Our parents teach us how to love, how
to be in relationships, it's true.
But our parents also teach us how to be
human.
I'm sitting at Starbucks, watching a
dad and his daughter. She is a collage of pink. Little pink helmet on
her head, little pink basket on her bike. The bike's pink tassels are
blowing in the wind as she eats a pink cake pop. The soles of her
shoes are pink. He sips his coffee and they chat like grownups, but lovingly wipes her cheek when she has an icing
smear. I don't know this man, but I feel like I can see his soul.
Watching them interact brought back
when my dad and I used to bicycles through the backstreets of our
town. It brings back feelings that don't often surface for me. There
was a lot of tumult in my childhood and I attribute most of it to my
dad. We fought like hyenas. He was not a pillar of stability. But he
did the best he could, and despite this sentiment being a cliché, I
truly believe it.
As I sat at my grandfather's funeral a few weeks ago, I thought about the things we pass from generation to generation. My grandfather made mistakes with my dad, and he made some of the same mistakes with me, surely. This could easily be considered an inheritance of blame and pain, but with deeper understanding, it doesn't have to be.
I think one of the most important parts
of growing up is realizing your parents are human, are flawed. I
thought I had come to terms with this long ago, but now I think I've
uncovered a new layer of understanding. I often suffer from Peter Pan
syndrome, bucking many aspects of adulthood. I don't want to have it
all figured out; that seems incredibly boring. But we expect our
parents to be superadults simply because they have us.
If I can see my dad as someone who is
still figuring it out, I can truly appreciate how hard it is to be
responsible for another person, for being liable for their flaws and mistakes.
Parenthood puts the ways you live in front of an unsteady camera,
to be projected from your children in many manifestations. That's a
lot of responsibility. I say it's time for us to take the helm.
Twenty-somebodies, our parents taught
us how to be human, but only we can determine where we direct our
higher education. We must be responsible for the adults we become, and we must learn to forgive our parents.
