Peeling Back the Pain of Our Parent’s Past
As life progresses I start to understand a little more the way my parents act the way they do. You do not understand the full family theatrics until you are older, or care enough to listen. Once you start to pay attention you see that your parents are just as messed up as you. I was in New York over Easter and I think it finally clicked in my head that my parents are human. I know this is probably such an obvious thing and I know I am probably late to the party. I was intrigued recently, as I was looking all around at my close friends, and all but one of them are still married today. It made me think of writing this article and noticing if I was just lucky to have a happy childhood or if there was some pain that my parents were sheltering from me. As a child, I always blamed my dad for being distant and not showing emotion. He is a military man, he joined the Marines right out of high school. He is your standard man, strong-willed, and doesn’t like to take help from anyone. He has always been brutish and very standoffish and I always blamed him for that. The same goes for my mom, I always resented her for making me what I thought when I was young as menial tasks. She would always ask me to do chores on her time even when I was hanging out with my friends. She is very militant, she wants things done on her terms. When we did something wrong she always made us redo it, everything had to be done on her terms. I always thought that was the way they were but never thought to look deeper into why.
As I said I found out why this was the way over Easter. The real reason why, is because his father never really showed any emotion. He was neglected as a child and he has those emotional scars. I only have good memories of my grandfather, but as I reflect on it more I think it makes sense that I did not visit my grandpa that much. I think this made my dad feel very insecure. My dad always seems to sulk when he gets called out. When he gets called out for doing something stupid or not right. This is interesting to see because he gets so defensive and rarely admits fault. Which maybe has to do with something with his dad. He never saw that his dad made mistakes and is only human, because he was never around. He has made amazing strides from that insecure person. My mom has helped with that calming him down and making him see that he is doing that. That type of thing still happens once in a while but I have seen him visibly react to one of those outbursts before. Which is amazing. My grandmother told me this story while I was over at her house for Easter. When my dad was young he spent time at both My grandmother’s and grandfather’s house (he comes from divorced parents). There was a time when my dad had waited all day to get into the house. My grandfather was supposed to come let him in the house, but he did not show up. He got caught up with something at the university, he got caught up with work a lot. As a grandfather, he seemed very interested in what we were doing, but as a father, I would imagine he was very militant. After that story, it made me realize all the times my dad tried to show me emotion and I might have shrugged him off. When was my dad trying to extend an olive branch and be vulnerable? Did that shape some of the decisions he might have made when trying to show emotion? Probably, he might have felt neglected by me and it is sad to realize that I might have caused the same pain that my grandfather caused him. Of course, I cannot go back and change all that nor did I know about what I was doing in the moment. It is just something that I have been lamenting about.
What I also realized recently is that I always thought of myself as lazy. I still beat myself and feel guilty about relaxing, if I am not doing something I am falling behind. I think those are all normal for someone who has ambition. However, when it comes to the extreme of this I would say no. I was out drinking with a few friends of mine a couple of weeks ago and I woke up on Saturday at noon. That made me feel so guilty and lazy. I finally found out where I get that feeling from, or at least think I get that feeling from. My mom is a go-getter, she likes things to be done on her own time and does not have time to waste. When I was a kid if I was not doing anything, she would create something for us to do. I think that’s where that feeling of guilt for not doing things comes free. I finally put two and two together when I noticed that my grandma (her mother) was always hounding me to do something and was always doing something. I am a very introspective individual and sometimes I worry that I will pass all of my sins onto my future kids. To be fair I do not think is one hundred percent foolproof. I still think there will be insecurities and fears that my kids will absorb, but as many as I can whittle down will be a win
I always viewed my parents as these god-like individuals, who could do no wrong. Then as I grew up I started to get mad at them for the way they treated me. I resented them for that, and until recently never really gave that up. I now view my parents as human. Odd to say, but when I did that I started to give them grace. They were just using what they had at their disposal. They were using the raw materials they were given by their parents, to try and build the most extravagant castle. I think they did a pretty amazing job, I think I turned out ok. I like how I turned out, so I owe that to my parents. Even though I struggle with a few things that I probably inherited from them, I am good with them. Which is an interesting thing to think about, if you are good with who you are. Doesn’t that mean your parents did the best job of raising you? I get it, you have to give some accountability to yourself. It wasn’t all them but they gave you the toolset to make those changes to your core perspective.