Tag: parenting

  • Razing Adults

    Razing Adults

    I have a good chuckle each time I replay the words to that parody about millennials. The one sung by a human beat box singing to the tune of Life Goes On. As entertaining and relatable as the lyrics may be, it misses one critical point, which is in fact the irony of it all. The general discussions and criticisms about millennials are most often voiced by the generation of adults that came before them. So I wondered that if the adults are complaining about the next generation, who raised these millennials to be such dramatic and entitled members of society? Given the general level of irresponsible behaviour among millennials, they obviously couldn’t have raised themselves.

    It’s a common failing. We blame society for what is wrong with the world around us, but abdicate our responsibility to and participation in that very same society. We blame corruption for the misery in the country but abdicate responsibility for our contribution towards it when we dodge taxes or pay bribes to get out of speeding fines. And so it is with the millennial problem. The same adults that failed as parents are now ready to point out what is wrong with the generation that they failed, while feigning innocence in the process.

    Far too often I hear adults mention how they are trying to give their children everything that the adults didn’t have while growing up. They don’t want their children to struggle the way that they (the adults) did. They despise their trials in life as if it was a curse while neglecting to notice that growth and strength of character is not developed in times of ease. This selfish indulgence by adults has robbed an entire generation of critical character building experiences by trying to protect them from life itself.

    The greatest mistake you can make as a parent is to convince yourself that you’re raising children. You’re not. You’re raising adults. Unfortunately we have too many insecure parents who want to be popular with their kids rather than making the tough decisions that will guide them instead. Because they don’t have to be the bad cop, they assume that they’re doing a good job, while raising kids that are so fragile that not having an electronic device or enough online privileges sends their kids into a depressed state.

    Every tantrum thrown by a kid has a diagnosis of a mental disorder attached to it. Not only does this resign the remedy to dangerous and unnecessary medication, but it gives the parents a get-out-of-jail-free card by suggesting that the problem is not related to environment, discipline, or healthy boundaries. Adults that refuse to age gracefully because they’re afraid of letting go of their youth do not take their rightful place as adults, guides, mentors, and most importantly parents in the home, and in society. What this means is that there is a vacuum of leadership and role models that see egomaniacs taking office to lead nations, and children having to relearn the lessons of the effects of absent parents, while having parents around. Not only is it an avoidable burden, it erodes the social structures that are needed for harmonious and wholesome living.

    However, such harmony and wholesomeness is what everyone desires, but only a few are willing to actively pursue. Everyone feels entitled to peace and comfort, but no one wants to create the environment or circumstances needed for it. There is an app for everything, and an outsourced service provider to take care of what the apps can’t do. And somewhere in between there is a lost generation being raised to believe that selfish needs are justified and duty is only reciprocal if there is something in it for you.

    We’ve razed adults from the horizon and replaced them with entitled brats in adult bodies. They’ve tainted the formative years and then spend their lives trying to undo the damage that becomes evident in the troubled teen years of their children’s lives. That is, for those that stick around and don’t see parenting as optional. Unfortunately it is accepted as quite the norm for fathers or mothers, or both to abdicate responsibility knowing that there is a grandparent or a daycare service that will take care of the responsibility instead. The selfishness carries a nauseating stench that will linger long into the next generation who will have to figure out effective parenting by themselves, or from what little recollections they may have of the substitute adults that raised them.

    Raise adults. Not children. The growing process for children takes care of itself. They didn’t need to be taught how to crawl or walk, or talk. They followed your example because it was set through active engagement, and not through dishing out instructions and walking away. The same is true for self-respect, responsibility, compassion, sincerity, resilience, tenacity, and all those other wonderful traits that are sorely lacking in the world as we are experiencing it today. Children do not need lessons on how to have fun, or how to party. They just need absent parents to figure that out without any boundaries.

    Stop trying to live a perpetual childhood for the rest of your life. No matter how young you feel inside, you will not delay the aging process, or the inevitability of death. What you will achieve though, when chasing such superficial and childish goals like trying to look 18 when  you’re 30, or behaving like a student when you’re having a boys’ night out when you’re 40, is abandoning your responsibility to a child that will see your juvenile behaviour as acceptable, and will struggle to figure out why establishing a healthy relationship or fulfilling social contracts is so difficult. Remember that point about how they don’t need to be taught how to party? Well, when they hit the lows because of their ineptitude at maintaining healthy relationships, they will once again resort to unhealthy and reckless behaviour that they saw from their wayward parents who were trying to be cool instead of passing on a baton that was worth holding on to.

