Learning to engage your parents as a peer
The concept of Peership seems like gibberish and as I define it, it will seem unattainable to some readers. Peership is the relationship process where two individuals that are not technically peers (typically parents and children) learn to act and eventually function as peers. This concept to some seems totally foreign, you know where you stand with your parents and you are not a peer. Others are thinking, easy peasy, I got this, no problem, my parents are like my best friends and we communicate perfectly.
I can tell you from personal experience that for those who view this concept as unattainable there’s a solution for you, and for anyone that thinks they already have it together there’s always more to learn. Let me start first with those that think I’m bringing a concept from Mars; peership is hard to achieve and takes a lot of work. In fact in order to achieve a peership relationship you and your counterpart, have to both work as hard as you’ve worked towards anything else in your life. I have a peership relationship with my father, but it has taken us roughly 20 years to get there. My mother on the other hand thinks the concept of peership is “hogwash”; parents and children should always function as parents and children. She will never stop being my mother according to her. Her point is valid; at one level she will not stop being my mom. On another level though your parents should not treat you the same when you’re 5, 13, 18, 25, 30, 45, and 50 the relationship has to evolve and sometimes unfortunately they don’t.
I think in some ways my father and I working together has fast tracked our peership relationship, but even going into our professional agreement we were talking and treating one another with the mutual respect of peers. The conversations we’re capable of having as a father and son have baffled many people we’ve worked with. Even though we’ve managed to make this transition for the most part successfully we are still not perfect and require constant work on our relationship. This weekend for example we have a conversation scheduled to discuss his mentoring successes and failures towards me, our future working relationship, and future strategies for my business model and how it will impact his work. I know going into this conversation that we’ll walk out with a mutual understanding and a future game plan that we both agree on. I KNOW this, not I hope for this, or I wish for this, I KNOW 100% that our conversation will be a success for both of us. I know this because we have worked very hard on our relationship and our communication. He can give me feedback and stop me when I start to get overbearing and dogmatic. I can give him feedback and stop him when he gets dismissive and controlling. I can honestly say of the relationships where I don’t view myself as a peer, or I’m not viewed as a peer the only outcome I can predict is a negative one, other than that everything is an unknown.
The future posts here will describe in greater detail the ways that you achieve a peership relationship with the family that you work with. Practical application for today is simply this: if you want to be treated as a peer start acting like a peer. Think of a hypothetical situation for a moment. If you’re working for your dad and you’re not being treated as a peer (according to you) have you done the things necessary to command the respect that comes with being a peer? Do you show up late? Do you dress professionally, and not professionally for Justin Bieber I mean professionally for Warren Buffet? Do you complain when you’re given dirty work? Do you ever volunteer to do the dirty work? The reason why I list these questions is not because I know that this is the work ethic that every parent values, I ask these questions because these are things that anyone would do to get ahead in their job if they weren’t working for their parents. I cannot change my mother’s view of peership, or force her to treat me as a peer. But if I still act like a 12 year old boy asking her to do my laundry, schedule appointments for me, and tell me how to do everything then what choice does she have but to treat me like a 12 year old boy. Instead I choose to act like a grown man, I accept her advice based upon years of life experience and include that data with all other data I have collected to make my decisions. I treat my mother’s advice as if I were receiving it from a more seasoned friend and give it no more power over my life than that.
I cannot emphasize enough that the concept of peership is critical to your success working with your parents or anyone that has had cause to view you not as a peer in the past. In order to reach a peership relationship with someone you both will have to work incredibly hard. The work starts with you though, and your commitment to act like a peer. If you don’t know what that looks like just ask the person who you’re trying to have that type of relationship with. Identify a peer in their life and ask what that person has done to earn the respect of your desired peer relationship. Try to avoid the question of “what do I have to do to be a peer”, I think you’ll find the response could be dismissive. Instead try and model your behavior after someone you’ve seen be successful at becoming a peer, the relationship will start to evolve on it’s own from there.
Best of Luck
Practical Summary
- Peership takes a lot of work and effort from both parties
- Peership requires constant communication and honesty to maintain a high level of mutual respect
- If you want to be treated like a peer, start by acting like a peer