedly an African proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child." It implies that raising a child requires the involvement of the entire community. Even though Chinese culture is collective instead of tribal, it is quite common for grandparents to participate in the care and parenting of grandchildren. In China, it is commonly accepted that it is necessary for grandparents to help with childcare, which allows parents to focus on their career development or making a living. And the children seem to take it for granted.

While my grandparents were the primary caretakers when I was a child, I remember, in our school, two boys (likely twins) lived with their grandparents when their parents lived and worked in a faraway unknown city to me. They are naughty and somewhat shy at the same time. They are different from other kids. They wore military-green clothes, often stained with soil colours, and spoke with a known accent. Perhaps their elderly grandparents lacked the energy to care for and discipline them. I often watched them from far away with curiosity but never spoke to them.

To be fair to all their children, some grandparents would take on the responsibility of raising all their children's (sons and daughters) kids. Two persons care for several children, usually until they reach school age. In my psychotherapy practice, children living with their grandparents from childhood to college are not rare, either.

For these children, grandparents are their earliest attachment figures, their "real" parents of childhood. The emotional bond with grandparents is deep; the bond provides emotional support throughout their lives. When they feel lonely, frustrated, or depressed, the love of grandparents becomes a source of strength and comfort. They tend to turn to their grandparents for support and advice instead of their parents. These children are commonly grateful to their grandparents for the care, companionship, and guidance that grandparents provide. Grandparents become their most important attachment figure, integral to their sense of life's meaning.

However, children raised by grandparents face unique challenges. Over the years, I have encountered various problems related to such people.

For example, these children often have to leave their grandparents before reaching adulthood because either the grandparents are no longer able to take on more responsibilities for caring for and educating the children due to their old age or the parents want to "provide a better learning environment" for their children, so they bring them back, separating them from their earliest attachment figures. The negative impact may be less if the grandparents live nearby if they can move in with the child, or if the parents are loving and understanding. It can be very helpful if parents actively build and repair relationships with their children, compensate for the lack of parental love in the early years, and cultivate new attachment relationships. However, in most families, the children are left with grandparents' care because parents are too busy to take care of the children. When children return, the parents are not less busy or even busier. Therefore, some parents entrust their children to the care of nannies, teachers, and tutors (many patients lived at the teacher's or tutor's homes) or send them to boarding schools. Children move from a familiar environment (grandparents' home) to a strange one (parents' home, boarding school, etc.), and the people they interact with are not stable because their parents frequently change nannies or change the children's living places due to the adaptation difficulties of the children or the parents, who are narcissistic or perfectionistic, want the children to have the "best" teachers, tutors, or schools.

Seeking relationships is a child's nature, a survival need. Some children establish deep bonds with their nannies. Some patients told me they were very sad when their favourite nanny left. However, at a young age, they don't know how to express themselves and don't have the power to change their parents' or the nanny's decisions. Some other patients encountered mean nannies, which became their traumatic memories.

In summary, many children face difficulties establishing new stable attachment relationships after their grandparents. From a psychological perspective, they become psychological "orphans" after this point.

Moreover, children who form deep attachment relationships with grandparents may encounter the loss of attachment figures earlier than others. Usually, when they are still young and have not stably established themselves in life, that is to say, they may experience the death of grandparents at a young age, and it often is a significant blow to them. The symbolic presence of the attachment figure is lost. After that, they become the rootless duckweed existing in the world. I have met many international students who come to therapy due to the grief of losing their grandparents or the depression caused by the loss and the guilt for not being able to provide filial piety care to their grandparents at the end stage of their grandparents' life, or they are not informed by their family in order not to affect their study, or not being able to attend the funeral of their grandparents. A lifelong regret and self-blame left to them.

For many children raised by grandparents, both the child and the grandparents have deeper feelings for each other than the children and grandparents who have not had such experience. Typically, the grandparents want to continue to be involved in the child's growth. However, their wishes and opinions may conflict with the parents. Some parents dislike the grandparents intervening in their parenting style and decisions for the children. Some parents think that the grandparents' educational philosophy is outdated; they want to raise their children in their own way, without the grandparents' instructions. Unconscious competition, criticisms, and rebellions may be involved in the process. The children often feel caught between the conflicts between parents and grandparents and are bewildered.

Additionally, some grandparents would prefer not to take on the responsibility of caring for their grandchildren; they are forced to do so for different reasons. They see the children as burdens and troubles. They may show their grievances and complain to their grandchildren, which may cause difficulties for the children, who feel abandoned and non-loved, to form a secure neither to their grandparents nor to their parents; the early insecure attachment patterns can affect people for a long time, sometimes even a lifetime—for example, anxiety tendencies, inner feelings of insecurity, loneliness, and more.

