Whose turn is it anyway?

Just been watching Postcards From The Edge, and a line jumped out at me. Meryl Streep plays an actress struggling with her career, drugs, and her mother (played by Shirley McLaine), who has a very successful showbiz career of her own behind her. No pressure, right? It's from the semi-autobiographical book by Carrie Fisher, whose mother of course was actress Debbie Reynolds.

The line that got me was when McLaine's character says, "I guess I'm jealous that it's your turn now." I'm no movie star, and neither is Fred yet, but nevertheless that sounded pretty close to home. As parents we have to hand on the baton to our kids - maybe you could say there's a whole host of batons. The agony and the ecstasy of parenting. I find the difficult bits of being a dad are so often about that passing on of some crumb of responsibility. I really want him to have it, but what if he's not ready? Will he drop it? Will he hurt himself? What will everyone think of me if it all goes wrong? What will I think of me?

Oh, and let's not forget all my stuff about what he ought to do with his opportunities. That's where the jealousy kicks in. I mean, if he's getting all these chances to open things up in his life, isn't there a parallel process of possibilities shutting down for me, one generation ahead?

Well, no. There's also a wonderful scene in Postcards From The Edge where the mother throws a party for the daughter. During it, she sings a song to piano accompaniment, and really makes a fabulous number out of it. She belts out the song, she flirts with her audience, she flashes her legs. All eyes are on her even though it's the daughter's party, and given the tense mother-daughter relationship, a fight could well ensue. But instead, Ms Streep's character's face is full of nothing but love and admiration. Her mother's sharing, and she's loving it.

Which all raises the question - what if it were always everyone's turn?