Parental Advice

More often than not, we forget that our parents are individuals too. Individuals who’ve had a life of their own, experiences that have moulded them into the people they are today. Changing the way we look at them, can make all the difference in the world in our relationships. I wrote about my journey with mine because I wish someone had told me this before. And I hope that me telling it, reaches someone who might need to hear it now.

It’s a difficult relationship I’ve had with my parents. For most part of my life, I even blamed them for it. Just like I blamed them for the way I turned out to be. But as a kid, I was just like any other girl, a daddy’s girl. Mostly because he was one of the very few elders in my family who didn’t treat me like the “third girl child in a North Indian family” I was. 

I remember watching every kind of sport in the world with him just cause he did. I remember discussing and researching and buying gadgets with him just cause he liked them. I remember learning to cook food and feeding him cause he liked it. There was always a lot more him in our relationship than there ever was me. Over the years, our equation changed. Soon enough, I was not so “little” anymore. Every move monitored, judged and corrected, I began to fear him. I began to hate him. Began to rebel. We refused to recognise each other or even acknowledge. For a year and a half, only spoke when we NEEDED to. 

It took me 3 years to separate my father from the individual he was. When I did, the hating stopped. Whatever he is, he has become that from his experiences. He might not be the best father in the world but when he tries, I appreciate it. When he fails me, I point it out. I had to learn to communicate with him while he learnt to let me actually speak and for him to listen. 

I think it’s the toughest thing to be, a parent in this world, to have that much responsibility. A year ago, I decided to forgive my parents for all the mistakes they made with me, I began trying to teach them to be better, to learn to be more understanding of them. This doesn’t mean that I forget everything that they’ve done or made me feel like, that stays but I try not to hold it against them. I try to make sense of where they’re coming from. What made them like that or what made them do that. It helps most of the times. And then I try to teach them otherwise, I try to change the normal that they know, the normal that I’ve been taught.

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P.S - Some people are JUST toxic, no matter who they are, need to be cut off if they show NO signs of improvement and if it’s affects your life/mental health negatively.