Bridging the Gap

We as kids always seek our parents for everything. As we grow, a fine line develops, which later turns into an age gap. There is an age… a time, when we are high, on cloud 9 with our friends. We have same thinking pace, same perspective of life and somewhere same expectations from life too.

Though our parents are happy in our happiness, happy to see us the way we are turning from good to a better individual, we feel that they do not understand us or probably too busy and indulged in their lives (rather in their routine), to share our feelings, our mindset with same intensity and vigor.

And suddenly, when this time leaps from this early college / work life to married life, we have a person / partner / alter-ego who is solely dedicated to us. Our partners give us best of everything. We feel our better halves are clearer in thoughts, have a better sense of looking at things, are more organized and blah-blah… We kind of have biased world towards our better halves and the gap widens.

Why this gap… I keep on questioning to myself… And somewhere got an answer or explanation…

We forget that to beget us/mould us till the current state; our parents sacrificed and compromised on many things. Starting from daily savings, to working hard to give us best of education and nutrition, to skipping the worldly pleasures offered to them (to save for us and thinking somewhere in the back of their mind…we will enjoy this later when we retire).

And most importantly, we were not the only apple of their eyes (mostly). We do have our siblings too who needed equal attention and care and hence commitments and responsibilities for them multiplied. And focus and individual attention for us would be probably 1:3 or 1:2 whereas for our spouses, ratio is 1:1.

To make the both ends meet gracefully, they poured their sweat of the brow. And yes, this process somewhere turned into their prime routine, their lifestyle. Given now all the things they intentionally gave a miss that time, they won’t enjoy it fully. Because they are used to this life now. No, they don’t want the worldly pleasures (as they say it) now.

All they want us to understand them. To read the wrinkles on their faces. To give them smallest of the joys like sharing a cup of tea / enjoying a nice TV show together / have a nice talk with them once a day / spending a fun day with them and their grandchildren.

Somewhere I read an article, where a grown up son asked his mother… “Why do you speak so slowly, please talk fast… I’m getting bored and I don’t have much time”… Mom replied “Son, I always used to speak at this pace, just that now you want things fast”…  

Probably sometimes taking a pause, looking back at things is worthwhile once in a while… 

Parents know that giving space is very important to kids… but don’t make this space a bridge hard to cross…

All this is what I opine, your thoughts and suggestions are most welcome.

Originally posted by Parentous