Not Reaction Formation... Just Reaction...

Of all the patterns in life, I find REACTION one of the most interesting... My younger brother hated the subjects and teachers I loved in school...In fact, if any high school teacher asked him, Are you Marlene's brother?... he immediately wanted to move to a different class...

Nobody wants to be pegged...

REACTION is probably why my mother became a teacher - she didn't want to stay at home and be a housewife, like her mother. She also had two children, not the dozen or so my grandmother bore.

REACTION is perhaps the reason why I didn't want to become a teacher (though I did...) and none of my children want to continue in the family tradition of teaching... (I did get tired of hearing my parents' friends tell me, I guess you're going to be a teacher like your mother...)

Is REACTION nature's way of balancing itself?... And creating something new?

Is this the same desire for balance that causes conflict when one parent treats children more strictly after sensing too much leniency on the part of the other parent? (Then the lenient parent becomes more lenient, trying to balance... and the strict parent, again balancing, becomes even more strict... A vicious cycle.)

Is there a psychological term for this? I ask Terry, who studied counseling for years...

REACTION FORMATION, he replies. That might be it. But you'd better check...

So I check online, and discover that REACTION FORMATION is not the term I'm looking for... Though it could describe my father's discomfort at witnessing my tears.

Go to your room if you're going to cry! he would tell me...

And REACTION would be my decision - unconscious perhaps - to marry someone who could deal with emotions!

Doing things that are opposite to what our parents did is, I think, a normal REACTION in life. As a young adult, I remember asking my father's opinion about something. At the time, he replied: Why are you asking for my advice? You're grown-up now. I should be asking for yours...

I replied (not entirely) joking: Well, I want to know what you'd do, so that I can do the opposite!

(Hadn't I been doing that for years?!)

But now it's payback time!... Now I'm the parent making suggestions to adult children, ... who often ignore my advice!

Maybe I should tell you the opposite of what I would do, I say. Maybe then you'd do what I think you should...

Eyes stare at me intently for a moment, as if to say: You wouldn't do that, would you...?!

(Do I sense fear? And mistrust - a parent breaking the unwritten rules?!)

Don't worry, the father reassures. Your mother couldn't stop giving her advice, even if she wanted to!

He's right! It's hard to cheat in the REACTION game!