Episode 14: Grandparenting
Episode 14
Topic: Grandparenting
Featured Guest: Amie Post, MA, LCMFT
Release Date: October 7, 2025
Dr. Bowen Quote Referenced: “A common phenomenon in our culture is one in which parents will say, “I want my children to have a better lot in life than I had. I do not want them to have to go through the problems and difficulties I had with my parents in my childhood.” So the parents make a concerted effort to correct what they FELT (there is a big distinction between what one feels to be right and what one believes to be right) was wrong in their childhood in the rearing of their children. The coin is turned over and on the surface appears to be different, but the problem remains the same. Their children, involved in the same problem but with different manifestations, resolve to make things better for their children and to not repeat the mistakes of their parents. Again comes another change of the coin in the third generation with the net result that the member of the third generation can come to have the exact characteristics that the parents (second generation) disliked so much in their parents (first generation).”
Source: Bowen, M. (1965). The Reality Orientation of Parents and the Communication of Reality to Their Children [Excerpt]. The Murray Bowen Archives Project.