Courtesy of Facebook. Miley serenades a few schlongs at Art Basel
Patrick Schwarzenegger has been dating Miley Cyrus for several months now. But, according to various reports, his mother Maria Shriver thinks Miley is wreckingball-ing her 21-year-old son’s life.
“The birthday party with all the penis pictures disgusted her. Maria is very, very worried about the influence Miley's having on Patrick.”
It’s no secret that Miley is into partying, which sometimes manifests itself as getting naked, taking drugs and generally behaving badly. One but need to open any Internet browser to find the latest shots of her twerking, tumbling wasted out of clubs or pulling a g-string through her nubile rump. But hey, she’s just being Miley and not too unlike every other 22-year old out there—just a bit more ridiculously. And a bit more publicly.
But there’s a bigger picture here, which extends far beyond the not-so-lovely trifecta of Miley, Patrick and Maria. Should a parent ever have influence, say or sway over their adult child’s dating life?
Let’s take a look at the ultimate controlling parents, the uber-Christian Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. They have a whole lot of very strict dating rules . . . including no actual dating. The Duggars court and do not engage in any pre-martial sexual activity beyond hand-holding, and that’s only allowed if the kiddos are officially engaged. Not even a smooch before the wedding is allowed . . . Jim Bob and Michelle are even in on all pre-matrimony text messages. (So it’s probably safe to say there’s no sexting or dick pics. Just so we are clear—nowhere in the Bible does it say, “U will be strike-eth dead if u find-eth yourself not in on u r kid’s texts.”)
But for whatever it's worth, it appears the Duggars who have left the nest and started their own families—Jill, Jessa and Josh—are in happy relationships. (Then again, divorce is pretty much a big no-no, so it's better to grin and bear it, amiright?)
It’s safe to say that most people in relationships want their families to "approve" of them—if only because if they don’t, they could be be signing up for years of stress, conflict and Christmas-induced scream-fights. There's a reason a host of cultures and religions endorse the good 'ol fashioned, asking-a-woman’s father-permission-for-his-daughter’s-hand-in-marriage. Patriarchal though it may be, many seek a parental mark of respect for the partner they've chosen.
But is asking parents for anything above respecting your relationship too much? Should parents have a stake or a say in who their kids are pairing off with?
What The Experts Say
Noah Kass, a LCSW and therapist in New York, thinks it’s OK for parents like Maria to tell their children if they think they are making a mistake:
"Obviously if your child is dating someone who is objectively harmful to them, you have a responsibility to voice your concern."
But when parents go too far, it ultimately does more harm than good:
"But generally speaking, I don't think it's helpful for parents to micro manage their children's dating life. It leads to adult children feeling suffocated by the expectations of their parents. Adult children should be given room to make choices for themselves so that they have ownership over their successes and failures. This builds self-confidence—if every decision can only be made via consultation with mom—the world become a very anxious place to live in."
Evan Fisher, an MFT in Los Angeles, echoes much of Kass's thoughts, agreeing that parents are entitled to their feelings regarding who their adult child dates . . . but makes the separate point that a true adult who has achieved emotional independence from their parents won’t really care about their opinion either way:
"Parents have every right to an opinion about whom their adult child is dating, but an adult who has adequately differentiated from his or her parents will not feel compelled to take action based on that opinion. He or she might consider the parent’s opinion but then feel free to make their own choices, knowing that mom and dad still love and support them unconditionally. It’s crucial that children, long before adulthood, are afforded the respect and dignity to be their own people, to make their own choices, to breathe their own air. There is nothing more tragic than a parent who is breathing air into their adult child’s lungs. Show me that scenario and I will show you a person whose life has been stolen from them, who fears life more than lives it."
Fisher also suggests that Maria may just being acting like her own parents did. After all, she’s a Kennedy (her late mother, Eunice was JFK’s sister) and was married to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who at least when he first became involved with Maria, had just about as much in common with the Kennedys as Miley Cyrus does:
"Emotional patterns—both good and bad—tend to be transmitted inter-generationally in a family. A child born into emotional enmeshment will often become an enmeshed parent. That's why it's so important that awareness is brought to unhealthy patterns so they can be repaired."
So maybe Maria is right and Miley isn’t the ideal partner for Patrick, but the best thing for him is to figure it out without help from his pearl-clad mommy. Hopefully, Patrick’s next girlfriend will be a little more refined (or at the very least someone who stays mostly clothed in public and isn’t into hard drugs and howling at the moon). And, not to be exceedingly cynical here, but Patrick is the ripe old age of 21—how many 21-year-olds in Hollywood (or anywhere for that matter) are going to end up marrying their current girlfriends . . . especially if she’s Miley Cyrus?
By the time Maria accepts Miley's wagging tongue, he’ll probably get back together with former flame Taylor Swift.
