“Ok,” my mother said.
My mother gave me a lot of freedom. While she was certainly interested in my life and engaged in my activities, I also had a lot of independence. In elementary school, my brother and I spent a fair amount of time on our own, although neighbors were available in case of trouble. She let us stay up late fairly often, even letting us stay up all night on the last day of school – I always fell asleep during Saturday Night Live. There were no restrictions on what we read, and I don’t remember rules about junk food or television watching. As a teenager, I spent many evenings hanging out with friends or wandering the residential streets of our development, and my mother never demanded a strict reckoning of my movements or a way to get in touch with me. By the time I was in high school, I didn’t need to be home for dinner (by then she had given up cooking dinner on any regular basis). I felt that I could go where I pleased, when I pleased, and I reveled in this freedom.
Let me not overstate the case – she did have some rules for us, particularly when we were younger. Probably she did want to know where I was, and mostly, I’m sure I told her. But my feeling of independence was real, and I do remember calling out that I would be home when I got home at least once without penalty. Diana Baumrind, in her theory of parenting styles, would probably describe my mother’s parenting style as permissive-indulgent. Permissive in that there were relatively few strict rules for our behavior – there was little demand upon us – and indulgent in that she was interested and involved in our lives. Permissive-indulgent parents are likely to take on the role of friend more than parent, and I did think of my mother as my friend, at least in adolescence. I wouldn’t say that there were no demands on our behavior, nor would I say that my mother was never in a parenting role, but on the whole, my memory is more of the permissive-indulgent style than any other.
Most psychologists would say that this is not the best way to parent. Children with permissive-indulgent parents tend to be less mature, less able to regulate their own behavior, and they have more problems with authority and perform more poorly in school than children with more demanding parents. But these are average trends – what did it mean for me? The lack of strict oversight did give me the opportunity to engage in risky behavior; there were those around me who used drugs and engaged in petty vandalism. I mostly eschewed these activities, though, in favor of long walks to the library, the K-mart, and the video arcade. My school performance was generally high. I was too much of a worrier to engage in most types of risky behavior.
I did have a rebellious streak, to be sure, one that my mother probably encouraged. She supported my emergent activism (such as my refusal to bow my head for the moment of silence in school), and I remember her holding forth on children as a disempowered group, lacking true political representation. I always saw her as a free spirit, something I associated with the 60's-era anti-establishment movement. In retrospect, I don’t know that she was ever really a part of that movement. Her life seems pretty conventional; she did well in school, played the piano, graduated from college, got married, and had children. But my memories of her are distinctly those of someone unconventional. Perhaps she found her inner rebellion later in life, after my parents’ divorce, or perhaps the superficial conventionality of her life was a mask for her true nature. Regardless, by midlife, she didn’t seem to feel bound by social norms or conventions and mostly did as she liked. I hope I have inherited some of her sense of independence and rebellion. I, too, want to be a free spirit, questioning authority and convention, wandering my own path far from the mainstream. Yet like my mother, much of my life follows a traditional path, even as I see myself as unconventional.
Perhaps stricter rules and greater supervision would have made her a better mother. Maybe my brother and I are just lucky we turned out well – the exceptions to the rule. Perhaps she was only permissive because she knew we could be trusted. I don’t know. What I can say is that I valued the license I was given and I didn’t abuse the freedom (much). I enjoyed the feeling of being my mother’s friend and equal, one whose opinions and feelings were worthy of consideration. More than that, I am grateful that she showed me that I could pursue my own convictions, even if that flies in the face of social norms and mainstream values.
Pictured (left to right): My brother (Duncan Stearns), my mother (Nancy Driessel Stearns), and me (circa 1967)
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