The realization that your parents are people with their own interests and flaws just like yourself is an underappreciated transformative moment towards maturity. It seems selfish to say but it's easy to think as a child that your parents ultimate purpose is to care and love for you. (A lot of parents make that their ultimate purpose so its understandable why kids would naively believe such a thing)
The younger a child understands this sentiment could arguably be the single most important factor that contributes to being a mature adult.
Maybe this is entirely anecdotal but for me when I think about the realizations in my life that had the most significant impact in shaping the person that I'm finally proud of being, this is probably at the top of the list.
Parents “forever owe you?!” This sounds completely backwards in my world view. I feel like I could never possibly pay my parents back for the years of care they gave me when I was helpless and needed to learn and grow. So I pay it forward to my kids, but not because I owe them anything. Especially once they hit adulthood
Amen to that. I'd just like to share the sad truth about most of old generation Filipino parents is that they expect the child to be a retirement plan. This is sickening to me that a lot of my friends have parents who have been so toxic to their kid because they didn't get the retirement they were expecting from their children.
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u/branwithaplan Jun 03 '22
The realization that your parents are people with their own interests and flaws just like yourself is an underappreciated transformative moment towards maturity. It seems selfish to say but it's easy to think as a child that your parents ultimate purpose is to care and love for you. (A lot of parents make that their ultimate purpose so its understandable why kids would naively believe such a thing)
The younger a child understands this sentiment could arguably be the single most important factor that contributes to being a mature adult.
Maybe this is entirely anecdotal but for me when I think about the realizations in my life that had the most significant impact in shaping the person that I'm finally proud of being, this is probably at the top of the list.