    Don’t fail your children because you insist on trying to lick the bottom of the cup of youth. It’s pathetic. And entirely unfulfilling. There is a beauty and a peace that is achieved in living a full life. Not full of yourself, but full of the beauty of the lives that you have touched, especially the lives of your children.

    Don’t raise children. Raise adults. The world has enough misguided kids already.

  • Contaminated (Part II)

    We live in times where the inclination to remedy a fall far outweighs any rationale to prevent the fall from happening. We’ll willingly encourage others towards intoxicants or unhealthy distractions, and then form support groups to help them out of that addictive state, while refusing to condemn the bad advice we gave in the first place. Accountability is only celebrated if it doesn’t disrupt the oblivion of the masses. Those that threaten such disruption are spurned for being callous, cruel, or arrogant, often accused of thinking that they’re better than everyone else. In short, we condone that which reflects our own weaknesses not because we believe in its wholesomeness, but because we feel more human in recognising the shared weakness in others. More than this, it makes us feel less inferior when we believe that we share shortcomings with others, rather than falling short of expectation by our solitary selves alone.

    It’s not about being better than everyone else any more. These days, it’s simply about not being worse. There was a time in human history that I imagine the focus to have been on competing to excel in human endeavours. People would have exerted themselves to achieve noble goals that served as inspiration to others to want to rise up and pursue even greater heights. It’s quite different today. Today, it seems as if we compete to see who is able to dominate through any means possible, where the level of domination is celebrated, without any concern for the means or methods that achieved such domination, except where those means and methods threaten our ability to actively compete.

    I’ve been fascinated by the term ‘fully formed adults’ ever since I first read it a few years ago, but my fascination quickly turns to disgust as I look around and struggle to find specimens that exhibit such qualities. Semi formed adults raise calloused and contaminated children. Children that grow up under semi formed adults face trials and hardships that are entirely avoidable, and fully surmountable, but they often shy away from the challenge of rising above because when they raise their gaze looking for a role model to guide them, they see nothing but more contamination of a society that is full of semi formed adults. It’s therefore little wonder why they themselves succumb to the same cycle.

    Regardless of how harsh our childhood may have been, we all reach a point of independence in life where we are able to feed or break the cycles that raised us. Critical thought is spurned as rebellion and disrespect because semi formed adults lack the skills and self-worth to effectively navigate their way through critical thought processes. The stigma associated with failure is so harsh that even in the face of absolute failure we’ll find a euphemism to describe our sorry state. Anything is better than admitting failure. It’s this same insincere and tainted social setting that continues to lay down a path of strife and distraction for children looking for meaning and purpose in life.

    In the absence of a critical mass of fully formed adults, those that try to break the cycles are placed with a burden that is tenfold relative to the effort that would be needed to raise a balanced and confident child. It’s a constant struggle of trying to convince or influence the child towards a wholesome standard while they are bombarded with the unhealthy standard of the semi formed adults that they’re surrounded with. Isolation from such a malformed society is not an option. When we disengage, we lose the right to judge, criticise, or cry foul.

    We need to stop raising children. We need to start raising adults. This mindset that has contaminated the world in recent centuries that childhood must be enjoyed with abandon so that we can start being adults when we reach a certain age needs to be abandoned. This distinction between childhood and adult life is misguided. It’s not about age, it’s about awareness and accountability. We should expect greater accountability as we progress through the stages of self-awareness and awareness of our surroundings. The same way we expect a child to stop wetting the bed once they have been taught the value of hygiene and the skill of using the toilet, we should continue to hold them to such levels of accountability in action and behaviour as they continue to acquire new skills.

    But adults that had a contaminated childhood often project those regrets on the children under their care. Instead of raising the standard against which they raise their children, they embellish the esteem of the child with gestures that convince them, the adults, that they’re doing a better job than the raising that created the flaws that they despise about themselves.

