Seasons of Change
I still remembered when I was younger, way back in the days where life seemed so simple, yet utterly confusing for reasons I could not yet figure out. The days where I always thought I was correct and my parents were wrong. It’s inevitable that parents and their modern age children have different views. But, does this wide spectrum of thought necessarily lead to friction and dissension? Perhaps, that would seem like the most likely outcome. However, as I grow older, I begin to realise certain aspects of life which I could not possibly have understood before. The never ending journey to probe the deepest crevices of my parents’ minds have just begun, though no one will ever be able to say for certain when I shall finally achieve what I had intended to seek.
At a young tender age, when I was still a child, I have vivid memories of being reproached for things that I had done or for views I had openly voiced out. I was no Tom Sawyer of course, but I was a really outspoken kid while my parents were undoubtedly playing the part of the strict disciplinarians. As a result, both parties were often at the receiving end of countless disappointments, with me being totally dissatisfied with my parents’ constant bickering and seemingly arcane values while my parents presumably had wondered where they had gone wrong in bringing up their only son. Now, as I rekindle the memories of those days, I sometimes wonder how I could’ve ever behaved or thought in such a manner. I try not to be too hard on myself by constant self reminders that I was only an immature young boy at that period of time. However, that makes it only more amazing when one tries to comprehend how much patience my parents had actually shown in such a dilemma. I’m not sure how I would have reacted myself if my only son had displayed the same level of bold disregard of other opinion besides his own, worse still when your only son was still relatively a CHILD.
Of course, the teenage years were not much better. I must have brought my parents’ to hell and back with my cavalier attitude and my ‘revolutionary’ radical views. My parents’ were still the preachers of conventional virtues while I was the pure ‘new school’, cyber age teenager. I still remembered the seismic shock my father had expressed when I had dyed my hair for the first time. His distorted face (showing his complete disapproval of my blatant act of ‘rebellion’) was worth a thousand words. He could not have understood why I spent hours online chatting, or why I had to get computer games as a form of entertainment. Couldn’t I just have been more conventional, more like ‘the other kid next door’, contented with just a library full of books at home to keep me company? Couldn’t I just be like the ‘normal’ teen that accepted parental authority without much dissent? I guess I just couldn’t! Or perhaps, at that time I WOULDN’T. It was obvious, my parents thought I was from Mars and I thought they were from a different galaxy. Our views were so different that you could’ve put your last dollar betting that I was not their real son. I must have been switched at birth or something.
“Oh where, oh where, can my REAL parents be?” That is probably the most frequent question that zips through a normal teenagers’ mind as they lament at the purported injustice that they have to suffer every agonizing day. Why do my parents forbid me to spend hours in the mall? Why won’t they let me spend THEIR money on Gucci’s and Calvin Klein’s? They are here to make sure that I get the most comfortable standard of living aren’t they? So, doesn’t that include ALL these ‘essentials’?
No, this is not a scene from a Sophie Kinsella novel. As a matter of fact such thinking is quite common among teenagers of today. The changes of time have caused such a big wormhole in culture that neither generation seems to be able to breach. Consequently, teens are often found to be at loggerheads with their parents. As a teenager goes through this phase of whining and groaning for more freedom and material accessories, their parents struggle through life, also whining and groaning (and at times complaining) about the escalating prices of food, the ever increasing bills found in the mailbox and most inadvertently, presumably their greatest nightmare, the insatiable hunger of their children’s demand!
Now as I leave the relative comfort of youth and venture into the realm of adulthood, I begin to slowly understand what goes on in the mind of my parents. I dare not say I understand them yet, because to allege such a proposition is absurd unless I had some psychic gift. But, is it really important that I have to understand and agree with their views and vice versa? Surely, 2 different human beings cannot be expected to share similar views all the time are they? As a matter of fact, I’m of the opinion that it’s good that children and parents have different views on different matters at times. I have to admit I do not share the same views that my parents have. Do I agree with their views on certain matters? Perhaps, I do not. But, the most important thing is I respect their views as every human being should respect a reasonable view by another. This respect has to be shown through tolerance by trying to understand our parents’ train of thought, and if they are contradictory to our own, then try to make them see through our eyes and why we have come to such an opinion.
However, this approach can only be workable if both parents and children are willing to accept their differences and try to understand one and another. If parents rule with an iron fist, I doubt that harmony may exist beyond the surface while if the children continue to rebel and cause discord within the family then they are not only curtailing their own growth as human beings but also harming the emotional well being of the family.
