You should accept their criticism as the proof that you can make your personal choice independently from them. So enjoy your independence.
You are the person in your family who is responsible for bringing up new generations. Consequently, if you leave everything unchanged and add nothing to what your ancestors did, then your family and, more generally, the Human Race will stop developing. That will be the end of the World since every living thing needs to develop and development occurs through change.
Let us thank our parents who gave us everything they had and could. Now, as we have grown up, our parents reaction shows us where we still follow family traditions and where we replace them with new ones. In the first case we win our parents approval, while in the second case the novelties we introduce cause their confusion and even disagreement.
This is the proof of our personal development.
N. ManukhinaJanuary 2011Part 1. Deep reflection
disagreement, denial, accusations, loss of values, suspicions, isolation, offences, rejection, fear, alienation, running after each other and from each other, freedom and solitude, rights and duties, the choice, the responsibility, contribution to ones own life, ups and downs Who is accountable for all this? Am I? Or are they?
This is the incomplete list of problems mentioned by grownup people while speaking about their relationship with their parents, or parents speaking about their grownup children. However, in spite of despair they all hope and believe that they may still achieve peace, love and harmony.
Children against their parents
Why do we try to find the justification for our failures in our parents and their attitude to us? Cant we see, that by ascribing the blame to them we refuse to acknowledge that these are our difficulties, problems and puzzles and when we give them up we give up our lives?
It is certainly interesting to find out what we inherited from our ancestors: our appearance, personal qualities, ethical and moral norms, values, habits. However, it is up to us to decide how to use all that. We can use these potentialities instinctively or we can study them and decide which of them we need to change or develop. It depends on our goals, circumstances, situations and our relationship with others. It follows that only we are responsible for making choices in our lives. So, why should we hold our parents responsible for our actions?
When you realize that you can rely on what you have learnt from your parents and at the same time come up with something new, something that is only yours, your life becomes more exciting. Of course it is not easy to answer for all your deeds and people often evade responsibility. There is a saying: you must reap what you have sown, but, whatever fruits we reap, good or bad, belong to us and nobody else. While we are glad to have good luck and success, why should we not admit that our failures are the difficulties which make us stronger? Indeed, when we make efforts to overcome those difficulties we can achieve real success.
Maybe our parents really have nothing to do with our lives?
Then a seditious thought appears: if it is our choice, which of our achievements and failures should we claim credit for and which of them should we ascribe to our parents? And why dont we celebrate our success together with our parents instead of complaining and blaming them for our failures? Celebrations are far more enjoyable than battles, pain and suffering, are not they?
Parents of grown up children
Think of the first time when you saw yourself as a parent: mother or father. Who did you picture first, yourself or your child? What was your child like?
When thinking about their children most people imagine babies or young children. However, children grow up and become adults. Have you ever thought about being a parent of grown up men and women aged about 30, 40 or 50? When I ask my visitors such a question they smile awkwardly. No, we do not seem to have prepared for being the parents of grownup people.
Thinking about ourselves as parents we imagine how we will caress and spoil them, how we will bring them up, protect them and do everything our mothers and fathers did for us, together with what they write in clever books about the upbringing of children. But where to find books about maintaining relations with our children when they have already grown up and maybe have children or even grandchildren of their own?
It is strange that setting ourselves the task to bring up the next generation we do not think about the results we will yield: establishing adult to adult relationship with the people who will always remain our children.
It is a heavy burden indeed to bring up children without criticizing them and warning them about the possible failures. When we were children our parents always used to point out our faults and make us correct our mistakes. Good grades at school were taken for granted, which means that it was considered normal to be a good student and we wereexpected to be good. For that reason our efforts were never appreciated or praised. Now I cannot help wondering how it is possible to gear up for success and achievements when you live in constant fear of failure.
Only with time do we understand that if we criticize our children when they are small they will treat us the same way when they grow up. It is exactly as the saying goes: As the call, so the echo. Why do you expect gratitude and appreciation from those whom you criticize? How will our children learn to be thankful and to appreciate us if they only get rebukes from us?
It turns out that respect, gratitude and appreciation need to be taught, but before we teach our children, we should learn how to respect, appreciate and be thankful ourselves. But who can we learn this from?
From our children! We should teach them and they will teach us in return. If we change our attitude they will do the same. But someone has to start. Since we have lived longer and have more responsibility than our children we are expected to do that. However, it is not so easy to give up our old beliefs! We need the help from our children, but how to ask for help? We are parents, and we should be demanding, not asking.
Or maybe it is also possible to ask
The main fear of parents is that if they change, their children will not understand them, will criticize and reject them. So we say: Why should we change, let our children change and we will keep the old ways for the rest of our lives. As a result, when our children become adults and offer us new kind of relationships, expecting us to support them in their personal formation, we respond with apprehension and anxiety. In fact we hinder them more than we help them to develop. Meantime, following the laws of life, our children and we too grow up and change steadily. So the children are forced to move away from us or even get rid of us like dead matter they just leave us getting as far as possible.
On the other hand, those parents who let themselves be glad at their childrens success always remain wanted and needed by them. So, one day they find out that their children have learnt many good things from them. Indeed, they can see their children using what they have learnt from parents openly, without any criticism and denial. In this light childrens own achievements, including those in the fields unknown to parents, become more obvious. Moreover, if children see that their parents are willing to hear about their achievements, they will gladly share with them.