How We Should Treat Our Parents

I think that there is something that happens when we reach adolescence. It’s the feeling we get when we find something out about our parents that make them seem more human. You find out about an abortion, or that time when they were homeless or that they changed their major in college six times because they didn’t know what they wanted to do. 

You find out these things and you realize for the first time that your parents are really just people. They aren’t “super”, they don’t have magical powers or wands and all they want is the best for you, but sometimes they don’t what to do with you. It’s not a bad thing because children don’t come with manuals and they are all just doing the best that they can with what they have and whether they really wanted you or not, they wanted you in this world so they could love you. 

Now I have been guilty of disrespecting my parents, it’s not major things like getting pregnant out of wedlock or getting addicted to drugs, but it’s little things like getting upset when they try to tell me something or them asking me questions about what’s going on in my life and I shut them out. I think that I lost sight of the fact that when the chips are down and everyone else has abandoned you, the only people that have your back is your family. 

I want nothing more than to go back to the time when my mother and I were so close that she could read my mind. We were the kind of best friends that you would never see mad at each other. I wanted to be like her, I wanted to make her proud and when I felt like I failed at that, I didn’t want her to see how much of a failure I had become. I had a plan for my life and things started to change and I started to change and I never let her back into my bubble. 

So in addition to respecting your parents and letting them know what’s going on with you, you have to let them back into your bubble. You have to let them love you, even though you think that you have let them down and you don’t know what your next step is. Let them in on your journey; they are there for a reason.