I’m only a young adult but I believe the differences between my parents and I have served to help both parties to understand and learn many different aspects of life more rapidly. I teach them the advantages of modernity, science and technology while they aid me in their philosophies, morality and the values of old, that are slowly diminishing from our society. I cannot foresee if I should be part of a paradigm shift in the near future, but, even now I reckon being different from your parents, in views and thoughts, is not as bad as it is portrayed to be. I may be wrong. But, I have a strong feeling that love will conquer these differences and this is probably the most important message that I have learned throughout my formative years from my parents.
At a young tender age, when I was still a child, I have vivid memories of being reproached for things that I had done or for views I had openly voiced out. I was no Tom Sawyer of course, but I was a really outspoken kid while my parents were undoubtedly playing the part of the strict disciplinarians. As a result, both parties were often at the receiving end of countless disappointments, with me being totally dissatisfied with my parents’ constant bickering and seemingly arcane values while my parents presumably had wondered where they had gone wrong in bringing up their only son. Now, as I rekindle the memories of those days, I sometimes wonder how I could’ve ever behaved or thought in such a manner. I try not to be too hard on myself by constant self reminders that I was only an immature young boy at that period of time. However, that makes it only more amazing when one tries to comprehend how much patience my parents had actually shown in such a dilemma. I’m not sure how I would have reacted myself if my only son had displayed the same level of bold disregard of other opinion besides his own, worse still when your only son was still relatively a CHILD.
Of course, the teenage years were not much better. I must have brought my parents’ to hell and back with my cavalier attitude and my ‘revolutionary’ radical views. My parents’ were still the preachers of conventional virtues while I was the pure ‘new school’, cyber age teenager. I still remembered the seismic shock my father had expressed when I had dyed my hair for the first time. His distorted face (showing his complete disapproval of my blatant act of ‘rebellion’) was worth a thousand words. He could not have understood why I spent hours online chatting, or why I had to get computer games as a form of entertainment. Couldn’t I just have been more conventional, more like ‘the other kid next door’, contented with just a library full of books at home to keep me company? Couldn’t I just be like the ‘normal’ teen that accepted parental authority without much dissent? I guess I just couldn’t! Or perhaps, at that time I WOULDN’T. It was obvious, my parents thought I was from Mars and I thought they were from a different galaxy. Our views were so different that you could’ve put your last dollar betting that I was not their real son. I must have been switched at birth or something.
“Oh where, oh where, can my REAL parents be?” That is probably the most frequent question that zips through a normal teenagers’ mind as they lament at the purported injustice that they have to suffer every agonizing day. Why do my parents forbid me to spend hours in the mall? Why won’t they let me spend THEIR money on Gucci’s and Calvin Klein’s? They are here to make sure that I get the most comfortable standard of living aren’t they? So, doesn’t that include ALL these ‘essentials’?
No, this is not a scene from a Sophie Kinsella novel. As a matter of fact such thinking is quite common among teenagers of today. The changes of time have caused such a big wormhole in culture that neither generation seems to be able to breach. Consequently, teens are often found to be at loggerheads with their parents. As a teenager goes through this phase of whining and groaning for more freedom and material accessories, their parents struggle through life, also whining and groaning (and at times complaining) about the escalating prices of food, the ever increasing bills found in the mailbox and most inadvertently, presumably their greatest nightmare, the insatiable hunger of their children’s demand!
Now as I leave the relative comfort of youth and venture into the realm of adulthood, I begin to slowly understand what goes on in the mind of my parents. I dare not say I understand them yet, because to allege such a proposition is absurd unless I had some psychic gift. But, is it really important that I have to understand and agree with their views and vice versa? Surely, 2 different human beings cannot be expected to share similar views all the time are they? As a matter of fact, I’m of the opinion that it’s good that children and parents have different views on different matters at times. I have to admit I do not share the same views that my parents have. Do I agree with their views on certain matters? Perhaps, I do not. But, the most important thing is I respect their views as every human being should respect a reasonable view by another. This respect has to be shown through tolerance by trying to understand our parents’ train of thought, and if they are contradictory to our own, then try to make them see through our eyes and why we have come to such an opinion.
However, this approach can only be workable if both parents and children are willing to accept their differences and try to understand one and another. If parents rule with an iron fist, I doubt that harmony may exist beyond the surface while if the children continue to rebel and cause discord within the family then they are not only curtailing their own growth as human beings but also harming the emotional well being of the family.
I’m only a young adult but I believe the differences between my parents and I have served to help both parties to understand and learn many different aspects of life more rapidly. I teach them the advantages of modernity, science and technology while they aid me in their philosophies, morality and the values of old, that are slowly diminishing from our society. I cannot foresee if I should be part of a paradigm shift in the near future, but, even now I reckon being different from your parents, in views and thoughts, is not as bad as it is portrayed to be. I may be wrong. But, I have a strong feeling that love will conquer these differences and this is probably the most important message that I have learned throughout my formative years from my parents.
posted by Innerflame7 at 11:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home