Like mother, like son

Mrs. Star made the initial phone call. She had been referred to me by her attorney, who thought the problems distressing her were more psychological than legal. She blurted out bits and pieces of her turbulent story in a hysterical, staccato manner. Her immediate fear was that her 44-year-old son, Billy, who works for her and has an explosive temper, might act out his threat to kill her. Mrs. Star (a pseudonym, as are all the names in this story) implored me to see her immediately.

In our first counseling session, her story unfolded. She had moved to the U.S. from Italy when she was less than ten years old. Her close-knit Italian-speaking family settled in Chicago. There she became the family’s emissary, learning the language well and adapting to the culture. Throughout her parents’ lifetimes she was a devoted daughter. Now, more than five decades after her arrival, she is quite well acculturated in the U.S. but remains loyal to and proud of her Italian heritage and customs.

She was married young to a man from her native country. They had one son, Guillermo, called Billy in English. When she realized that her husband was both alcoholic and abusive, she divorced him and decided to strike out on her own. A tall and striking woman, Mrs. Star was determined to succeed. Her mother and assorted loving family friends took care of Billy while Mrs. Star opened a small furniture store. Because she was exceedingly bright, hard-working and goal-directed, she learned what she needed to know on the job and became a shrewd, hard-driving and imperious businesswoman.

Life circumstances led Mrs. Star to move several times. As her business acumen increased, she became queen of her universe and well recognized and respected within her trade. She remarried when Billy was about ten, again choosing a man from her native country. He went to work at her burgeoning business as a glorified bookkeeper who was clearly subordinate to her. Although he was alcoholic like her first husband, he wasn’t abusive or violent. Rather, he was placid and a pacifier. In addition, because of Mrs. Star’s spitfire temperament, her husband’s calm and considerate style neutralized her tendency to shoot from the hip. Often he prevailed on her to avoid confrontations, especially with Billy, who had been overly indulged and had become stubborn, headstrong and self-centered.

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Throughout high school and college, Billy helped out in his mother’s emporium, learning to become a super-salesman. Like his mom, he married young and had his first child before he or his wife was 20 years old. To distance himself from his family-of-origin, he left to work as an accountant, the field he had studied in college. Mrs. Star was hurt and disappointed: She had envisioned that Billy would eventually become her partner and later her successor.

After his second child was born, Billy decided he was too young and restless to be tied down, and he obtained a divorce. He lost (or gave up) his job with a CPA firm and so had no money to send to his wife and children. Grandmother Star, who cared about her former daughter-in-law and grandchildren, and who reveres family ties, assumed much of the financial responsibility for them.

During that time she moved her business to a prime location. Her son was invited to return and work in her business. He did, and has been paid a large salary plus commission and many bonuses. According to Mrs. Star, these payments exceed his input and productivity; he would probably earn less than half that amount working in a similar business for a non-family member. Mrs. Star resents that Billy never worked as hard as she does and that he has always refused to work evenings and weekends. He declines to do stock work or help in unloading and arranging deliveries, even when the store is shorthanded, although Mrs. Star readily performs all of these responsibilities.

Billy suffers from many seemingly psychosomatic complaints and often leaves work early. Although Mom takes no vacations, he takes several per year—not asking for time off but telling her when he will be gone. Because she has so desperately wanted Billy’s love and filial devotion, she has always had difficulty setting and enforcing rules and limits. She indulges herself in expensive clothes and jewelry and indulges her son by being overly generous financially and not holding him accountable for the same diligent work-related attitudes and behaviors she expects of herself and other employees.

Billy subsequently remarried. His second wife, Jana, was a third-generation American of Western European origins. Billy decided to legally change his name so it would not sound Italian. His mother, proud of their heritage, took this as a personal affront. Jana didn’t respond warmly to her flamboyant, loud-speaking, feminist, career-oriented mother-in-law.

In rapid succession, Billy and Jana had three children, moved into a fancy country club community and became very involved in their children’s activities. Billy was the ideal 1980s husband and father and sarcastically let his mother know that he was a much better parent than she had ever been—this despite the fact that Billy remained detached from the children from his first marriage. It was Mrs. Star who paid for these children’s summer camps, their first cars and their college tuitions, as their mother had a low-paying job. Mrs. Star resented the frequency with which Billy disappeared from work early to coach Little League teams and go off with the Boy Scout troop while he still expected full pay and a liberal expense account.

Outside of the store, Billy, Jana and their children never visited Mrs. Star and excluded her from their holiday celebrations. This became particularly painful to her after her second husband died in the mid-1980s. She employed a live-in housekeeper because she feared and detested being alone.

Although Billy was her sole child and presumed successor in the business, no formal agreement had ever been drawn up specifying that he would succeed her—either by inheriting the lucrative business or by buying it over time. Billy became increasingly volatile at work—screaming at Mrs. Star when he didn’t get his way and demanding higher commissions and more perks. He called her degrading names in front of other employees and customers, trying to get them to take sides. She sometimes responded in kind. Because he was physically huge, his very presence when he was enraged was menacing. One day their mutual antagonism flared up and Billy threatened to kill Mrs. Star. She knew he carried a gun, ostensibly for self-protection. The threat did not seem idle. Thus her cry to me for help.