    The common undertone and theme in society these days is one of demand, but little supply. We’re all demanding to be recognised for the struggles of our lives, and to be judged based on the gravity of those struggles, while remaining entirely oblivious to the fact that we are merely spawning another generation of victims that will take our efforts and raise it further. Their demands will be ever more destructive and selfish, and the erosion of society that we universally lament will continue on its downward spiral until a group of inspired young souls will look upon the generations that came before them with a sense of contempt and disbelief. The inheritance of wholesomeness that should have been passed down will be absent, and in such total absence they may finally resolve to correct the path that they’re on, rather than continuing the toxic cycle in search of affirmations and validations for experiences that hold no sway over the next generation.

    Adults that still place their insecurities and weaknesses before the well being of those that look up to them deserve a special kind of scorn. We all have the ability and the capacity to actively reflect on how we are perceived by others so that we can take steps to embellish our images in ways that would earn us praise. This is regardless of upbringing or value system. It is entirely based on who we wish to view us admiringly, and how we wish to feel about their gaze on us. We therefore cannot argue that such reflection in the betterment of our characters and moral assets is impossible simply because we were raised by a calloused or contaminated society. The resolve and courage exists for us to change the way we live our lives. The motivation however, is lacking, because it is significantly easier to fulfil an expectation of a consumerist society than it is to raise the expectations of the next generation.

    [end rant]

  • Contaminated

    A blistery childhood or a beautiful one. Both leave lasting impressions on us but not always in ways that we realise. A blistering childhood has been the cause of many to grow into beautiful people because they chose to create a world for themselves that did not echo the sadness from which they emerged. Equally so, a beautiful childhood has prompted many to assume a level of entitlement and aloofness that soured their souls and sent people gasping for air when exposed to the stench of their arrogance.

    The circumstances of our childhood was probably never a matter of our choosing. Sometimes we may have even made choices that defined it when we were allowed such definition as children in the presence of barely formed adults, but there is a justifiable absolution for children that make such bad decisions in the presence of adults who should have known better. Such kindness is not so easy to dish out for adults who continue to choose badly due to a contaminated childhood.

    The motivation behind the actions of parents are rarely known even by the parents themselves. This makes it that much more difficult for the child, the real child, to find a path out of that cycle as they try to understand why they hold such a deep sense of self-loathing, or a vacant stare of expectation, or worse, a longing for completeness.

    The pain that sometimes shapes our lives in our early years often end up leaving us ambivalent in our later years. At times it feeds the resilience of our souls in our struggle against a cruel world, while at other times it hampers our expression in ways that make us contribute towards the cruelty we wish to escape. Recognising those traits that detract from our wholesomeness is only half the battle. The rest of that battle is fought for the rest of our lives as we consistently try to unlearn a form of unhealthy expression that we were raised to believe is entirely normal.

    I see children that were raised in homes where explicit adult behaviour was flaunted as fashionable, personal hygiene as optional, and vulgarity of expression as humorous; and they struggle to operate in a setting where such behaviour is not tolerated. They struggle to rectify their ways, or reconcile their upbringing with what is demanded of them by society. The harshness of the demand undermines the burden of reality that they carry with them. But even that is a burden that they only reasonably comprehend much later in life.

    Until they reach that stage of relative awareness, relative because it’s near impossible to be fully aware of the difference between your normal and society’s normal, they will struggle in relationships that often define them as uncooperative, unwilling, or simply unacceptable relative to what would otherwise be a normal expectation from a normal adult. But such a demand from them is not entirely unreasonable.

    Tough love has never been so tough to implement. Parents that find themselves raising children from contaminated environments will likely spend a lifetime accepting that they are perceived to be disciplinarian monsters, while the fruits of their labour will be enjoyed by the normality experienced by their charges later in life. The point that needs to be made is a difficult one to articulate, partly because it holds such prominence for me, and partly because its definition escapes me.

    The balance that is needed between discipline and compassion is that much more difficult to strike when the one who is charged with raising the contaminated child is themselves contaminated. Their effort becomes that much more valiant and admirable, but their state, if observed casually by the normal of society, leaves much to be desired.

    [The point was barely reached, let alone sufficiently articulated in this post. Much reflection is still needed on this issue.]

  • Inherited Complacency

    As parents, we always want what is best for our children, don’t we? The well-meaning and responsible ones, that is. The trials of our lives teach us lessons that we often wouldn’t wish on our enemies, and so we do our best to guide our children in a way that protects them from having to learn the same lessons themselves. Given how scarce mindfulness is, it is almost inevitable that such an endeavour will prompt a level of over-protection that ends up sheltering more than it protects them from those unpleasant experiences that caused us to snarl at the world.

