If you're a parent, and your kids grow up
and actually go off somewhere. , there comes the day when you realize they
actually don't really know who you are. Except to them.
You wonder if there's something wrong with that. Or if it's just how it mostly goes , right? A humungo continuum of not knowing you in any way ,shape, or form... to knowing and liking and wanting to hang out.
Most offspring fall somewhere in that big range. And lots of times, after they've been off on their own for a few years, we start to realize that they won't necessarily want to know. What we think. What we accomplished . What we're proud of. What others value about us. We realize there's this big DMZ stretching out between us and our kid.
It's pretty confusing . A big revelation . And if we managed to be not completely one- off jerk parents , but tried hard and kind of pulled it off with good intentions ( once we got our our own crap more figured out .) , then we are taken aback .
Because all along, we really quietly secretly thought that , well, you know. That if we were together enough and good enough and honest and caring and researched stuff and never did any of those real terrible things, why then , we'd be all c-l-o-s-e and cozy as a G rated Disney flick.
Turns out , nope. Nuh huh . No such guarantee.
All kinds of funny real life stuff happens and even if you are a kind parents who yelled only sometimes and then contribute to books and teach stuff or do a certain work really well for a billion years with a reputation for being real tight with expertise and innovative intelligence. And no ; good chance they'll never be interested. .
And maybe if they don't summarily take off and ditch you just because of one thing or another that may have nothing to do with you, that they never ever warned you about or will ever deign to explain to you , so you're left in a land somewhere between grief, loss, fury, resentment and an ongoing struggle to not feel all sorts of strange illogical shame...
If that one doesn't hit you upside the head , and they still want to know you, then maybe you realize they'll never really want to know what you or their other parent discovered or excelled at. What you invented and how it helped so many people .
There are so many twists and turns that never occurred to you ever , when they were small or younger or came into your life with their parent .
It's quite something to realize that accepting that life is not Leave it To Beaver means a whole lot of surprises you never even came up with on a fun day at the beach.
You wonder if there's something wrong with that. Or if it's just how it mostly goes , right? A humungo continuum of not knowing you in any way ,shape, or form... to knowing and liking and wanting to hang out.
Most offspring fall somewhere in that big range. And lots of times, after they've been off on their own for a few years, we start to realize that they won't necessarily want to know. What we think. What we accomplished . What we're proud of. What others value about us. We realize there's this big DMZ stretching out between us and our kid.
It's pretty confusing . A big revelation . And if we managed to be not completely one- off jerk parents , but tried hard and kind of pulled it off with good intentions ( once we got our our own crap more figured out .) , then we are taken aback .
Because all along, we really quietly secretly thought that , well, you know. That if we were together enough and good enough and honest and caring and researched stuff and never did any of those real terrible things, why then , we'd be all c-l-o-s-e and cozy as a G rated Disney flick.
Turns out , nope. Nuh huh . No such guarantee.
All kinds of funny real life stuff happens and even if you are a kind parents who yelled only sometimes and then contribute to books and teach stuff or do a certain work really well for a billion years with a reputation for being real tight with expertise and innovative intelligence. And no ; good chance they'll never be interested. .
And maybe if they don't summarily take off and ditch you just because of one thing or another that may have nothing to do with you, that they never ever warned you about or will ever deign to explain to you , so you're left in a land somewhere between grief, loss, fury, resentment and an ongoing struggle to not feel all sorts of strange illogical shame...
If that one doesn't hit you upside the head , and they still want to know you, then maybe you realize they'll never really want to know what you or their other parent discovered or excelled at. What you invented and how it helped so many people .
There are so many twists and turns that never occurred to you ever , when they were small or younger or came into your life with their parent .
It's quite something to realize that accepting that life is not Leave it To Beaver means a whole lot of surprises you never even came up with on a fun day at the beach.
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