It comes it every parent/child relationship - when the worm turns. Those big, bright eyes that once looked at you with adoring love begin to roll upwards, and the slight clucking of the tongue can be heard, and if you really, really focus you might even hear them thinking:
“Oh God, do I really have to keep listening to the droning sound of their relentless bullshit? Will it ever stop? Don’t they know I couldn’t give a fat fig what their big gaping maws have to say? Isn’t it OBVIOUS, I know every freaking thing there is to know about every freaking thing? I don’t need them. Morons. Nosy, busybody jerks. (pause, listen) OH MY GOD THEY ARE STILL TALKING TO ME. Jesus, Mary, Joseph would an anvil please fall from the sky and make the noise stop.”
“Are you listening to me?” you ask this post-pubescent jumble of hormones and attitude.
Their mouths say, “Yes,” but the blank, vacant stare belies the wildly scattering thoughts oscillating between breaking free of your deathlike grip on their lives, and their clear obvious dependence on you for everything material, but so little desire for the ethereal and intangible offerings you long to provide.
Why won’t they listen to me? you ask yourself. Am I that old and out of touch, so entirely uncool and devoid of reasonable advice and emotional support? I once wiped your butt, provided you all the sustenance that you needed to survive and in a mother’s case, carried you in my womb, endured the pain of birth and the humility and ravaging of my beauty - all of which, I willingly forfeited just for your benefit, and for what? So you can decide to make poor decisions and ignore my saged advice.
It’s demoralizing to me to know that this child that I hold to my bosom and love with all the capacity the good Lord gave me to love another will someday grow to resent me for all the reasons that they depend on me now: my desire to protect them from the cruel realities of life.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
nothing you ever do for a child is ever wasted or forgotten, at least at some level - I console myself with that bromide often
2 - Distorted Angel
I didn't truly appreciate my own parents fully until I became a parent myself. The older I get, the more I realize how much of them, for better or worse, I carry around within myself.