I have also encountered some issues that are more significant for female patients. There is a tradition of boy preference in Chinese culture, which is more significant in older generations. Some female patients experienced gender discrimination while under the care of their grandparents, especially when there was both boy(s) and girl(s) were under the supervision of grandparents at the same time, and they were treated differently by their grandparents.

During the one-child policy years, some grandparents bring girls back to their hometown to live to let their children have another child, hopefully a boy. The girls' existence was hidden; they had no identity (户口), they were non-registered children, and they could not call their parents father and mother. How would such an arrangement affect the girls psychologically? They would feel themselves are unwanted, unloved, and abandoned. They hate their gender and resent their parents, or they would do their best to please their parents or grandparents in order to be loved or recognized. Some also feel guilty for the trouble they caused to their parents----if I were a boy, they would not have so much trouble. So many complicated emotions of anxiety, tension, fear, anger, compliance, endurance, wish, desire for love, etc., exist! Even if these emotions are managed through efforts and lead to a relatively good adaptation to life, such as independence and career success, their experiences would still haunt them, especially when various factors trigger them. During therapy, they often demonstrate contradicted emotions and desires.

I had a young female patient who had depression and anxiety disorder with panic attacks. She is such a hidden girl as a child raised by her grandparents in a small town. When she was in grade 5, her parents decided to let her go to the big city where they lived to go to a better school. However, because she has no city identity (户口), she had difficulty finding a school to accept her. When finally a school agreed to accept her, she still could not live with her parents because she already had a younger brother, if her parents' workplace discovered her existence, her parents would be punished; they would have to pay fines or even lose their jobs. Her parents rented an apartment for her; she started to live alone when she was ten years old, and her parents only came to cook for her occasionally until she came to Canada to attend high school; without the identity (户口), it would be even harder to find a high school to accept her.

Therefore, while many grandparents play supportive roles in their grandchildren's lives, problems may also exist due to personal (personality, personal life circumstances, unconscious factors, etc.), circumstantial, economic, cultural, and political factors. Some issues are caused by the grandparents being the patients' supportive and significant attachment figures.

(FW)

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当祖父母是你的第一位依恋对象

上周我们 TICP 的 Scientific Meeting 上 Dr. Ruskin 讲了有关 grandparents（祖父母） 的话题，今天的工作中又涉及到祖父母离世以及和祖父母的关系的问题。

Dr. Ruskin 根据他自身经历，从精神分析的角度主要讲了一个人成长过程中如果有祖父母的支持作用所带来的益处。不知道是否和文化的差异有关，可能在西方文化里祖父母不大参与孙辈的生活，所以有祖父母的参与是非常珍贵的一件事？

有句话，据说是个非洲谚语----“It takes a village to raise a child.” 就是说要抚养一个孩子长大需要全村人的参与。在中国虽不是部落文化，但也是集体主义文化（collectivism），当孩子出生后，祖父母参与孩子的照料和抚养是非常常见的一件事。祖父母帮助带孩子，让孩子的父母专注于事业或谋生似乎是理所当然的一件事。

当年在学校，大柱、二柱就跟着爷爷奶奶生活，他们的父母在一个我们不知道在哪里的城市生活。他们顽劣又有些害羞，身上草绿色的小军装式的衣服沾满泥土，头上、脸上、脖子上都泥色吧啦的，可能他们他们年迈的祖父母没有精力照顾和管教他们。我常常看着他们心里充满好奇，但好像从来没有跟他们说过话。

也有的祖父母，为了一碗水端平，把儿子、女儿的孩子都接来抚养，两个老人照顾一群小孩子，通常直到他们到上学的年龄。从小到大一直跟着祖父母生活直到上大学的例子也屡见不鲜。

对于这些孩子，祖父母是他们最早的依恋对象（attachment object），对很多孩子，祖父母是他们“真正的”父母，是感情最深厚的客体，是一生精神的依恋对象。祖父母是他们精神的“家”。在成长过程中有祖父母的参与确实是一件幸事，而富有爱心、耐心、慈祥的的祖父母的相伴，他们的爱可以温暖孩子的一生，当他们孤独时、受挫折时、沮丧抑郁时，祖父母的爱都是他们力量的一个源泉。孩子们不但感恩于他们在生活上的照顾，还有他们的陪伴和人生的指引作用，他们是孩子最重要的情感依托，是人生意义感的重要组成部分。