    We always start out with good intent, but because we spend so much time avoiding the perceived cruelty of our childhood or even our young adult lives…hold on…it doesn’t stop there, does it? I mean, the vast majority among us continue protecting ourselves from an ill conceived reality up to our last breaths. We immerse ourselves into a reality largely concocted from a cocktail of our own ill-informed perceptions, and then vow never to test that perception of reality from fear of having gotten it wrong twice over. So it is probably more accurate to say that we shield our children from the fears and trauma that we spend our lives avoiding.

    In so doing, we make assumptions about our children. We assume their level of resilience, their natural inclinations towards how they perceive the world, and so much more including what their passions are. At no point do we stop to consider that perhaps our tainted view of life has robbed us of an innocence that they still have, and rather than guiding them in the best application of that innocence, we force them to subdue it. You know, those moments when we believe that their sincerity is in fact naivety, so we preempt a negative outcome and send them off with a defensive disposition rather than advising them on how to effectively deal with betrayal of trust, or disappointment should it occur. The list of over-compensation on our part is endless.

    And in this way, we raise fearful kids that appear healthy relative to our norms, but struggle to find their niche in this world, except through their unique permutation of the escapism with which we raised them. Apart from the inherent sadness of such an outcome, there is something that really gnaws at my peace when I consider the damage it does. It is the realisation that there are millions of oblivious innocents who don’t even know what they’re passionate about in life. They grew up so focused on the passions of their parents, that they readily adopted it as their own. They followed such adoption with a deliberate passion aimed at mastering what they do while rarely realising that such effort was focused on impressing their accomplishments to their parents, and not to passionately raise the bar in the discipline or skill for which they expended the best years of their lives.

    Such a pursuit leaves us unfulfilled in such deep recesses of our souls, that we spend the latter years of our lives seeking it out, while never really knowing what it is that we seek. Moments of brutally honest reflection will prompt us to consider the reality that we are not the same as the people that shaped our views of the world. Yet the moment we protect our children from a threat that existed once a long time ago in our lives, we impose on them the bitterness of our perceptions of reality, while forgetting that such imposition makes us no better than those that raised us with bitter recollections as well.

    And so the cycle feeds itself until at some point we stop and choose to question before we act. Apply our minds before we decide. Live with conscious action and not subconscious reaction. When that happens, we begin to afford ourselves a view of the world that is less tainted than the one we inherited. We see opportunities where threats once prevailed, and we see growth where subjugation appeared to be the only safe option.

    The harsh reality is this. If we fail to live curiously, our children will either be exactly like us, or would not want to be anything like us. Parents often have a bad habit of expecting their children to live the lives that they (their parents) failed to live under the guise that such a failure was a result of the parent’s sacrifices to give their children a better life. It discards all the beauty and appreciation that results from the lessons learnt and instead focuses on the emotional distress that lingered when they saw themselves as victims rather than students of the world.

    That’s one very powerful way of projecting your impotence and insecurity on subjects over whom you wield a great deal of emotional guilt. But of course, parents are benevolent by nature, and therefore are only capable of wanting the best for their children, so it can’t be possible that they would do such a dastardly deed like live vicariously through their offspring. Right? For some strange reason we tend to live as if our personal exploits are our personal exploits, and that parenting is something that is a formal endeavour in parallel with such exploits.

    Stated more simply, we reserve a space in our lives for our exclusive indulgence, which is often the space where we express our passion most purely, without allowing our children to be a part of that expression or growth. We deny them the opportunity to witness our growth and in so doing, we shelter them from anything more than a life of compliance and complacency.

    I think the emphasis we place on responsibility in the upbringing of our children is often exaggerated. Responsibility is definitely important, but so is exploration, personal expression, and living romantically. Not the sloppy mushy fairy tale romance that everyone gurgles at, but the romance that sees the world with less judgement and more understanding, Less fear and more embrace. Less safe and more conviction.

    There will always be an easier path for them to take. But that’s not the path of excellence. We can’t lament the stagnation or decline of humanity if we constantly focus on doing what is safe. When being safe becomes the yardstick of success, and we know that not everyone achieves success, it means that anyone that falls short of that yardstick drags us down. It means that we set our targets low, and then celebrate any incremental achievement towards that low target, while never realising that we were capable of so much more.

