I was talking to a friend earlier about growing up. And when you talk about family, the conversation will begin to hone in on our parents. I told him that my parents always pressured me to achieve the best and become the finest version of myself at any given time. Whilst I droned on and on about the psychological effects it had on me, my friend told me that his parents were never strict on him at all. In fact, they've never even pushed him to become anyone. They let him exist within the freedom that he himself set up, and he wished that his parents were more like mine. I realized then that we will always find fault in our parents, which makes it seem like all parents are always wrong.
Let's get to it:
When I was younger, I thought my parents knew everything. My mother wore the pants in the house and she played the villain in my melodramatic teenage years. My father was my very own Dave Chappelle; funny, inspirational, and perfect. Together they were my Batman and Robin. My Lewis and Clark. My Bert and Ernie. My Mumford and Sons. My Daft and Punk. Sure, I've had disagreements with the two, but I realized that being raised by parents with two very different perspectives on life have made me become a well-rounded person. I'm open minded enough to accept Western ideologies but close minded enough to stick to my Asian roots. When I was caught between two worlds, my parents made it work.
I was told that the older I get, the more I'll sympathize with my parents. Now, I haven't reached that point yet but I'm at that stage where my parents are starting to seem...human. The moment I turned twenty, the devilish caricature I created of my mother transformed into an aging woman with scars and wrinkles from years of battle. My own Dave Chappelle still hasn't lost his charm but now walks slower, sits longer, and looks at me with tired eyes that are deeper than ocean trenches.
And then I realized, they had no idea what they were doing. All this time.
My parents, like most of the older generation, were thrust into the world of parenthood without Google as their guide. They had to ask other autodidactic parents on how to deal with colicky babies and vaccinations. They had routine phone calls with pediatricians to ask the most mundane questions e.g. how do I burp my ever-vomiting infant? We forget their hidden trials and errors and end up treating our parents as these omniscient adults. So we look at them as Gandalf screaming, "You shall not pass!" Thinking that they're the only ones standing in between you and The Biggest Party Ever, Mom, God You're Ruining My Life. When in reality, they're just as scared and confused as we are.
The thing is, our parents who plant themselves in the gateway of our opportunities only do so to protect us from what has already happened to them. They don't let you drink because they had a terrible accident involving a drunk driver in high school. They force you to study for hours because they failed a grade and watched their friends graduate to college before they did. They want to meet all your boyfriends because they were cheated on by their first love and are afraid that you would experience the same heartbreak. The restrictions our parents give us are based on the experiences they had with them. Whether it be drinking, dating, drugs, gambling, smoking, or education, the constraints they put you under tells a story of their childhood.
Which is why every couple have different house rules; a catalog of do's and don'ts that reflect themselves more than their kids. Our parents blindly knit their children with needles and yarn from life experiences and their own parents, so it's no wonder that no two sets of parents are the same.
The thing is, we'll end up finding flaws in how they raised us regardless of their best efforts. It's as if our first instinct is to look at our parents and point our index fingers at them. We go to therapists and explode with a monologue about our progenitors. Our Freud-loving therapist will find a hole in the pedagogy of our parents and make sure we know that the ache in our hearts is caused by the depravation of hugs during our early years. Every generation will have a bone to pick with their parents. The cycle is endless, and it is pointless.
I think the first step to loving our parents is to see them as clueless individuals. I mean, sure some of them can build a billion-dollar empire and perform a weekly surgical ventricular restoration, but when it comes to raising another human being to become an upstanding citizen? Yeah, they're not nearly as good as we think they are.
Couples might have the hang of parenting after a few kids, but some won't. Every child was programmed with a set of chromosomes different than the ones before. Each newborn has their own surprises, so even after five kids, parents might still face challenges with the sixth. The key is to realize that our parents are still learning, and that means they will make mistakes. They'll say things that you shouldn't listen to and do things that you shouldn't see. They'll be unaware of your pain and happiness at times. But that's what being human is all about; making mistakes and being wrong, over and over again. The problem is that we rarely forgive our parents for their oversights, while they take the time to pardon ours. Our parents understand that we are still in the process of learning, but we need to realize that so are they. They take life everyday by the reins and hope that they've done the best they can, but we are oblivious to their constant facade as a warrior.
With that said, we are still always in a position to teach our parents life lessons. It doesn't matter how old we are. A nine year-old can say something profound the same way a fifty-one year-old can. I think we shouldn't be afraid to teach our parents a thing or two, as long as we allow them to teach us a handful of their life lessons in exchange. It's a process between parents and children to learn and to teach. Sometimes we forget that, and we listen to our parents without showing them the diamonds we have studded on our tongues. And parents, don't forget that your children are learning at a faster pace than you did when you were younger, and there is nothing wrong with having a malleable mindset to fit the mold of your children's ever-changing zeitgeist.
"The job of every generation is to discover the flaws of the one that came before it. That's part of growing up, figuring out all the ways your parents and their friends are broken." -Justine Larbalestier
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