Parenting: Taking a fresh look at an old issue

Parents claim to love their children. But quiet frankly do they? A parent is parent until a child is able to think and made sound decisions on their own. There comes a time when a parent loses that role and then the child becomes an adult. There is no parent to child relationship anymore but a person to person relationship.

Let’s start by defining what a parent is. A parent is someone who nurtures their child, instilling good values, beliefs, ethics and morals into them. As well as providing for the basic needs of the child, visa food, shelter, education, clothes and love.

Once this role of a parent is over, all that is needed to be given is love.

Parents sometimes give a little too much their desire to “love” or give becomes over excessive and this turns into spoiling. The parents’ want to prevent their child from getting into danger becomes over protectiveness and interferes with their need to explore the world.

This is more a case of being in control and becomes overbearing in the latter years of the child as they become independent. The parent wants to resume this role of being PARENT. So they continue to try to protect, control and force what they feel is right over the child. They want their child to always want their help.

“Whether you’re 8 or 80, I’m still your mother and I know what’s best for you!”

When parents cannot get their way with the child they will send the child on a guilt trip by criticizing and disapproving of the choices they may have made.

Life is all about choices. You never know what is good or what is bad. The Law of Balance tells us that there is neither good nor bad, thinking makes it so and that it’s all about perception. Therefore you can never make the wrong choice, simply choices that lead to you growing along the spiritual path. Understand that are but a piece of wood. Sometimes all that life is doing is taking a hammer and chisel and having a go at you, taking away parts of you. Life is simply carving a master piece out of you. A parent will say that they want their child to never suffer. WHY? Suffering is a wonderful thing. It is through tragedy that I have grown. It is only through times of hardship that I have learned the meaning of life. Had I not suffered, had I not been through hardship I most likely would not be where I am today.

 

Olives are pressed to get oil, Fruits are squeezed for juice, & Flowers are crushed 4 perfume! Can you see how the world works?

A parent thinks they are truly loving and caring, and they ACTUALLY believe it! However they are more concerned about keeping their role as a parent. It is never about the child. It is about them. It is all about EGO. This power that they had over the child for more than two decades cannot be lost, understandably so. If you were a manager of a company for that long and were suddenly told your service is no longer required, take a back seat, you would do anything to want to stay in that position!

 

Sometimes a parent would want the child to do something that the parent themselves could not do. “I want you to have more than I did” “I want to be successful so that I can look successful too” They want to achieve and live their dreams through you.

A parent would say, “I have done so much for you, suffered for you…and all I ask is you do this. I know what the best thing is for you and I will continue to love you as long as you do what I say”

What non sense is that? Love? Pseudo love yes. CONDITIONAL LOVE!. It is not true love. Love that is free from expectations, circumstances and outcome. Love that is just love without wanting any back. That is how parents should love. That is how anyone should love! Not love that is based on terms or conditions when and if it suits you!

If your parent is doing this to you, do not give them this article to read. Indirectly perhaps, yes.  Leave it somewhere where they find it by chance. I am telling you this because whenever we try to tell someone they are wrong, they put up a brick wall. They put up a defense.

As you may well know, what you resist must and will persist! The more you try to fight something the stronger it gets. That is why THE WAR AGAINST CRIME, only leads to more crime. THE WAR AGAINST TERRORISM, you get more terror. We keep feeding the crime and terror with fear and anger. It is going to give us just that!

What you can do, however, have this renewed understanding as to why your parents are doing this. Perhaps when you are also are parent you will understand more deeply what I am saying. Simply do not react to what they say.

You are now responsible, grown up, independent, smart, mature and capable of surviving in the world. You do not need their approval for anything. You are your own person and have to make the decisions that best suit you. Remove that negative thought that you cannot be happy unless you have their support and blessing.

Ignore and replace any other thoughts that come into your mind. Words that may have been spoken to you by your parents, “You will never amount to anything,” “You are never going to make it” and such. These are all in the past. Live in the present. When you live in the present then you live in love. Living in the past means you are living in guilt.

Do not live in the present through the mask of the past. LIVE IN THE NOW!

 

The strange thing about relationships that we have with parents is that this is the first relationships we experience in the world. It is these relationships that define the relationships we have in the future with our love partners, in business, at work on the sports field. So if you wish to understand the relationships in your life, analyze the relationship that you shared with your parent.

Parents want to give so much. However there is one thing that they sometimes fail to give their child. FREEDOM. Freedom to choose. Freedom to be themselves. Freedom to make mistakes. Freedom to grow. Freedom to learn. Freedom to be human. Freedom just to be.

Be great always, and always live in love,

Hitesh Surujbally.