Over-Parenting

Do you feel free to share the best things you have done in your life with your parents and feel scared to discuss the ugliest thing u have ever done? Do you feel worried to discuss with them, the career you want to pursue & the girl you want to marry?

If you are living another life which your parents are unaware of, then trust me your parents are not your best friends nor your true guardians on who you can really rely on for taking the best decisions of your life.

No one will ever know you completely because no one will ever accompany you in this journey of your life, not even your spouse nor your mother. The only person who accompanies you right from the start to the end of your life is just YOU. And thus the only person who can take best decisions for yourself is just YOU. Not your parents!

Cochin: “

Please listen to me! I want to become a Musician and that’s what I am good at. Any other job apart from that might earn you money but not my happiness. And you being my parents really want to see me earn money at the cost of my peace and happiness?” Robert was trying to convince his orthodox parents for his career.

Hyderabad:

“Please listen to me! I want to marry that girl because I feel she is the best for me in terms of the way she handles me, cares for me or the way she loves me. She always brings out the best in me and makes sure I am happy. I really love her. Any other woman of your choice, apart from her might save your status and reputation but not my happiness. And you being my parents really want to see me save your status & reputation at the cost of my peace and happiness?” Dawson was trying to convince his orthodox parents for his marriage. 

“What about our peace and happiness? You want to pursue what u like at the cost of our peace and happiness?” The parents asked. “She is trying to trap you!”

“But the decision here is about my life. The decision impacts me more than it impacts you all.” He wanted to tell this every time but he couldn’t.

The moral and emotional blackmail which followed resulted in Robert pursuing the career which their parents thought was right to him and Dawson marrying the girl which the parents thought was right to him and the family. What followed later was a life without a soul in it, which was nothing but a slow death which no one ever thought of. The feeling of being caged under few illogical morals and ethics driven orthodox family and feeling of life being under someone else’s control resulted in a stressful & suffocating life which lead to the death of Mr. Robert Dawson. Because no one was aware of his depression which lurked inside him since ages.

It feels like reality isn’t it? It is extremely saddening to witness a whopping number of cases like this in the 21st Century. 

When a child grows into an adult, there are few important things he want to do it in his own way. But why does it become a problem to the parents? Why do they restrict their children from doing what they love, may it be career they want to pursue or may it be the person they want to marry?

Dear reader, I know this is your story too. I understand that these questions lurk inside your brain too. If it doesn’t, with due respect you may stop reading further because we are gonna take a deep dive into this.

HOW DID THE PROBLEM COME INTO PICTURE:

If feeling superior over others becomes an addiction, that’s called Pride. The quest to stay in that constant addiction to feel superior, will lead to the birth of a greater disease called Status/Honour. When the pride is high on your head, your concentration shifts from growth to the fear of failure, which doesn’t let you learn & experiment new things at all. And thus everyone with that ideology resist to change or update.

We discussed this in the earlier blog post, the birth & history of societies & the importance of staying in groups in the earlier days. FAMILIES were one among such entities which were encouraged on the same ground.

(Request you to kindly read SOCIETY – VERSION 2.0 to understand this in a deeper level.)

Since ages ago until today, most of them spent their lives by finding pleasure in feeling superior over others. And in the quest to become more powerful, various groups were formed. They understood way back that in order to become more powerful, they need to save their existing power in the first case. Then started the pursuance towards saving the status/reputation, individually and as a group. Raising their children according to the terms & norms or otherwise known as standards of the group was mandatory as someone going against it will be seen as a traitor & banished from the group or maybe that’s how they feel. Because that would have hit them hard on their pride of the individual/group and the entire family would be accused and held responsible for not seeing it coming from their blood. This cautioned the parents into taking extra care & indulgence into the lives of their children to make sure they don’t cross the limitations of the groups & harm their reputation, but by compromising on their individual interests, values and perspectives. Since then the primary duty of every individual parent has become the same. Children were allowed to do anything they want but not something that their particular group considers as heinous. Each and every group was a kingdom in itself with its own legal system which had a capacity to start greater civil wars.

WHERE ARE WE GOING WRONG?:

1. Investing & Rubbing too much of parent ideologies onto children.
2. Considering children as a symbol of pride.
3. Considering children as your property & failing to understand that they have their own values & perspectives.
4. Fear of being judged by others & their group.
5. Unbalanced emotions & Over-love towards the children.

The most important thing that parents tend to forget is that children come into this world through YOU, but they are not YOU.  How much ever you train them or persuade them to write what you want, once they are adult, they still would have a clean slate to write what they want. That is because parents are not the only source of knowledge anymore. Days have changed. Children today can grab information from every corner of the world and that is why parents need to be a filter to that free flow of information, but the point is until when? Parenting can be done only until your child turns adult. Once he gains his own consciousness, it is very important that parents allow them to write their own story, coz you cannot be there for their entire life. Never become a child’s habit or addiction. Over love always lead to emotional fractures. There should always be a balance with the love and compatibility.

