Parent-Child Relationship Codi Has a Very Complicated

Parent-Child Relationship

Codi has a very complicated relationship with her father. It is not a conventional relationship. Their relationship to each other is renewed after her father falls ill. Her father (Doc Homer) has a different relationship with his daughters. His daughters, hallie and Codi moved out of their father's house when they grew up to adolescents. They both want to lead independent lives of their own. There has always been distance between the father and daughter ever since they were young. Something was lacking in their relationship and that was the only way of making the relationship work.

Their father had always separated them from the rest of the community and not let his offspring discover the true roots of their identity. He does not want to remember his ties to the Gracela valley and tries to forget them. He has never let his daughters reach out to him, which created a void in their lives. This void was a reflection of his own inner emptiness that had resulted from the death of his wife. She died three years after Codi was born. That is perhaps a factor, which has separated him from his two daughters. He doesn't deliberately wants to keep his daughters emotionally away but cannot help it because he has been immobilized but pain and guilt. Doc Homer wants to find the meaning of his life and its purpose and to try and fix all the wrongs of the past so he can move on. Instead he is stuck in that same cycle and can't move out of the guilt phase. This alienates his daughters from him. He has always been behind the scenes, as he loves his daughters but can't show his love for them, as he is fearful. It's a big mistake on his part to be a caring parent but not letting his progeny know how he feels for them. The daughters move on to better things in life and try to leave their past behind them. They consider themselves orphans as they believe that they don't have any parents. Their mother passed away while they were young and the father barely acknowledges them. Codi has gotten pregnant while in high school and she loses her baby due to her negligence.

The relationship level in the book is shown in great detail. The link between Codi and her dead mother is very clear. She yearns for the love of the mother who is not there as she hasn't received any from her father. There might have been some salvageable love if her mother had been alive. Maybe she could have given her the love, which she was supposed to get. The entire whole family's lives have been changed as they are dysfunctional and can't show their emotions towards each other. Instead of expressing anything they have suppressed all sorts of emotions. This is a very unhealthy way of expression.

There should be a healthy way of expressing their feelings towards each other. A family should have a proper line of communication with each other. They should tell the other person what they think without mincing any words. If doc homer had managed to cope with his anxieties and emotions he would have put his daughters first as they were his priority. Alienation from one's family really hurts a person with deep emotional scars and divides them.