JCOSTER
ONE love, blood, life
redhotswami said:Well, I'm not saying anybody is right or wrong, but I wanted to offer up my own experience, as a child who has never been apologized to by her parents.
I don't have any parenting experience, but I am a daughter. I do have to say that I agree that parents owe children an apology. My mother has said things to me I would never say to another human being. Not once my entire life has she ever apologized. That really effs with one's head. She'll always be my mother, and I'll always be her daughter, and I will always love her, but I'll be honest in saying that this is probably why I became so independent. She does not provide me the source of comfort or support or whatever. She sees her role as mother to be equivalent to a dictatorship. Everything she does is right, anyone who disagrees is wrong (even though she is wrong) and will have to pay some severe consequences. (And she wonders why I don't want to have children!)
Humility and respect are two very important elements of any relationship (as Angela Harlem said), including a parent/child. And it should not be one-sided either. I've had to show all the humility and respect while my mother sat at her throne of delusion.
I really think that my mother believes that as a parent she knows best and can do and say whatever she wants, and that what I have to say is invalid and ignorant, simply because I'm the daughter. With that kind of thinking, my mother forgot that I'm not just a child, I am a PERSON. I have thoughts and feelings that deserve as much respect as hers. Not once did I ever treat her with disrespect (heh, I was too afraid to!), but I can't say she's done the same for me.
I know she loves me...in her own special way. But, it took me a long time to see it this way. And once I came to this awareness, things have gotten better between us. It still hurts when she lashes out, but I'm not going around thinking something is wrong with me, or her, or hoping for her to change. She is who she is. I'm learning to deal with it, which is fine, because I'm sure there's loads of things about me that piss her off, and she is trying to come to terms with. Good thing she has my brother! They are very much alike and get along great.
Anyway, here's a beautiful poem from Kahlil Gibran, one of my favorite mystics:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are set forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He love the arrow that flies, so He loves also he bow that is stable.
Beautiful Mia,