When Do Parents Become Humans in the Eyes of Their Children?featured

I will start off by saying I don’t have kids. I think fate may propel me into having them one day but I am just not feeling like I want them today.

My parents are absolutely the best. Don’t a lot of kids get to say that?

They were tough on me with purpose and intent. They taught me to be an authentic human and I would like to think I make them proud. They have always told me I have. I have never felt worthy of their praise but they have always made sure to provide me with it.

Dad was a detective with all of the accolades. Mom was an entrepreneur building a successful business at home. I could never say I ever felt unseen. Man, did they see me. ALL. THE. TIME. Dad met with all of my teachers even when they didn’t necessarily want to meet with him.

Dad was always my hero. Mom felt like a nurturing homemaker and boss woman. While you would think Dad was the tough guy at home, he was the softie. Mom was the hammer.

They seemed larger than life growing up. They never felt like my friends. They felt more like omnipresent narrators of my life in a way. And while they didn’t always know exactly what the main character (me) was doing, they had a pretty good idea most of the time.

I moved away at 17 and they were still my tough parents that seemed so hard to please. Because even when they praised me, it didn’t ever feel like enough. Not sure where that notion came from, but my heritage could factor into it.

My parents did not become humans to me for a very long time.

It happened that night when I was 21. The night when I went beyond what I ever thought I was capable of doing to disappoint them.

I was silently living in an abusive relationship and I found myself at the end of the tightrope, teetering on the verge of death. Literal death. And that’s when they showed up. The human version of my parents. The version I never thought existed.

I remember the tears in their eyes. I remember my heart dropping at the sight of the 2 humans that created me out of so much love. I remember them telling me how they could never ever be anything but proud of me.

I remember them telling me that they would always love me to the end of the universe, no matter where I ended up in life, no matter what decisions I ever made – They told me their sole purpose was to support me through it all. They reassured me their love had never been, and would never be, conditional.

How did I not see them as humans before this moment?

Maybe it was because I was on a crusade to be something or someone without them, when in reality, they would always live within me.

I was always fighting them because they seemed so irrelevant. I was always pushing them away because they were always helicoptering around me like I was not to be trusted. Well, this helped instill hesitation in all of my being, but I don’t blame them for any fault in me. I am thankful for all that they were and all that they have yet to be.

When does a child truly see their parents as humans? When does a daughter start seeing her mom as her best friend? When does her dad become a trusted confidant?

It all depends on the individual journey of the child.

For me, It took 21 years and a lot of self-inflicted pain. I wanted to break and fix myself. But truth was, I would need to call in the reinforcements to help me with that. They helped bring me into this world and they also helped me come back into this world stronger than ever before after having retreated to a very dark and lonely place.

My anxiety will always persist. My parents will always be my parents. But seeing them as humans adds a whole other layer to them.

I know they have feelings and I know they have faults. I know that they are products of their pasts and of their individual journeys. I know I have been the catalyst for a lot of their growth just as they have been catalysts for mine.

I know they will always be humans who raised me to be better than I can actually be. And that’s okay with me. Because I would rather be struggling to catch up all of my life than to be left out in the dust, alone and with no direction.

This is an ode to all the parents in the world who are humans too:

Us kids will one day see you as humans (if we haven’t already) and that is when we truly grow up. Because that is when we realize all of the things you taught us to be and not to be will stay within us forever. We give you grace and know you did the very best you could with what you knew at that very moment. And if that is not the definition of ‘unconditional,’ I don’t know what is.

Love Deeply and Forever,

Your Daughter, Your Son,

and

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