How To Deal With Parent Issues Even When You Are An Independent Adult

When we were kids, our parents were our heroes. We couldn’t live without them. We were totally dependent on them.

However, with our growth, some of us might have kind of ”not so happy memories” with our past. Lack of love and affection, negligence, abandonment and abuses are some of these memories which are haunted around you no matter who you are now. You might be a doctor, engineer or you may be a comedian, but still, you might be suffering from your parent issues (father issues or mother issues or maybe both). This article is for you and your parents too…

At the time you read this, you may only have bad memories about your parents or sometimes maybe still your parents might be showing some similar behaviour which you faced when you were a child, and you might be struggling to escape from them. Or else, you might be a parent who is reading this and thinking on to do the right thing for your children.

Therefore, you need to think about this problem in both parents and child’s point of view.

First, Lets have a look from our parent’s point of view…

When you are a parent, you have a responsibility to protect and guide your child until your child becomes an adult. In this period, you may have to take some strong decisions in order to give your child a better life. That’s the common characteristics of a parent and no one can judge you for doing that as your job as a parent.

However, there might be few occasions that parents have acted beyond the limits because of some reasons such as being stressed out or due to a struggle that they had been fighting financially.

In these scenarios, sometimes children feel that their parents are neglecting them and they are all alone. In some rare cases, children have to deal with drug-addicted or alcoholic parents as well. The fact that I want to emphasis is that, within this journey of becoming an adult since early childhood, minds of children are fragile and tender so that every single act of you matters to their adulthood too. Therefor parents, please be careful with your behaviour around your child.

The second thing is, your child might still be struggling to deal with you even after they become adults. Take a moment and look back at your actions. As an example, say your son has a good job and he is becoming financially stable. If you ask for some money which is even above his payroll, he would definitely somehow give you that amount or try to get to as nearly as possible without thinking twice. Then again if you ask him a similar amount, Again he will try the same. Every then and there if you ask for money from your son and when a time comes that he no longer has the capability to provide, think about what will happen to the relationship between you and him. You might think that he has stopped caring about you. He might also think you are using him.

Another example is that by interfering to your child’s every decision even when they are adults or even after they get married. It’s okay to give some advice if they come to you for it. But what will happen to your relationship with your child if you poke them every single time? The answer is that there is a high possibility that you might get rejected from their life.

Therefore, still you have to be careful when behaving with your children even when they become adults.

Now let’s think this topic in children’s perspective….

Let’s say you are struggling with horrible childhood memories because of your parents and still you have some of the scars from those awful incidents. You might have furious feelings about your parents. Sometimes your memories are chasing you even when you are in sleep. Don’t worry… You can overcome those feelings and fears.

First of all think about the current you. Think how wonderfully grown and handsome or gorgeous looking you are at the moment. May be now you are at the pinnacle of your career. You have all the things that you ever wanted in your life. So my question to you is what is the point of being worried about your past which you couldn’t change?

And the other thing is, take a moment and think about the steps you kept to become the person who you are now. And consider these steps starting from your birth…

In the first place, you are still breathing in this world because of the life that your parents gave. Then they fed you and gave you a good education.

You can’t ignore the fact the people who supported you to keep your first step before you started walking. Simply, they did not just gave you birth but just protected you without being dead until you were able to take care of yourself. If you can be grateful to your parents for these things, I don’t think you will be able to hate them any longer no matter what they did wrong to you.

Other fact is if you are still struggling with your parent's misbehaviour (in your opinion), having a better communication with your parents is important. You need to discuss with them what actions of your parents make you annoying and what makes you unhappy. If it is hard to have a healthy discussion, you always can take some help from a therapist. The point is, you need to build up a healthy relationship with your parents in order to understand both the limitations and needs. There is a small yet important thing that you have to keep in your mind in this scenario which is that, if your parents are very old, sometimes they behave like children because of so many reasons. Loneliness could be one of them. Therefore, before you misjudge them, please be careful about their mental and physical condition too.

Finally, I want to say…

Parents, you have the world’s greatest gift that someone can have, which is your children and please become their idols and not the reason of their failure. Create wonderful memories with them. (There are so many people who don’t have the ability to have their own babies)

Children, even though you have the most painful memories and scars regarding your parents and even now you are suffering from the fears and mental damages because of them, don't waste your time to hate them or to be worried about your situation. As I said earlier, be grateful to your parents for giving birth to you, giving good education, protection, maybe giving you a good family name and just keeping you alive until you can look after yourself. This attitude and feeling will create a path to forgive them and clear your disturbing memories. Then you will be able to start over your wonderful life and make some brand-new happy memories.

Hope you enjoyed the reading and thank you for joining with me….