Parents, leave your kids alone!

All parents want what’s best for their children. It’s a known fact and completely understandable. You want them to become smart, successful, independent, polite and compassionate. You want them to get a great education that will one day get them an outstanding job that will pay the bills and offer them a comfortable life. You want them to find love and have a wonderful family someday. You want them to be happy.

You haven’t busted your back since the day you gave birth, or better, since the day you conceived, just to let them roam the earth and do whatever the hell they want.
You are the parent. You know best. I get it.

You won’t find a supporter of new-age parenting in me. I’m old school; as far as parenting and raising a child are concerned, I’m traditional. 1950s traditional. A good old-fashioned “grounding” never hurt anyone, you have to earn your pocket money and rights come with responsibilities.

But when it comes to their preferences, their character, and their dreams for the future, we are all born with the freedom to make choices and express ourselves. And as parents, we must learn to respect that.

Each child is a tiny little person, trying to find themselves and to form their own character and their own likes and dislikes. Your role as a parent is to guide them down the path until they can walk it themselves, not to yank them by the arm down the path you didn’t take.

Sometimes, though, there is that one parent, the one that sticks out like a sore thumb hiding behind the pretense of wanting the best for their child. The parent whose priority is their own image in society and their circle of friends and family. The one who pushes their child too hard and too far just to satisfy their own aspirations.

They’re the parent that is never satisfied with anything their child ever does, they are never content with any of the child’s achievements and they are always pushing for something bigger, something better, something higher. They are trying desperately, at their child’s expense, to fulfill some kind of warped self-confidence issue.

There’s always that one parent (we’ve all met one like them; if we were lucky enough not to be raised by one of them) who, when talking about whatever their child does, uses the 1st person plural. You know who I’m talking about. It’s the “We love piano.” “Our grades went up this trimester.” “We don’t like pizza and junk food; we always eat healthily.”, “We’re trying out for the football team.” parent.

The one that has not cut the umbilical cord in their mind. Overbearing, passive-aggressive, self-righteous, over-achieving; with no comprehension, and sometimes, no interest in the child’s abilities or even desires. The one that can guilt-trip you and pound anything into your mind simply because they feel that it is your duty to attain what they couldn’t and achieve what sometimes is unachievable.

What you have to understand about your children is that they may look like you, they may talk like you, they may even have some of your quirks and qualms, but they are not you. You can not force, coerce, threaten or use endless guilt trips to make them do the things you wish you had done. Or the things that you didn’t have the opportunity to do. You’re lucky if you can give them the choices that you never had under the circumstances of your childhood and you’re lucky if you can make their life easier.
But don’t take out all your repressed issues on them.

Don’t get me wrong, some healthy motivation is always a good thing. Cultivating your child’s abilities, aptitudes and talents help them grow into their own skin and become the person they were meant to be. So is cultivating healthy competitiveness. But the operative word here is healthy.

I know it sounds harsh and judgmental, but take a minute to think about it. How can someone that has had all personal opinions and choices taken away from them since the moment they were born, be in a position to make any kind of decision for themselves, even as an adult? What kind of relationships can that person form? How will their life be when you stop or can no longer make their decisions for them?
They’re in for a world-class slap in the face when they step out into the real world as an independent adult.

And here I come to my point.

If Mary wants to be a vet instead of a lawyer, support her. If Tom decides that he’s more interested in how a car works than how the human body works, let him follow through on that instead of forcing him to go to medical school. Help them see that there are ways to make even their craziest dreams a reality. Even if it sounds absolutely crazy to you, don’t forget that sometimes, maybe in what seems like a different lifetime, you too were just like them. It is your kid after all.

Work with them; not around them, not over them. Don’t shove your own re-heated dream down their throat; let them find their own dreams and live them. They’ll love you more for it in the long run.

Mark my words.