Clinical psychological clinics often encounter some parents, often in the name of love inadvertently deprive their children of the right to grow and be happy, strong mother’s love is not a constant possession of the child, but a proper exit. The first task of a mother’s love is to be close to the child and take care of the child’s growth; the second task is to separate from the child and promote the child’s independence. Mother and child a, is the deepest destiny in life, deep love only in this gradual distance tends to be true. If a mother does the order in reverse, she is doing something anti-natural, making her child’s childhood barren and suffocating her adult life. In the compound where I lived as a child, there was a boy named Junior. Xiao Si’s family had three girls and he was the only boy, and his mother spoiled him terribly. His mom was illiterate, and in my impression was a bit of a wimp. She rarely seemed to talk to anyone, and just bought food and cooked every day. I heard that since Junior grew up and started to talk about marriage, his mom became very strong. First of all, I do not agree with the two objects of the youngest four talk about themselves, the youngest four do not listen to her, she drank medicine and hanged herself, and made a very fierce. Later, Xiao Si finally compromised, and his mother in a girl to marry, his mother to daughter-in-law quickly from love to hate. In addition to provoking the relationship between the husband and wife, but also often find all kinds of excuses to the four detained in their own place, do not allow him to go back to their own home. Xiao Si hard to go back, his mother often find a reason to follow over, night also live in Xiao Si’s home. At that time, Xiao Si lived in a small cottage with only a small bed, and his mother slept on the bed with her son and daughter-in-law. After Xiao Si’s child was born, his mother even found all kinds of reasons not to let Xiao Si and her daughter-in-law stay together. One day, when the child was more than two years old, Xiao Si disappeared, leaving his daughter-in-law a six-word note: “I’m gone, don’t look for me.” More than twenty years passed, and Junior never showed up again; no one knew if he was dead or alive. His mom died a few years after he disappeared. It’s hard to imagine what was going through her mind before she passed away. Whenever I think of Xiao Si, our childhood playmate, his innocent and naughty behavior when he was young, and his determined departure at the age of 25, I am melancholy, sighing that a mother’s love may be a palace or a prison. I don’t want to analyze Xiao Si’s mother’s human nature and ethics here, but only want to use this extreme story to bring out a common but very important and often neglected parenting rule: the relationship between mother and child should be long and full, but the degree of involvement in the child’s life must be decreasing. Strong maternal love is not a constant possession of the child, but a proper withdrawal. The first task of a mother’s love is to be close to her child and nurture her growth; the second task is to separate from her child and promote her independence. Mother and child a, is the deepest destiny in life, deep love only in this gradual distance tends to be true. If a mother does the order in reverse, she is doing something anti-natural, making her child’s childhood barren and suffocating her adult life. The term “mother” is used in this article to refer to “both parents” in general, and only in some passages to refer to the gender role of mother alone, so I believe that readers will be able to discern this on their own. Mothers must not expand their functions. A mother of a junior high school student once asked me for advice because she was confused because she felt that she was becoming more and more unfamiliar with her son, who was already in junior high school. She wanted to get to know her son better, and when she entered his room without knocking, she was in fact making a surprise visit to check on him. Her son was not happy about this and protested several times, but when the mom didn’t listen, her son put a sign on the door of his room that said “No one is allowed to enter”. When the mother felt very hurt, she felt that she tried to love the child, but became the son in the eyes of the “idle”, the heart of the loss. She said, “I will now knock on the door when he asks me to, but I am still worried that if my child does something that he really doesn’t know about, then how can I help him and educate him in the future? Parents with this way of thinking are used to expanding their own functions and are not used to adjusting the boundaries of their own behavior as the child grows. It is true that a kindergarten child needs his parents to come and take care of him from time to time when he is alone in a certain room, but does a junior high school student need such care? As you can see from the mother’s words, she is worried about what her child might do “just in case”, and what might that “just in case” be? Playing games? Chatting with female classmates? Go to a pornographic website? Masturbate? Whatever it is, what kind of thing needs to be suddenly pushed through the door? Parents who like to cross the line always show extreme concern for their children, caring about everything, but in fact he does not have children in his eyes, he is just a disguised expression of distrust and disrespect for children. Although they are all under the banner of “care” and “education”, but always conveys a tiresome atmosphere, the child will not experience love and education, but only to experience the violation. Parents with self-esteem will not deliberately try to catch their children in any way, and will be ashamed to face their children’s embarrassment. He wants to take care of the child’s face, but also refused to lower their own cultivation, such a state of mind between parents and children naturally create a reasonable distance, began to properly separate. The so-called “separation” is not a slow abandonment of care for the child, but a slow adjustment of the way of care. No mother will ever know exactly when, what day, month, or event she should begin to “separate” from her child, just as she will never realize when, what day, month, or event her child grows taller than she does. Growth and change accompany the child every day, and so does separation. From the moment the child is removed from the mother’s body, the whole process of growth is a continuous process of separation: from the RU room to eat alone, from the embrace to walk independently, from the custody to go out alone, from the provision to earn money, from the domination to develop the self, from the family to form another family – the parent withdraws from the role of the first intimate and gives way to the child’s companion! The parent withdraws from the role of the first intimate, giving way to the child’s partner and his own children, from being a “party” to being an “outsider,” and finally the parent completes the journey and withdraws completely from the child’s life. We can even understand growth and separation as descriptions of the same thing, with growth describing the changes in the child and separation describing the adjustments in the importance of the parent’s role around these changes. The parent’s involvement in the child’s life gradually decreases, and the scope of the role is narrowed a little so as to make room for the child’s life. This is a very normal psychological adjustment in a sound mother-child relationship. For example, when the daughter is young, almost all fathers will be jealous when