You and Your Parents
The sins of the father. The love of the mother. Countless words have been uttered to illustrate the archetype of parenthood. They say that the father is the son’s first hero — and the daughter’s first love. And behind every single one of your stories is always your mother’s story — a more hidden story that is often unheard.
Parenthood — just like any other endeavor— comes about in a wide variety of gradients. Some parents perform illustriously well, providing a life of security and abundance materialistically, emotionally and spiritually for their children. Others fare much worse on this journey, for one reason or another.
Despite the wide array of parenting styles and outcomes, there seems to be a commonality — a common melody — between all philharmonic acts of parenthood.
If you are not a parent yourself, you may notice or even strongly agree with these observations. If you are reading this as a parent— resist the urge to think about how you are manifesting these commonalities to your children. Instead, read this from the perspective of being a son/daughter yourself.
Captain America
For both the son and the daughter, the father figure is one that is inherently looked up to. As a young child — most people can probably remember the sheer physical stature of their father. How much taller and stronger he is compared to their then meek, undeveloped physique. Apart from looking up to him physically, the child also looks up to him psychologically — as a north star for authority and protection. For all intents and purposes, the father figure is essentially a superhero — a source of reverence to sons, a source of safety and protection to daughters.
But as we grow older, something revelatory tends to unfold in our perceptions of our fathers. We start to notice that the material fabric on his facade is not actually his skin at all — it is a costume. Not only is it a costume, it is not even as high quality of a costume as we believed it to be when we were younger. It is in fact, an average costume, composed of average materials, sewn by an average seamster. As one comedian once put it, “I realized that my father was just another dude.”
This pedestalization of the father as a superhero fades with maturity, but it fades much, much quicker for sons than it does for daughters. There are adult women today who still consider themselves as “daddy’s little girl” — and all power to them. If one can still genuinely perceive their father to be a superhero — by all means sustain that perception as long as possible.
But inevitably, every child wakes up to the fact that their father is not the all-powerful, omnipotent, omniscient protectors they once thought they were. Even captain America himself, is in fact — just a dude. Behind Captain America is Steve Rogers: a dude with faults, inconsistencies, slips of the tongue, and very visible cracks in his previously considered indestructible Vibranium shield.
With this realization — this disillusionment — often comes disappointment or even heart break. This realization is very jarring indeed. One can often remember the first time your father — this seemingly perfect man— revealed his humanity to you for the very first time. And it is this humanity, this ordinariness, that inevitably disappoints every child — as he/she finally realizes the ultimate vulnerability of the father figure. This sentiment is depicted brilliantly in Travis Meadow’s song Sideways when he said “I have moments when I act just like my father, the only man that ever broke my heart.”
Maleficent
The opposite parenting phenomenon applies for the motherly figure. The intensity of the paternal instinct tends to diminish with age — in other words, fathers tend to become less fatherly, less authoritative, as time goes by. In realizing that their paternal instincts may no longer be helpful or necessary for the adult child, fathers are more able to let go and let live.
But the maternal instinct behaves very differently. The maternal instinct intensifies (not mellows) with time. The maternal instinct does not let go and let live — but holds on even tighter — with the passaging of time. This is similar to the narrative of Maleficent, the fictional Hollywood character who starts of as a loving and kind angel who then transforms into a tyrannical, protective and complex maternal character. While the journey of the father heads towards greater simplicity, the journey of the mother heads towards greater complexity.
The question of “Have you eaten yet?” — will very rarely cross a father’s mind by the time the child is 30. But that question will never lose salience in the mind of the maternal. The mother of a 60-year-old male billionaire stock trader will continue to wonder — “Has he eaten yet?” And if he has eaten, she will wonder — “How much?” She will then continue to wonder — “Is he happy?” Assuming that he is happy, she will then wonder — “Why is his skin so dry? Why does he look skinnier? Does he drink enough water?”
It seems that with the passaging of time, the maternal need to be incessantly involved, influence, and be part of the child’s life intensifies — often at the detriment of the mother-child relationship itself. This was mentioned briefly but aptly in Nikki’s song Backburner — “Maybe I blame my mother bleeding into my stride.”
The long-term arc of the father is to eventually disappoint his children through the unravelling of his vulnerable humanity. The long-term arc of the mother is to eventually annoy her children through such intense smothering of maternal concern.
There will arguably be no relationship more complex and multidimensional as the one that we have with our parents. It seems that there is no such thing as an isolated human being — an isolated personality. Every aspect of one’s personality and behavior is a reflection of the amalgamation of one’s life experiences, the good and the bad— that have been monumentally shaped by the parent-child relationship.
As I write this, I am not a parent. And as I write this, I am completely dissatisfied with what I have just written. If I were to become a parent, perhaps my son or daughter would be able to articulate our relationship dynamics in a more elegant, eloquent manner. Assuming that my love for writing is somehow passed on to them.