    If we hope for greatness for our children, we must be willing to accept that they will be able to achieve more in their lives than we did in ours, without seeing such achievement as an indictment against ourselves. It stands to reason that the student will always have the potential to exceed the accomplishments of their teacher. Providing a child with insight and developing their life skills rather than indoctrinating them with habits and rituals allows them to take what you’ve built and improve on it. It allows them to contribute positively towards this world instead of consuming only. It allows them to take us forward instead of maintain the status quo.

    But most important in all of this, as I’ve said before, don’t set them aside in your avenues of expression and passion. Demonstrate your conviction in a way that they can enjoy and observe so that it builds a yearning in them to live with conviction, rather than to be complacent. Any complacency you see in them is a reflection of what they witnessed in you, while the conviction that they demonstrate in their lives is a reflection of the passion that you lived with while they traveled your journey with you.

    I think that’s important. I think it’s important to understand that our children are not there to only live a subset of our lives with us and then move on to create their own version of the same. I think they are supposed to colour every experience of ours as they grow while witnessing our growth. In so doing, they learn through first hand experience that it’s perfectly fine not to have all the answers, to fail, and to stumble along the way. They’ll learn what it’s like to share their lives with those around them, rather than to live their lives expecting from those around them.

    Let them inherit more than just the ability to cope with life or a cruel world. Instead, give them an inheritance of courage and skill to leave this world in a better state than it was before they arrived so that their presence was felt and appreciated, rather than existing and departing almost entirely unnoticed.

  • Dancing in the Rain

    Walking through a curio shop, I saw a frame proclaiming that life is not about avoiding the storm, but rather about learning to dance in the rain. That sounds profound, and childishly innocent. But as life wears on, we grow to realise that it’s even more important to choose carefully which storms we dance in.

    It seems there’s a time for everything, and I guess in our youth, the rebellion we embrace drives us to live in protest of convention and oppression. However, when lacking in informed wisdom, oppression appears in many forms, including discipline and respect. Under such circumstances, the oppressors are those who leave us to wander without this informed wisdom while believing that our discovery of the world on our own terms yields wholesome adults. More importantly, it pacifies the ego of those adults that believe that they’re being kind and gentle because being the adult is too onerous for a fickle ego.

    Consider the above in a broader context and suddenly we have some answers regarding the hoardes of wayward teens that lack in self respect and discipline while struggling to figure out why life treats them harshly. In fact, the number of adults that suffer from debilitating depression and other mental hangups are on the increase as well. (Pile on the hate, I’m used to it).

    I look around me and see an ever increasing range of health support systems than ever before. The more we progress with medical sciences the less we progress with humanity. It’s no coincidence that by design, the medical sciences are also accompanied by a philosophy that focuses on the individual and not the society. We diagnose the symptoms of an individual and we prescribe treatments that are almost entirely individualistic in nature. It’s a self-serving cycle that is extremely lucrative, and therefore unlikely to be broken anytime soon. Albeit a simplistic overview, it provides us with a point of departure that leads down the path towards the erosion of individual accountability, as well as social cohesion.

    The cycle goes something like this. Our health is rarely associated with what we don’t get from those around us. However, what we don’t get is proportional to what we don’t give. But when we grow up not knowing what to give, we also grow up not knowing what to get. The result is a symptomatic response to life, not dissimilar to modern medical sciences, which drives us to demand instant gratification before wholesome balance, leaving us physically spent, emotionally bankrupt, and socially isolated despite having friends lists that stretch to utopia and beyond.

    And it all starts with the adult that refuses to be. The one that lives vicariously through their children. Who seeks to avenge the oppression of their childhood by swearing not to enslave another with the rigour of discipline or the burden of self respect, because in the absence of the two, we can do as we please, live without limits, and grow old ungracefully, with a healthy dose of bitterness and ingratitude not knowing why the empty spaces remained empty, and the home lacked homeliness. That’s not a rant, it’s a reality that most are loathe to acknowledge, because of the indictment it holds against us.

    Some storms are more important than others. It’s usually not the ones we choose for ourselves, but the ones we choose for others that impacts our lives the most. Wholesomeness is lost when we lose sight of the whole and replace it with a focus on the self. Homes are broken, kindred spirits are abused, and worse still, spiritual grounding is discarded. No wonder we constantly seek fulfilment through retail therapy more than we do from silence.