NOTE: Love and compatibility are the two major pillars for any relationship to survive. It doesn’t survive on only one of the either. High on love & low on compatibility is the major reason for an imbalance in any relation right from wife-husband to the parent-children.The absence of compatibility leads to the extreme pressure on love which eventually breaks. High on love and low on compatibility leads to intense emotions and attachment with the kid, but lesser understanding about his interests & personality. This leads to huge false expectations on their kids which is destined to create emotional turmoil among each other.

INSIGHTS:

While there are infinite number of decisions we take on every step and every second of our lives, the most important of all are three.

1. Career
2. Marriage and
3. Children

To the Kids:

While all the decisions may not impact you much but these three entities will decide how the next remaining 30 – 40 years of your life is going to be. Our entire life depends on these three important pillars as they give us an identity to our lives and in turn a life. The decision that you make in the above factors should be all your’s without any external influence. Parents asking you to sacrifice anything related to the above three is equal to asking your life back. They might be the reason for your birth but trust me they won’t be able to take it when they get to know that their decisions are the reason for your slow death. Just because they gave you birth they won’t be having any right to ask your life back because neither you were a choice to them nor they were a choice to you.

To the Parents:

Hmmm… How does it feel? Being your child’s first hero and first love? beautiful isn’t it? Something that money cannot buy. Every child is born curious and are willing to explore various opportunities with a belief that their parents are there to support them. They willingly sacrifices few things, for what all you go through for them. But isn’t it a basic empathy towards them that you don’t ask too much out of them when it comes to the important things that matter to them in their life? A child feels left over and alone right when you take that tiny step of asking too much out of them. And still with every broken piece of hope and heart, they still love you back, like you do. Strange! There are many books and movies which describe the love of the parents towards their children, but there are only few that describes the love of the children towards their parents.

Yes, a good parenting has never been about giving your kids what they want but to let them choose what they want, to make them worthy enough to make their own decisions and fight for it. It’s never been about your indulgence in every small thing but to let them learn through their own mistakes. Because trying and failing is always better than not trying at all as it leaves them with regretful thought “I should have tried!” which is equal to dying every day. So just to make sure they won’t take a wrong step, you leave them with regret which is far worse. So when it comes to major life defining decisions such as career or marriage or children, parents should leave their status & society aside to let their children decide what they want to choose.

SADISTIC PARENTING:

Yes, families are beautiful, if everyone are allowed to be the way they want, if everyone are allowed to have their own values and metrics, if everyone understand and respect the diversity within. If not, families can get crippling pain in the ass.

The reality is that a person can do anything he wants but not an activity which is deemed as illegal by the country, coz the government is a greater power which will entitle you to a greater punishment. In the similar manner, groups & families had their own governing authorities with their own rules and regulations. Due to this people were subjected to greater restrictions.

We grow up believing that our parents are our saviours, but here is the twist, sometimes, the heroes aren’t truly the heroes but instead are the dangerous villains. Parents, during their worst times, become the worst hitlers to make their children dance to their numbers. They hold your weakness right in their fist, ‘your emotion towards them’. They either blackmail you emotionally that they will die or take an oath to kill you. Yes, the baby steps towards the dirtiest politics & master manipulations starts at home with parents. Examples of parents & family going beyond the limits to torture their children & kill them for doing something that was not acceptable to the parents are in hugely available in various news and articles. You might not even have dreamt in your worst dreams that they can turn into such devil form. Being in the city we might feel that this is totally next level, but it’s a hard hitting truth. If you are with your family but your thoughts and principles are against your parents ideology, then trust me you are in as similar danger as a spy in enemy grounds. #Youwillgetkilled #emotionally #physically

CONCLUSION:

Today, the days have changed. The youngsters & millennials are no more interested in serving the age old useless groups by sacrificing their interests. This paved the way towards the greater level of freedom. People today are pursuing the careers they want, marrying the person they want, having children at their own time, even if the family or caste or religion opposes it. Because they are no more afraid of the failures. The people today are willing to be accountable and answerable only to the Constitution of India but to no other authorities. Coz the people today are novel in their thoughts & perspectives and they don’t believe in identifying themselves with the caste or the religion or any other groups, but only as a country. #INDIAN

It is high time for all the parents out there to realise the hard truth that your children are not your property, but a life that came into this world through you. They are a part of you but not YOU. They have your DNA in their blood, but not in their thoughts. They have their own interests to generate and experiences to learn from and grow different than you. The age of moulding ourselves to save age old norms or castes or religions is about to come to an end. This is the dawn of a new age. The kids of this generation want to cut their ties with all those intangible and illogical ideologies to breath the fresh air of freedom. Being their parents, encourage and support them in pursuing what they want & let them see a better tomorrow.

To sum this up, I wanted to tell this to all you millennials, teenagers and youngsters.

This is 21st Century! If your parents don’t understand why something is important to you, make them understand. And if they don’t, fight for what you love whatever it takes. Never forget that you have your own story to write.

Remember!

It is YOUR life if you clearly know what you want.

But if your parents know what you want better than you, then that is THEIR life. Not Your’s.

—Sai Nikhil Etikyala (Exploracer)

NOTE: Every decision that you take have consequences that you should be responsible for. #Time to take charge of your Karma!