This is hardly a unique family business situation. A first-generation pioneer—in this instance a woman—begins the business out of economic necessity. She is intelligent, resourceful, innovative, hard-working and tenacious. Her confidence and lust for power grow along with her success. She envisions creating a dynasty and having her son, and later her grandchildren, join and run the business. However, her son doesn’t submit to her authority and control as she would like; he doesn’t appreciate her talents and her generosity; and he doesn’t invest of himself sufficiently in the business to satisfy her. The grandchildren are too young for her to know if they will be interested in and capable of running the business. The unresolved succession theme runs through all of their dealings—sometimes silently, sometimes vociferously.

Beneath the surface, Mrs. Star fears that Billy and his family don’t love and respect her and that when she gets older and is incapable of working, he will abandon her as he abandoned his first two children.

Billy, for his part, subconsciously fears that some day, when his mother dismisses him from the business, she’ll really mean it. He has left several times but couldn’t find a job that paid him anywhere near as much for so little work. Billy also realizes that his mother could sell the business to a non-relative or liquidate it, at which time his ability to earn such an enormous income would vanish. What’s more, having a woman as an all-powerful boss has never been comfortable for Billy. Deep down he resents his dependence on her and his consequent loss of masculinity and self-esteem.

The current conflicts reveal several “repetition compulsions” from one generation to the next. Both mother and son were married young, had a child (or children) and were soon divorced. Billy’s father was prone to violence; so is he. Mrs. Star moved quickly along the pathway of acculturation, while retaining much of her Italian identity; Billy moved further along this same path and took the next steps, disconnecting from his roots. Dissension has marked the marriages in this family for two generations and seems to continue unabated. While Billy aggressively stands up to his mother, he seems quite acquiescent to his wife’s requests (demands?), just as his stepfather was before him.

The long-term turbulence between Mrs. Star and Billy at work is paralleled by the conflicts in their personal/family sphere. Remember, some banishment of unwanted family members (the children of Billy’s first marriage) has already occurred. Additional cutoffs are potentially in the offing as Mrs. Star considers withholding the business from her son and withholding her affection from her grandchildren—since her overtures to date have been rebuffed.

Over the course of two years, I met with Mrs. Star alone in my office a number of times. I also conducted about ten joint sessions with the mother and her son. And I saw Billy alone half a dozen times, Jana three times, and Billy and his wife together twice. Three times I visited the store to acquire an interior view of the work environment and to meet with key employees to solicit their ideas about how the mother-son relationship might be improved. Finally, I held one meeting with the corporation’s accountant and several consultations with Mrs. Star’s corporate attorney.

After hearing the family herstory and history from all perspectives, I tried to de-escalate the tension (encouraging Mrs. Star and Billy to recall fond memories and think of the ways they like and respect each other, since both of them had focused exclusively on their differences). I mediated a job contract that ostensibly was good for both of them, as it explicitly committed them to reciprocal obligations. This was to be a forerunner to a buy-in agreement.

An effort was made to address the employees’ various fears. I asked them to set up appropriate boundaries and refrain from taking sides. However, they were asked to act protectively if violence were about to erupt and to call the police before a tragedy occurred. Periodically, the tensions decreased. There were several time spans of relative calm and cautious optimism about the mother’s and son’s ability to function together.

But Billy’s “team spirit” lasted only as long as Mrs. Star overlooked his missed days and early departures and his verbal abuse of other employees. As soon as she appropriately asserted administrative authority, she was subjected to his next tirade. And at the last minute, Billy refused to sign the proposed “job contract” with his mother. “If a mother loves a son,” he argued, “no contract should be necessary.” He contended that she should give him the business without expecting him to buy it.

Throughout this process, both mother and son sought a win-lose solution, buttressing their own positions as to who was right. Lately, when I’m called in periodically, I still endeavor to have them adopt a win-win strategy.

In the interim, Mrs. Star has consolidated her business from four stores to two. Following my recommendation, she is facing her mortality and is working with her attorney to draw up both a living will and a regular will. The attorney and I have planned a meeting with Mrs. Star and her son to have them re-explore the implications and consequences of their continuing feud so that they will either agree to part peaceably or end their struggle for power, because it is destructive to all concerned.

Certainly there are days when Mrs. Star would rather liquidate the business than pass it on to her ungrateful, disrespectful son. Similarly, Billy often prefers to remain on a precipice, daring his mother to cut him off from his “rightful inheritance.” I remain cautiously optimistic that as they realize the seriousness of their encounters and hear similar interpretations from their consultant-and-lawyer team, each will move out of their “stuck” and stubborn stance toward a mutually acceptable compromise and toward future good-faith planning.

Florence Kaslow, Ph.D., is a psychologist in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. (kaslowfs@worldnet.att.net). This is an abridged and revised version of an article that originally appeared in the American Journal of Family Therapy. Reproduced by permission of Taylor & Francis Inc., www.routledge-ny.com.

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