Parents Should Love Their Kids… period
You know parents are supposed to love their kids unconditionally regardless of who they are: race, gender, sexuality, beliefs and everything else. But when it comes to being our truest most authentic self, they tell us to conform to society.
For me, I’ve had a lot of experiences with this topic as for so many years, in fact for my past life of 19 years at least (I’m 21 years now, 22 in October) been the most unauthentic person as for I got all caught up in striving for perfection and also for meeting all of society’s expectations and standards. You know and I focused on reaching the point of this as for I believed getting validation from society that I was good enough for them, that I had met their standards would earn me this “big happy” where I’d be really happy.
But through it all experience wise, it didn’t make me happy not one bit. You know and my parents kept telling me they know who I am and they know me inside out for they knew me from the second I was born… but the truth is: I’ve kept wayyy too much from them due to the amount of shame, negative judgements and lack of healthy and proper support and encouragements for the times that I’ve let my guard down with them. And since those moments, they have taught me to keep my guard up around them because they won’t respond in healthy ways, period nor try to take me seriously enough to even ask questions if they don’t understand my side of the story and my perspective. My beliefs, my purpose I’ve had for about 8 or 9 years (since May 2010) and I haven’t been as open to sharing things like this with them due to the reactions I’d get in result from them.
Fear of getting hurt again after my previous attempts; has taught me to keep my guard up around them and they wonder and get confused and mad when I’m not 100% open and honest with them and why I don’t go to them for supper and for a shoulder to cry on for anything anymore.
Here’s an equation for you:
You’ve said numerous times: “don’t come crying to me when…” therefore meaning for any time that I’m in any kind of pain (physical, mental or emotional pain) that I shouldn’t go to you at all. And the other part is the attempts I’ve attempted to let my guard down, and share something deep and close to me that I’ve experienced and/or believe in; you immediately refuse to try to understand it from my perspective. You tell me “there are other people out there who have it worse than me” therefore stating/meaning that I have no right to say that what I’m going through is worse than what anyone else may be going through.
And also that you say that I’m talking stupid. When you said that to me one time, I actually meant what I said and I knew in that moment what I was talking about. What I meant by that I’m not myself and that I can relate to Hilary Duff’s lyric “Fly, open up the part of you that wants to hide away” and “and when your down and feeling alone, and just wanna run away. Trust yourself and don’t give up. You know you better than anyone else.”
I know a lot more about me than you ever have and you won’t be all that you need to be in order to get a clear picture and understanding of who I was and who I’m trying to become as a person and citizen of society. But the part where I said about something I can’t quite remember exalts word for word but around something deep and easily shamed: I was a monster.
Striving for perfection for one has research shows: “is sabotaging your relationships, making you sick and holding your happiness hostage” as quoted on the cover of “The Perfection Deception” which the book has a lot of important stuff as per what it states all about why we all should begin recovering from perfectionism. Along with a couple articles “The Mighty” has shared about perfectionism and how ditching perfectionism improves mental health.
And I believe that perfectionism is so unhealthy and can lead to mental health issues and long term medical issues as well. Also: when I said something about my mom not knowing myself as much as she thinks she knows: well I meant it on the level as per myself and society had turned myself into an ugly monster. Constantly striving for perfection and not accepting anything less than perfect and not being as happy as I wanted to be as per my mind was so focused on the unrealistic (but I didn’t know it was unrealistic until sometime during my mental health recovery with depression and anxiety) vision of perfection.
Perfection is so bad for the human being and we as a society expect perfect all the time along with all the businesses that show perfection in their products and ads. There’s a quote in “The Perfection Deception” that’s really relating to this:
“If tomorrow women woke up and decided they really liked their bodies, just think how many industries would go out of business.” ~ Gail Dines
So what I’m saying here is that our parents want us to strive for perfection which I believe is linked to their own expectations their parents had towards them in childhood. Which brings them to then, here and now with them expecting the same expectations their parents out on them. Not being mindfully aware of this and taking the maturity and less ignorance for two things to notice how harmful this is to humans. To human’s mental and emotional wellbeing!
Saying a phrase like that (which I’m sure gets used by many parents and affects many children, kids, teenagers, and even young adults) doesn’t help nor benefit the situation nor helps come to a solution nor makes anything better. So overall here, Perfection is not what you should wait for to love your kids. You should love them as their imperfect, flawed selves!
Regardless of: race, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, biologically, and all else; you should just love them for who they are and if they are struggling with perfection and other issues that link to their own mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, stress, worry, fear, panic; you should help them. Because all kinds of love involve selfless acts like this because love is selfless along with being unconditional which is what kind of love we all should give to each other!
“Parents don’t love you more because you’re biologically theirs. I mean, your moms – they don’t love you because your easy to deal with or because you keep your mouth shut. They love you because you’re you.” – Rita
