You and your Parents

As a teenager, I'm going to confess something.

I don't appreciate my parents as much as I should.

They made me, they've kept me in the house for seventeen years and counting, they accept me for who I am, they've managed to make enough disposable income to keep me healthy and entertained, they're still together, they aren't drug addicts, they haven't hurt me in ten million ways they had the potential to. 

But because I'm a teenager, I tend to forget all this stuff. I place a vastly disproportionate weight on the times I think they've been unfair, or hurtful, or unsatisfactory in some other way. This is true for them more than anyone else I know. I'm usually quite good at focusing on the good in people when they irritate me, but not with my mum and dad. Why?

Because parenting is a job with a lot of responsibilities, the parent-child relationship is the least equal of any relationships formed between humans. Which is to say, parents are expected to put a hell of a lot more effort in the relationship than the kids. And that's okay- they have the potential to do a lot more damage to their kids than the kids do to them.

But despite this, our relationship with our parents is a relationship like any other in the respect that it's a two-way street. We might have a much narrowed stream of traffic to look after (or whatever), but look after it we should. And that means forgiving faults, remembering that no-one is perfect, and just generally being nice when we can.

I think a lot of us interpret the unequal nature of the parent-child relationship as "they should do everything for me, and I don't have to do anything for them"- or something very close to that. But that's not right. Because at the end of the day, your parents are still human, and they have the same emotional needs as anyone else. Humans, perhaps unfortunately, are very needy creatures, and we need love and appreciation from everyone we care about. Otherwise the caring hurts too much. 

So, the point is this. I know your parents have hurt you in some way, and I'm sorry for you in that regard. But please, try to remember that they are imperfect humans with the tendency to mess up, and were never going to be anything else. Try to remember that parenting is probably the most stressful thing humans ever do, and if they've managed to keep you alive and vaguely sane for as long as they have, then they've probably done better than they were expecting. Please, just try to forgive. Many of us seem able or willing to forgive friends, siblings, lovers, acquaintances umpteen times without batting an eyelid; but fall short of doing the same for our parents. Ironically, they are the people who have probably earnt your patience the most.

I don't mean to degrade the significance of any issues you might have had with your parents, and anything they've done to hurt you. But I will always call for compassion and forgiveness, because I'm a drippy-hippy guy like that, and forgiving your parents is not beyond that.

It's not just for their sake, either. It will make your life a hell of a lot easier if your let yourself stop hating/resenting your parents, too. 

Everyone needs forgiveness, and it's probably the easiest need for us to fill. So why not give it a go?