I love this Maya Angelou saying because it really does sum up every parent out there. Kids never come with instructions so, each of us, as parents, struggle through life never knowing if we are doing the right thing or not. Parenting can be overwhelming for all of us at times. As parents, I think one of our biggest frustrations is trying to help our adult kids to keep from making the exact same mistakes we made. Yes, yes, experience tells us it's a losing battle.
This feat is much, much easier said then done. It also makes me laugh when my adult kids say to me: "But my kids just never listen to me." My response is always: "Well you never listen to me, so why do you think your kids will be any different?" Yet we somehow do think our next generation will be different, only to discover they are not.
As adults we like to always think our parents didn't raise us right anyway. We grow up and think we will raise our kids much, much better, then reality sets in once the kids come along. You know reality? It's that shit that gets in our way and kind of crushes our good intentions sometimes. When we are teens we think: "I'll let my kid go to that all night party with people I don't know. Geesh, parents are so not trusting of my judgement." LOL
We are survivors of the shit creek experiences we've lived through. We probably didn't listen to our parents either. Why? Well we all think our parents grew up with dinosaurs. So they are prudes, not with it, olden times junk, where they were prudes. They never thought about sex, drugs or rock and roll. They were born grownup and just are out of touch with what young people experience.
Some kids as adults, like to be martyrs. For instance, if they go through a difficult divorce, they think they are the only ones who have ever experienced heartbreak. The only ones who struggled as single parents. After all, each generation thinks it invented sex and love. What we, as parents, did in our spare time, I have no idea. Like for example, me, myself. I never had a bad divorce. I never had to leave my once home with only the things I could carry. I never moved into my first apartment, with two little kids, having no furniture, not even one bed. I guess if we parents were never in love, our kids must think we simply had some kind of bad business deal just to set up housekeeping until it failed.
Somehow, adult kids have the notion that we, as parents, are bound to always try to ruin their lives, especially with advice. They think we have anything but their best intentions at heart. I guess we are cruel people, we just never knew it till the adult kids come along. Yet, somehow, they do think a bad boyfriend, girlfriend, or bad spouse, always has their back and always have their best intentions at heart. In high school they always think their peers, the ones no older than they are, with no more experience than they have,must have better information about life. Information that usually turns out to be false, simply because friends have lived no longer.
You know, we, as parents probably hate their choices for partners, just because they picked them. LOL Whenever we give advice, we just don't understand their situations, even though we have been in similar situations and know what the outcome will be. I'm always shocked because do I have to step in front of a truck on the highway to know I can be hurt or killed? I sincerely hope not, yet adult kids have to toss themselves under that bus in order to understand that fact. Why do they do it? Well, that is the age old question.
Remember, as parents, you just didn't live. You simply sat in a corner, you were model kids and never, never did anything wild in your lives. Wow I think our parents just might have a different opinion on how we acted as kids. LOL
"AS kids we think our parents are always on our backs. When, in fact, they were probably the only ones who ever truly had our backs." Author Unknown
