Are you better off without your parents?
A tough topic. On the mere contemplation we react instinctively. As if somebody has cried “Bomb” in an airport we head for the door, a quick exit. But the reason we avoid the question is not out of panic but as a direct response to a nearby emotion – guilt. Parents make us feel guilty. Not living up to their expectations, not calling enough or visiting too seldom. Bottom line is that in many ways family relations constrain us – such a close, intense and intimate type of relationship that can and often will freeze our personal as well as economic growth. It is thus highly relevant to ask this question. Are we better off without our parents? And in order to opinionate on this issue from an objective point of view, please discard the fact that:
- You love them
- They love you
- They brought you to this world
- They said farewell to about a thousand life-preferences in order to have you
- You owe them more than you could ever repay (in money and other indefinable things)
- During decades they fed you, clothed you, taught you the ways of the world – all only to, at a senior age, be sent off to a nursing home
An unbalanced relationship
Putting a father-son, mother-daughter, father-daughter or mother-son relationship in perspective it is with further a due we dive into the importance of balance and equal treatment in a relationship. Just take the rules of a functioning girlfriend-boyfriend relationship. Asking some of my closer “couple-friends” confirms my suspicions. The perception of equality and balance is considered vital in order for a relationship to evolve and stay healthy and individually nourishing. And most of you would hopefully agree with me. You wouldn’t want to be in a relationship where you don’t see eye to eye with your partner, right?
Then why is that exactly the case when it comes to our relationship with our parents? Why are the most important relations in our lives so often breaking the rules of engagement?
Are you still daddy’s little girl?’
According to me, the main reason why most relationships with parents are unbalanced is simple. Parents are simply too bias to know any better. Even when you are all grown up and obtain the intellect of an adult person, it is not unusual or particularly strange that your mom or your dad still treats you as if you were still 12 years old. In their eyes you’re still Daddy’s little girl or Mom’s precious boy. But even as it is fairly easy to understand, it should not be accepted and again raises the question whether or not we are better off without our parents?
Bottom line, according to all the do’s and don’ts, statistics and rules of a relationship your relationship with your parents is one of the more unhealthy kind. But the truth is that if forced to answer the question if you are better off without your parents, most of you would still choose to maintain this “unhealthy relationship”.
I would love to here your thoughts and opinions. Are you a rebel or moma’s boy? What are your answer to the addressed question and why?
I’ll just finish off this session by saying – It’s complicated/TheBeast