但是，被祖父母养大的孩子也面临其特有的困境。多年的工作中，遇到过各种和祖父母有关的问题。

这些孩子通常需要在还未成年的时候就不得不离开祖父母，有的因为祖父母年纪大了，不再能够承担更多照顾和教育孩子的责任。有的父母要为孩子“提供一个更好的学习环境”，被父母接回身边，从此和他们的最早的重要依恋对象分开。如果离祖父母家比较近，或者祖父母能够跟孩子一起来到父母家生活，可能影响不大。如果父母能够积极地跟孩子建立和修复关系，弥补孩子早年缺失的父母之爱，培养和建立新的依恋关系，也是很有帮助的。可是，在有的家庭，之所以把孩子交给祖父母带就是因为父母太忙，没有时间和精力带孩子。当孩子回来之后，很多父母仍然是很忙，甚至更忙。所以，有的父母就把孩子交给保姆带，或者让孩子上寄宿学校、住在老师家或者补课老师家，孩子从一个熟悉的环境（祖父母家）来到一个个陌生环境（父母家、寄宿学校等），接触到的人也不大固定，比如保姆经常换。寻找关系是孩子的天性，那是生存（survive）的需要，有的孩子会和保姆建立深厚的感情。有的来访跟我说自己喜欢的保姆离开的时候是非常伤心的，但年幼的他们既不知道怎样表达，也没有力量改变父母的决定或者保姆自己的决定。当然有的人遇到很 mean 的保姆，则成了一种创伤性的回忆。

总之，祖父母之后，很多孩子都会遇到建立新的稳固的依恋关系的困难，从此之后，从心理层面，他们成了“孤儿”。

另外，和祖父母建立了深厚的依恋关系的孩子，还会比一般人更早遇到依恋客体丧失的问题，通常他们在很年轻和还不够成熟的时候就开始可能遇到祖父母逝世的情况，那种打击是很大的，到那时，他们连依恋客体的象征性的存在也丧失了，从此，存在在这个世界上，内心就如一片浮萍，无有依靠了。我遇到不少留学生因为祖父母去世而陷入痛苦和/或抑郁的。他们身在海外，有学业和事业，不能在最后尽孝，不能见最后一面，不能参加葬礼，留下终生遗憾，心里非常自责。

在祖父母的抚养下长大的孩子，不光孩子本人会依恋祖父母，祖父母对孩子的感情也会比一般的祖父母更深，他们也想继续深入地参与孩子的成长，但他们的愿望和意见可能和父母产生冲突，有的孩子父母会觉得老人越界干预他们教育孩子的方式，或者觉得祖父母的教育理念落后、过时。面对父母和祖父母的冲突，孩子可能会感到夹在其中，不知所措。

另外，也有“完成任务式”祖父母，他们其实并不情愿承担照顾孩子的责任，把孩子视为负担、麻烦，把对孩子父母对怨气，发在孩子身上，比如对孩子的抱怨，可能会使孩子产生负罪感。他们会感到自己是多余的，没人爱的---父母不要，祖父母嫌弃。面对这样的祖父母，孩子很难和祖父母建立起安全的依恋关系，而早期不安全的依恋模式会影响人很长时间，有时甚至是一生呢。比如焦虑倾向、内心的不安全感、孤独感等。

还有一种情况也遇到过多次，多见于女性来访身上。就是有一些老一辈人重男轻女的观念比较多，尤其是当祖父母家里有一男一女两个小孩或者同时照顾好几个小孩时，对男孩子更多的优待，使女孩子感受到性别歧视。还有的祖父母把女孩接到老家生活就是为了让自己的孩子再生一个男孩，这些女孩成了隐藏的存在，甚至不能叫父母爸、妈。可以想象这些女孩子心里的感受吧？感到多余、无爱、憎恨自己的性别、有的怨恨父母、有的为了得到关爱和认可而讨好父母或祖父母，那么焦虑、紧张、害怕、愤怒、讨好、忍耐......心里会有很多复杂的情绪！而这些情绪，就算通过努力，成了适应生活比较良好的情况，比如独立、事业成功等，但即使到了成年，当遇到诱发因素当时候，仍然会 haunting 她们。比如有的女孩在被父母接回城市之后，父母为了躲避超生的惩罚，在她小学的年龄，就在外面租房子给她住，只偶尔来给她做做饭，她还得叫父母叔叔、婶婶。而她后来的焦虑、惊恐障碍、抑郁应该都和她的经历有关的。

因此，虽然很多祖父母都在孩子的成长过程中扮演着重要和支持的角色，他们的存在对孩子是非常有益的存在，但是，因为个人、境遇、经济、政治等因素，被祖父母抚养长大的孩子也可能面临很多挑战。有时候这些挑战正是因为孩子和祖父母亲密的关系所致。

人生不长，何必束缚自己，如果有有关的问题，以及其它的问题束缚了自己，就找 therapist 聊一聊吧。

（FW）

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