This blog on this topic has been running in my mind for days now and have gotten around to pen it only now. The reason for this being – ‘who’ should be the point of focus for this blog?

There could be many people who influence our thinking and the way we lead our life – our parent (s), grand parents, extended family, teachers or any other caregivers we may have had, who played a role in the way we were brought up. This is a plethora of options and the blog will go all over the place, if I were to look at all these people in one blog, with each one as important as the other. When I finally decided ‘who’ the focus should be, is when the penning of this blog happened. Each para in this blog could be connected to the next or can be a stand alone. This is a topic that is close to my heart and as thoughts emerged, it got penned with the flow.

Parents play a key role in the way we shape our life or should I say, in the way our life is shaped. When we were children, we would more often than not listen to them; and at times may not. As we grew older, this would change. We may continue to let them influence our thoughts and thereon our actions or we may not.

At times, we want to emulate them and at other times, we don’t want to be what they were with us. This depends on how they were or were not, has an impact on us.

There are those times when we may never know why our parents behaved the way they did in a situation. There ,maybe no answers forthcoming from them, to questions asked. The impact of their actions however have a huge influence on us. There maybe answers that they give, which is valid for them and maybe valid / invalid for us. Hard to accept if the answers are invalid to us, but given that it is not within our control, there isn’t anything we can do to change it. What can’t be changed has to be endured!!

At times, we see ourselves behaving the same way as our parents did. Why do we behave in the same way, we also may not have any answers. Such is their influence on us. However, when we realise that the outcome of our behaviour is more toxic for us and the environment around us, an awareness and introspection brings in a change in us. What worked for our parents may not work for us.

As we grow older, there may be many a difference of opinion or even fights between us and our parents. Days when we may not talk to one another. These fights may simmer while we may make peace with one another. Hard to let bygones be bygones. There may however come a day when we decide to bury the hatchet, for whatever it is worth. Perhaps one relationship where ego dosn’t stand much of a chance!!

As children and as teenagers and also as young adults, we would constantly observe how much our parents practiced what they preached’. If they did, they passed some test that we implicitly had in our mind. If they didn’t practice what they preached, it was easy to tell (in our mind), “You aren’t anyway doing what you are telling me to do”. Don’t know how many of us had the gumption to say it loudly. I certainly didn’t 🙂

There were sometimes when we would be asked to do ‘something’ and no questions were encouraged. That ‘something’ we would do, knowing fully well that this was a choiceless situation. Years later, is when we would realise why we were asked to do it. Many times, that’s when the peg will drop in its slot.

We see other parents and when we think of what our parents did / didn’t do, it may lead to gratitude or regret. If we are at a space and place to understand why they did or didn’t do, we may just think, “Well, that’s my lot” and move on. We certainly need a lot of space to do this, especially in times of regret.

We never know how much we have imbibed our parents’ qualities, until many many years later. It could be when we are experiencing a similar situation or when we bring up our children. That’s when we realise that we are doing exactly the way our parents did with us. We are at a different spiral in life, our context maybe different but what we have imbibed has chosen to manifest itself. If the outcome is positive, there is that silent and loud thanks we say, to our parents.

Many times when we sit back and think, we tell ourselves that we are what we are, thanks to our parents and the role that they played in our growing up years.

It is a lot of emotions flowing in me, as I pen this blog and would like to end it with this powerful thought expressed by someone, “A parent is a place of unconditional giving and love. This kind of unconditional giving and love, you get it only from your parent. Rarely you get it from anyone else”.