ABSTRACT
Most sons and daughters recognise quite early in life that their parents are only
human and make mistakes. They have feelings and emotions like anyone else, and
they are not right in everything they do and say. Although parents are supposed to
take care of their children, this relationship may be quite fluid, and care and
protection may move in either direction at different times in our lives. For
illustration, Richard and Sophie’s relationship has been described for many other
reasons, and at the age of fifty-four and nineteen respectively, Richard feels that
their relationship has already passed through several such stages:
‘I suppose you could argue that our relationship has gone through a series of
changes. To begin with I was the father and she was the daughter. Then we were
like brother and sister really. And I suspect now it’s gone right round and she’s
more like a mother to me, because she tends to keep an eye on me, tries to steer me
in the right direction. She is inclined, probably because in some respects I am
somewhat of a child, to be a little more mature than I am. So it has gone through
this metamorphosis from father and daughter to mother and son almost.’
