On the way to the washroom, I walked past a table where a family of four sits and overheard their conversation. Dad was discussing sports with Son whilst Daughter was busy tapping away on her iPhone. I did my business and a minute or two later walked by the same table again.
Now, mum is seated between Dad and Daughter. Dad has his arm over the chair, tip of his fingers slightly resting on Mum’s shoulder. Dad roared in delight, Son clutched his gut as Mum looked with fondness at dear Daughter – her complexion as red as a tomato.
I sat a few feet away and strained my ears; wanting to eavesdrop and figure out what’s so funny. Also, I now learn that peripheral vision sure is very limited.
Ok, that was a re-creation and combination of similar experience in the past.
Sometimes, don’t we all feel like we’re perpetually locking horns with our parents whilst others are like the best of friends with theirs? When ours dictate without listening, we tried to reason with them only to be silenced. Then we started comparing, yearning, and hoping – wistfully – to miraculously be a son or daughter to that “perfect” parent.
Like it or not, we’re stuck with wherever God puts us in. It’s been chosen for us and in obedience we learn to honour them. This thought’s been nagging at me ever since I read the line that sounded like this: How can I hurt my dad?
I don’t know if that question was posed for fun or otherwise and I don’t know what the dude went through. One thing’s for sure, I can relate to people wanting something like the opening scenario above.
I can’t say I grow up in a felicitous but I didn’t experience a Spartan upbringing either. Mum and dad (or do you prefer ‘father and mother’?) worked hard to ensure we’re well-fed and our schoolbags are well-equipped, for which I’m thankful. Somehow I felt they missed, what is perhaps, the one important thing I was (and still am) looking for: to listen.
And I realized I’m not the only experiencing that. Was it education? Culture? Parents they think (rightly and wrongly) that if the child’s well-fed and the fee’s all paid, they’ve shown love. Well, partly at best. There’s seldom time for a get-together where everyone just sits down talk about what’s happened the week before – in a relaxing and honest environment I may add. Even if there’s a Q&A, it’s got to do with whether the cash flow’s sustainable. Over the years, barriers are built and people drift apart. Now, to even show affection seemed like an insurmountable task with lots of awkwardness thrown in.
Some parents are overly protective, so much so that they limit their children’s mingling with people. Well, I wasn’t that restricted but I was taught to choose my friends wisely. As discriminatory as it seemed, that cynicism do help at times. But I’m old enough know to not judge people from the get-go but to let them show us what they’re made of.
Looking back and looking at the present, regardless of how they fared, parents just want the best for their children even if it meant their children bemoaning their parenting skills. Love means many things to many parents. Love means setting curfew to some whilst to others, it means letting them out and walking with them. Love also means asking if food is sufficient but it also means asking whether there’s an emotional distress that needs an ear and a shoulder. Love to some definitely means stuffing you with food and deaf to your pleading whilst another, out of love, never imposes.
Love means so many things. And to my group, love means posting this on a blog to come to terms (or was it called reconcile?) with the sort of parenting one has to err... endure for more than two decades.
Still... Parents, why don’t you listen sometime?! Your child might not be as reasonable as me! Haha! I don’t know, there are times I’m really frustrated but there never was a time that I wished harm on them.
I tell myself what I’ve been telling people; that I don’t grow and sustain myself since day zero on sunlight.
