Now I can't really comment on all the various relationships people have with their parents as they're growing up. I can only relate to what I know and what I've seen. So what I'm saying doesn't encompass every possible scenario, but that's usually the case with whatever I'm talking about.
Parents are a strangely unique class of people even though most of the world is made up of them. For each of us they are special, whether that's good or bad it's hard to say. For us they are a link to our past and to them we are the future's next step. The relationship we have with our parents is like nothing else. That relationship changes as we get older, hopefully if you're fortunate you may actually get to a point where you see your parents as more than just the label we've associated with them.
Growing up parents have an insanely difficult job of simply keeping us alive. One has to seriously thank whatever paternal instinct that's built in because it's any wonder that they don't smother us to quiet the pink creature that won't stop howling. Add to that in most cases parents really have no idea what they're doing and yet they're required to give off the presence of authority. Today you can go to any bookstore and find hundreds of books on the subject of raising children. Each one presenting itself as an authority on the whole process. Who knows, maybe some of them are, but each parent is different as well as each child. It's hard to believe that unique people can be mapped out in a book. Still we're not always as complex as we'd like to believe. We as a species like to share our experiences with others. Sometimes that experience can be very helpful for the next one to go through it. All the books and all the advice seems to barely prepare people for the actual experience of becoming a parent.
I remember as a child seeing my parents as these all-knowing large people who controlled my cookie supply. Since the world was new and big to me they seemed to always have a sense of what to do when I bumbled into something, which was often. It must be hard to know exactly what you should and shouldn't do with your child because given enough time they will realize that the whole time you've been just winging it. I don't remember the precise moment when I figured out that my parents weren't the final authority on everything in the world. It wasn't any kind of earth-shattering revelation, but more of an understanding that they weren't magic. It's kind of like when you figure out that Santa is really just your parents working their asses off to make Christmas seem magical. You get a glimpse behind the curtain and notice that the reality is a lot more mundane, but no less important.
We've all seen footage of a mother bear charging headlong towards anything that gets too close to her cubs. It's interesting that some human parents behave roughly the same way. In that moment instinct takes over. There is almost no rational thought other than protect the child. A parent would die to protect their child and yet there are also those moments where all they want to do is strangle the kid. Talk to any parent about their biggest regrets, heartbreaks, or disappointments and it's very likely their child is involved somehow. I'm not saying that a child is the sole cause of those things, but I haven't met a parent who doesn't look back and wish they had done something differently when raising their children. Often times we as children are hardly aware of our impact on our parents' world.
It wasn't until very recently that I knew I wanted children. Before it was such a strange concept for me to be responsible for another life, especially since I can hardly call my life the pinnacle of achievement. Turns out most people were like me when they became parents. Many of the people I grew up with have gone off and had kids or even adopted children. They somehow knew that they were ready to become parents. I wonder how they knew that it was time. Maybe it was just sprung on them and they were forced to get ready for it. I suppose in either case they're willing allowing their world to be changed forever. Parents are the people who knew a world before you came into it, but can't imagine it without you.