    [Yes, this is my projection of reality on the world. At least I have one to project]

  • Old School Modesty

    I’ve never been one to mince my words when it comes to sharing my perspectives on morality, respect, and simple values that I believe makes life wholesome and dignified. The amount of pandering to political correctness these days is sickening. Fair enough to say that to each their own, but when that perspective suddenly becomes legislated, then it’s no longer to each their own, but rather to all will be the acceptance of the unacceptable.

    But this post is not about what I find wrong with the moral decline of society across every nation and every religion in general. This is my outburst, or maybe even just my plea for sanity and common sense in a time when dignity is a foreign concept and everything is about acceptable limits only. What is too much or too little is discussed as the focal point of modesty and respect, rather than an holistic approach to what truly maintains the dignity of a human being.

    I often get young girls lamenting the fact that they have really bad or non-existent relationships with their fathers. Many, if not most of them, go as far as stating that they don’t give a damn about whether or not their father is a part of their life, or will be a part of some really significant life events, and more often than not those breakdowns are a result of a lack of self-respect on the part of the daughter. This does not in any way justify or excuse the behaviour of those pathetic fathers that are absent in their daughter’s lives. That can never be excused.

    This is about the father that tried to maintain a healthy relationship with his daughter but was prevented from doing so because she felt inclined to be womanly before being a daughter. I look at young girls with their fathers and I wonder how is it possible for them not to feel shame about the way they dress in front of them let alone in public? A father should never have to lower his gaze when looking at his daughter. If he does, that speaks volumes about the disrespect that his daughter has for him.

    We wonder why incest, family rape, sexual molestation, and similar despicable acts are on the increase, but we don’t question how we conduct ourselves as a society, or even as a family unit? When daughters feel nothing about appearing sexually alluring in front of their fathers, or brothers for that matter, then don’t be surprised when her male family members either disrespect her, want to have nothing to do with her, or treat her in ways that are morally questionable.

    Am I placing the blame only on daughters? Not at all. There is as much that can be said about the parenting skills of many fathers, and mothers. But right now, I’m incensed by the complaints of girls that come from decent homes with fathers that are not absent, that still maintain them, and that are not abusive, on drugs, or alcohol, or even cigarettes, and in fact are even religiously grounded in many cases, yet the girls find it more important to establish their identities as women regardless of the impact it may have on their relationships with significant male role models that they will inevitably regret not having around later in life.

    Modesty is for sale, and dignity is not even in the catalogue anymore. Worse than this, dignity is a concept that seems to have been set aside in favour of freedom of expression and individual rights. It’s always the ones that are screaming for independence in this manner that are mourning the erosion of society and community as recalled by the old folks. Like the beloved prophet (pbuh) once said something to the effect that when modesty is gone, do as you please. If you don’t respect yourself, or even lack the presence of mind to know what that respect should entail, then don’t expect much more than that from the people around you. This juvenile concept of unconditional this and unconditional that is nothing but unconditional rubbish. When we stop expecting acceptance no matter what, maybe then we’ll start establishing wholesome relationships that are grounded on respect and dignity, rather than just common fashion, sexual, or social interests.

  • From Father To Son

    I watched a movie tonight that was probably the most accurate portrayal of the life of an average Muslim family in South Africa. The movie is called Material, and sets out to depict the struggles of many Muslim Indian families that are ruled by a firm-handed man. The authenticity of the characters, the script, and the setting made it feel as if it was a chapter taken out of my own life, although I can’t lay claim to having nearly as meaningful a relationship with my own father. Perhaps the familiarity with the themes is what hit home for me, but I think it’s more than that.

    I often feel a twinge of guilt when I speak plainly about my relationship with my father, but like it is said, speaking ill of the dead only hurts the living. My intentions are never to malign him, nor to earn sympathy from anyone that bothers to listen, but describing my relationship with my father as a relationship at all feels somewhat unnatural. There are a few traits that I have quite unwittingly inherited from my father which includes my sharp tongue, my cynical nature, and my uncompromising approach to matters of principle. Perhaps a part of my dark humour was also inherited, but very few see that side of me, so it probably doesn’t count.