they hold their lovely daughters in their arms, thinking that in the future, which brat dares to steal my daughter, break his legs! But when the daughter 20 years later, the daughter has grown up, and a young man holding hands close, was left aside when the father will be full of relief, relief in the daughter grew up, have their own lives, someone instead of their own to love their daughters, they can be less worried about it. Philosopher Fromm is one of the best thinkers to parse the mother-child relationship, he believes that: “The true essence of motherly love is to care for the growth of the child, that is to say, to want the child to be separated from himself. Herein lies the fundamental difference between maternal love and sexual AI. In sexual AI, the two who are separate become one; in mother’s love, the two who are one separate into two. The mother must tolerate the separation and must want and support the child to be separated from her. It is at this stage that motherhood becomes a difficult task, demanding selflessness, the ability to give everything and to want nothing but the happiness of the beloved. It is also at this stage that many mothers fail to fulfill the task of motherhood. Narcissism, arrogance, and possessiveness make a woman a loving mother only when her children are young, and it is easy enough to love young children. And the test of whether a mother is truly capable of love is whether she is willing to separate and continue to love after separation. Love the child or love to control the child? Parents who don’t know how to separate struggle to retain control over their children even when they are adults and married. They often like to do everything while complaining about their child’s incompetence. The subconscious mind of such a parent does not want his child to be independent; he wants to make himself important in his child’s life and will consciously or unconsciously create a sense of unimportance in his child. Instead of loving the child, he loves the total control over the child, which gives him a sense of fulfillment and power and makes him happy with himself. A young mother told me that her parents had always been very strict with her. For example, she grew up with a love of reading, of classic novels and history books, but was often met with blank stares and discouragement from her parents. They wanted her to read only textbooks and thought it was useless to read “leisure books”. Now that she has a family and has children, she occasionally picks up a novel to read during the holidays, her father will criticize, why not read professional books? What’s the use of reading novels? The reader said that although she knew that her parents loved her, but the feeling of living with them was “I feel like I’m living in hell”! It’s hard to imagine the pain of being overprivileged when you’re not. I once received a letter from a reader, also a young woman, signed at the end “a desperate person”. In her letter, she described the pain that her mother’s endless support had caused her, and sent me a letter that she had written to her mother, asking if I would send it to her mother. The letter reads: Ever since I was a child, you have always been in front of me in everything, and you have done everything that I should have done myself, or that I should have learned to do, but you have always been picking on me, saying that I am poor at self-care, and even in front of other people, saying that I am not good at doing this or that. As a result, I don’t feel confident in doing anything, and as a result, I really can’t do anything well, which is all the more reason for you to rush ahead of me. How can I not have low self-esteem when you have been treating me in such an extremely cruel and even brutal way? How can I possibly have the ability to take care of myself? How can I learn to deal with others? Why do you always have to be in front of me? There are only two consequences: Either I finally can’t stand it one day and kill myself. Or, in the future, you will be old and go before me, leaving me alone, can’t cook, can’t buy my own clothes, can’t bargain, can’t deal with others, can’t protect myself …… and finally die a miserable death. In short, you’re driving me toward extinction! (In the original letter, the girl used more than two dozen exclamation points here!) If parents stubbornly occupy their children’s life space, the children’s world can only be small, even crippled. The mother who has been relegated to the status of “idler” should be thankful that her child is still young and can fight back, and dares to openly reject his parents’ infringement on his freedom, which means that the child’s inner “self” is still relatively strong, and his world is still relatively intact. The girl’s courage to write such a letter is also a self-help instinct, so I agree with her to send the letter to her mother. If a child becomes completely numb to parental manipulation and loses the ability to guard the boundaries of his or her “self,” the damage can be fatal. Love your child, but don’t lose yourself An important way to prevent excessive interference in your child’s life, besides creating awareness, is for the mother to develop her own career and hobbies, and to take care of her own life. Caring for your child wholeheartedly does not mean that you need to lose yourself. A mother who loves her children can also dress well, eat elegantly and have fun. If a mother has no hobbies other than work or housework, has no friends, doesn’t like to shop, read, play mahjong, or know anything about fashion, it’s likely that her only hobby is to be fully involved in her child’s life, which can make separation extraordinarily difficult. Mothers who don’t want to separate tend to come across as a bitter mother, living a miserable life from young to old, which can make the child sad and apologetic, and isn’t good for his growth and happiness. So don’t be an ascetic mom, be a mom who enjoys life. Only when mom lives a happy and joyful life can her child be truly happy and joyful. As adult children, in order to avoid their parents to their own over-organized, after joining the work should try to live independently, after the family should avoid living with their parents. Don’t be dependent on your parents, and don’t be bound by the rope of “filial piety” or “unfilial piety”. Firmly refuse to cross the border with your parents, but gently resist. When encountering unwarranted parental interference, the best way is, of course, to communicate with your parents, and if you can’t communicate, just laugh it off, say “Mom, you’re right, I know”, and then let your parents’ words go in one ear and out the other, and then do what you want to do, and stick to “nonviolent resistance. “The most important thing to remember is that you can’t help but to be a good friend to your parents. If you can’t help it, it’s not a problem if you occasionally contradict your parents or have a fight, but you should try not to contradict them or have a fight. What you have to keep in mind is that your parents are not malicious, they just don’t do things right, there is no such thing as a perfect parent, and my parents can have shortcomings too. Thinking this way, one’s heart broadens. Arranged parents, initially encountered the child’s “war of independence”, will be sad and uncomfortable, but from a longer period of time, it is certainly a relief, after all, the vast majority of parents want their children to live a happy life. If they see that you are doing well without them, they will slowly adapt to the change and realize that motherhood is a gradual process of separation.