My Parents Won’t Understand

Nisha Dagar

9 years ago

Those were my board examination days and fortunately we have ‘History’ exam on Monday (Sunday can be used for preparation). History was a mystery subject to my friend. So I offered to run through the syllabus with her if she could stay at my place on Saturday night. She refused and said, my family will not allow over night stay but when I persuade her, she simply said, my parents won’t understand.

“My parents won’t understand!“, I used to hear this from all my friends, both girls and boys. I think parents are our first friends who understand us more than any other. But in the present scenario the things that look normal to us become a issue for the family members. Parents always are idealistic about their child’s future. They want to plan everything. And in that process they start comparing their child with others. They want their child to be perfect in everything, be it academic or extra-curricular activities. And if the child is not able to meet their expectations they are labelled as weak. Parents fail to estimate the pressure on the child, not only the parental pressure but also the peer pressure.

Source: www.brandeis.edu

Society is involved in every aspect of our life. We do things and live our life according to the ‘Societal Norms’. Societal Norms are some specific set of ideas and expectations which are followed by everyone through the ages. And if our actions do not match that expectation we are termed as abnormal. Lets consider a girl who has male friends, with this comes a whole set of questions from the parents pin pointing at their relationship. All this because our society believes that girls and boys can never be friends. Starting from a late night party to career choices we have society monitoring us all the time. The moment we wish to do something on our know we hear, “if you do this, what will the society think?”. The terror of the society is so much so that the parents think about the society before thinking about their own child. No doubt parents are very important to us as they are our primary caregivers but at the same time is it necessary to always be ‘perfect’ and be the one the society wants us to be?

Exceptions are always there, but talking in general, our generation is more open minded than the previous one. We can see examples in our daily life where we favor the humanity over the society, but our parents consider it against the norms. We want to do something different of our interest, but our parents expect us to be like others. We want to follow our heart and our parents follow the traditional customs. Whenever I ask, “why such differences?”, the only answer I hear is ‘Generation Gap’. ‘What is this generation gap’? Generation gap is nothing but a difference in the thought process. With the change in time our style of living, our view point and our thinking in general, everything has changed.

The basic problem in today’s busy life is lack of communication among the parents and children. Ignoring the issue or not talking about that is not the solution. But what can really bridge this gap is a healthy way to expression. It is easy to say that parent won’t understand us but what will make a difference is the little effort from our side. So Just talk to your parents, share your views and thoughts with them, listen to them carefully and try to put your point as well as understand their concerns and feelings. Win their support and prove yourself. Never say, my parents won’t understand, but say they will understand because I will try to make them understand. It is important that we take that first step and convey to them what we have to say only then they will understand.