    The truth is I’ve often wondered what it must be like to have a father to turn to when in need of advice, or perhaps just a sounding board steeped in wisdom. How must it feel to be able to stand up and be counted for your accomplishments knowing that your father is standing in the crowd feeling a sense of pride about what you made of the little that you had to start with. I was clothed, fed, and I had a roof over my head, and for that I will always be grateful. Unfortunately the duties of a father don’t stop at that point. The basics only provides the shell, not even the foundation.

    I’ve often assumed that only once I grow to understand what drove my father to be the bitter and angry man that he was, will I be able to subdue similar demons on my part. I wondered if he was perhaps misunderstood, or if he himself did not understand the source of his rage or his bitterness, but even if that were true, I see the damage in my siblings that leaves me loathe to make excuses for much of what he did. I’ve always maintained that the best gift a parent can give their child is the gift of a healthy self-esteem. Everything else in life becomes bearable, or even easy, if we have a sense of self that is founded in a childhood that was indeed a childhood.

    I’ve never known the true embrace of a father, not physically, nor emotionally. It’s an emotion that I’ll never experience the pleasure of, nor will I ever experience the pleasure or the consoling comfort of knowing what it’s like for him to be proud of me, or my achievements. My very strong streak of obstinate rebellion in the face of criticism took hold at an early age. I realised very early in life that nothing came easily. Every handout or hand-up was inevitably attached to an expectation of reciprocation, not always in equal measures. There was little encouragement to pursue anything meaningful beyond what I was innately capable of. I was barely in standard nine (11th grade) when I recall having a conversation with my mother about wanting to move out because I refused to put up with the toxic environment that we called home any longer.

    When the father in that movie showed his son the door, and arrogantly encouraged him to use it, I had very vivid flashbacks of similar moments in harsher tones, with significantly more colourful language, including the moment when I was shown the door when I was barely 6 years old as punishment for forgetting my jacket outside. Somehow moments like those, moments that shaped my character in ways that I would only realise much later in life, always seemed to happen on cold winter nights. The moment when my ex-wife flew into a rage and threatened mine and my daughter’s lives, or the moment when I stared at the beautiful moon through metal grids mounted at least twenty feet above me as I paced around the courtyard of the holding cells on the coldest night that year, each leaving scars and traces of wisdom that only the school of life can teach.

    My resilience, tenacity, compassion (albeit well hidden), and patience, I get from my mother. Reflections like these are what dissuades me from writing that book. My story is not unique, and in that fact alone there is much to be sad about, not celebrated. It sometimes feels as if writing about it romanticises it in a way that undermines the cruelty of it all. I guess, if nothing else, I’m grappling with whether or not I have a story to tell, or if the story only needs to be written so that I can finally rid myself of it.

  • Parenting Gone Wrong

    This is an interaction I had with someone on my Tumblr blog. It touches on the destructive relationships that some parents have with their children. It’s something quite close to home for me, so I thought I’d share it here as well. The content that is bold is my opinion that I shared on the issues being raised. 

    What if a person has a sort-of narcissistic mother? And what if she has disliked the child since the child was young (but loved the child’s younger sibling), and still blames the child (even when the child is now an adult) for everything? So in her heart and mind, her child is the one with problems, the one who is the cause of all pain in her life.

    Narcissistic mothers are more common than you would imagine. I can’t count the number of mothers I’ve seen in my own experiences that openly and aggressively compete with their daughters (usually the eldest daughter if there’s more than one). It’s disturbing to say the least, and not uncommon to find them choosing a favourite between their children.

    What if the reason for the mother having bad feelings towards her child is the child’s fault for not having enough sabr?

    While that is a distinct possibility, given the rest of the scenarios presented below, that sounds almost like Stockholm Syndrome where the victim starts to sympathise with the aggressor’s position and sees them as justified in their actions.

    Let’s say once the child was an adult, they went back to try and fix things and create a relationship with the mother again. But the mother continued to emotionally condemn and hurt the person, but that the person tried to have sabr, and limited their visits with their mother just to keep the peace. What if one time, the person had to stay with the mother for over 5 days due to a specific circumstance. What if during this time, no matter how quiet the person tried to stay, the mother became increasingly irritated and angry with them and started saying horrible things. (And the sibling of the person took the mothers side also, saying that they don’t want that person in their lives anymore – there must be something wrong with the person then, right, and not the mother?)

