Why Realising Our Parents Are Real Adult People Is The Last Growing Up Hurdle
- anthony10320
- Mar 15, 2024
- 2 min read
Article from Huffington Post UK, 24 November 2017, Carrigan
Realising your parent is an adult is that moment where they confide in you, or you visit them in hospital. It's realising that they are not invincible, but they need you as much as you completely, unequivocally need them. It's providing support as well as receiving it, paying for dinners because, actually, you can afford it and they deserve it.
Realising our parents are actually real, honest, sensitive human beings and not just primary caregivers comes to everyone in different ways. For some, it's gradual; an easy shift into a relationship that becomes more balanced. For others, it'll actually never happen - mum and dad will always be mum and dad.
For others, the realization is sharp, premature and sometimes even cruel. I have a dear friend who, aged seventeen, became a carer for her mother suffering from early onset Alzheimer's. Her mum died in her late forties having suffered from the ravages of the disease for ten years, leaving her completely alone.
Personally I'm incredibly glad that I now have a real-adult-people relationship with my parents. I have two unwavering support systems, and two great pals, that (I hope) love spending time with me as much as I love spending time with them. If you're lucky enough to have parents, pick up the phone and call them. Real-adult-people parents love that too.
Our thoughts
Seeing your parents outside the scope of purely your parent is confronting, but it can also be liberating as well. As you have now become a parent, look to enjoy this relationship from an evolved perspective, take immense joy from their interactions with your children and don't be afraid to ask them what they were thinking at similar points of their parenting journey.
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