    I disagree. It doesn’t necessarily imply that there is something wrong with the person. What it does suggest is that the mother has some issues relating to an association with the person in question. In other words, the mother could have been at a difficult time in her life when she gave conceived and/or gave birth to the child that is being pushed aside. As a result, especially in younger mothers, it’s not uncommon for them to project their own disappointments about life on the unborn or newborn child because it makes it easy for them to project their failures on the child instead of accepting responsibility for the choices they made. E.g. So if the mother had aspirations of building a career or having a certain amount of social freedom at that point in her life, and she ended up having an unplanned baby, in her weakness to acknowledge her own contribution to that situation, she would blame the baby for robbing her off those aspirations, and that blame, when nurtured for long enough, could become really toxic in their relationship in later years.

    Then what if the mother physically hurt the person in anger- as if they were a small child again- and what if this time the person just had enough and finally snapped, reacting back to the mother?
    Isn’t it the fault of that person for not having enough sabr with the situation? And now because of that, the mother is angry and holds an even bigger grudge than before and has now disowned that person from the family completely.
    So…. in Allah’s eyes, isn’t the person to blame, since the mother should always be respected and not shown anger towards?

    The person was bound to snap at some point, because as human beings, we have an inherent need for reciprocation, appreciation or gratitude. Our efforts must yield some beneficial results at some point or else we’re bound to snap out of anger at feeling incompetent or insignificant in the situation we’re trying to resolve. While being disrespectful towards a parent can never be condoned, I don’t believe there is anything wrong in maintaining a healthy distance in order to discourage a situation from arising that would lead to such disrespect becoming unavoidable. Islam is holistic in its approach to everything, and therefore, in this situation, the mother would need to fulfil her duties and responsibilities in order to enjoy the benefits of the elevated position that Islam affords her. In this case, the mother would always find a reason to justify her view about the merits and qualities of the person in question because she would need that to avoid taking accountability for her own actions that led up to the toxic situation between the two of them.

    And how would it work out on the day of judgement? Because ultimately it’s her word against the child’s and from the importance of the relationship with the mother in Islam, doesn’t that mean that the child of the mother has no chance on the day of judgement to enter Jannah? No matter how much the person repents, ultimately, isn’t it the word of the mother against theirs?

    I don’t think the Day of Judgement will be about one person’s word against another’s because all our deeds are clearly recorded. Our own bodies will act as witnesses against us, so no one’s opinion will carry weight on that day. Allah will judge fairly between the two, and we will not be held accountable for those situations that are out of our control. We will only be accountable for that which we could have done but didn’t do, within reasonable limits. 

    Of course Allah knows best, but I’m just wondering.

    P.s. At the same time though, the mother is a practicing Muslim, a kind and generous person in general. So it’s very confusing for the child, they wonder if it really is them with the problem, since the mother is a good person and practicing Muslim in general. So if that’s the case, does the child have any chance of entering Jannah, since the only time the mother becomes abusive and angry like this is when they are around. Therefore, there must be something wrong with that particular child of the mother’s, right?

    Again, it’s not necessarily due to a fault on the part of the child. Some parents, for whatever reason, just take a natural dislike and develop a very competitive relationship with their child/children. There’s nothing any child can do to change that because the one with the predominant power and influence is the parent. Until the child attains a level of independence and success as an adult, it’s hardly likely that the parent will see them differently. Even then, the parent could choose to continue seeing the child’s success as a result of their sacrifices rather than acknowledging their child’s efforts to make a good life for themselves. So the best is to just recognise the constraints and dynamics of the relationship for what it is, and take the needed steps to avoid further contention.

    This reminds me of the incident between the Prophet (SAW) and Wahshi, the man that killed Hamzah (RA). After asking him for an explanation of what happened, Rasulullah (SAW) forgave him and asked him never to show him his face again. The reason I’m reminded of this incident is because a similar theme could play out here. The person could accept that the current circumstances are just not conducive towards a healthy relationship with the parent, and so should avoid unnecessary contact without severing family ties. Insha-Allah in time, the absence and independent growth on both sides may lead to a thawing of the ice in the relationship and result in mutual respect developing, Ameen. 

    P.S. It’s normal for the favourite child to be sympathetic towards the parent’s views, until they reach an age of maturity where they are able to view the relationship more objectively.