"When you’re a kid, you operate on this belief that adults, most importantly your parents, have all the answers, never struggle, and fear nothing. The craziest part about becoming an adult, for me at least, has been the world-altering realization that my parents are just people trying to do the best they can. They’re put on a pedestal, but they’re not superheroes, not superhuman, not fearless, invincible, all-knowing beings. Not people whose only role in life is Mom or Dad. They’re complex, multi-faceted individuals balancing many relationships, roles, and experiences of their own. They don’t exist for the sole purpose of being a parent.
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It took years, but once I was able to fully wrap my head around this, my relationship with both my mom and dad shifted for the better. I can now admire the full scope of their personhood because experiencing adulthood myself has shown me that as a person, you’re never done learning, growing, or figuring things out, and our parents are the most poignant instance of the never-ending journey of evolving as a human.
As a kid, my parents were simply—and only—Mom and Dad
As a kid, my parents were people who only existed in my world. I knew they went to work and occasionally did things outside of that, but the concept was theoretical in my mind. If I wasn’t with my parents, say while at daycare, school, or a sleepover, it was as if they were Sims awaiting my return, idling on standby until it was time to take care of me again.
I didn’t process that they had relationships to navigate and assignments to manage at work—my line of thought stopped at them simply sitting in a desk chair at some vague office building. I didn’t realize they were trying to stay afloat during the 2008 recession and any other financial hardships—it never occurred to me that we could lose our house and other assets that were simply fixtures in my life. I didn’t understand that when I’d go for a weekend or week-long visit with my grandparents, my parents were letting loose and doing normal adult things that didn’t involve kids like going out with friends or, god forbid, having sex.
If I wasn’t with my parents […] it was as if they were Sims awaiting my return, idling on standby until it was time to take care of me again.
I remember watching scary movies as a kid and being utterly terrified, and thinking I couldn’t wait to be an adult because I thought my parents didn’t get scared by horror films—or anything at all, really. I remember yearning for the freedom my parents must have felt as adults who had money and could make their own choices without being told “no”—without understanding how hard they had to work for their money or how much of it they were allocating toward spending on me and my sister rather than themselves. Simply put, I didn’t think of my parents as people. They were limited to their identities as my mom and dad.
It felt very weird and even impossible that my parents would have experiences and make memories that didn’t involve me. It felt even more inconceivable that they could have trauma, fears, anxieties, questions, doubts, depression… I thought of them as perfectly programmed people who knew everything and could flawlessly navigate life without challenge because being a parent made them able to do so. As an adult, I can’t help but laugh at the wildly naive notion, but I suppose it’s a testament to how well my parents shielded me from any stress they were facing at the time.
As a teen, I experienced the daunting realization that my Mom and Dad were people, too
When I was a freshman in high school, my parents separated, and up to this point, everything in our family life existed in a vacuum. But seeing them struggle to find their footing while trying to maintain a collected demeanor for the sake of my sister and me was the first time I realized that life might not just effortlessly unfold for adults without any thought or effort.
One of my first moments of clarity was watching my parents establish separate households on single incomes. On top of the general emotional toll of a relationship ending, they had to navigate splitting possessions and replace whatever was missing from one household, like furniture or dishes. Additionally, they had to purchase new items for my sister and me so we would have functional bedrooms in both households. Because my parents were no longer living on a joint income, there were a lot of budgeting restraints that forced me to not only readjust my expectations of the things they could provide me but also develop a greater appreciation of how much harder they had to work to do it on their own. It was the first time I realized there might not be a handbook for navigating the world and that adulthood might not be as simple as I had long assumed.
Becoming more privy to details of what was actually going on in my parents’ lives, as a teen who was starting to notice and understand more complex matters like mental health struggles and financial hardship, was like a bucket of cold water being dumped on my head. And then, when they started dating other people, I experienced overwhelming levels of ick because as a teen, the concept of your parents doing romantic things is nauseating, and it felt weird that my parents would be interested in finding love the same way I was obsessed with falling in love for the first time. When I met the first guy my mom dated after my parents’ separation, I felt this uncanny role reversal of me sussing him out and sending her off on their date. I was used to being the one to introduce boys I was dating to my mom, and suddenly my mom was doing the same thing with me. The tectonic plates of my personal world were shifting massively beneath me.
It felt unsettling and uncomfortable that my parents were experiencing the same emotions as me—anxiety, depression, worry, fear, overwhelm, yearning, passion, and confusion. Grappling with the reality that my parents were dealing with their own emotional hurdles and realizing they faced more personal hardship than I ever knew, felt emotionally constipating. I didn’t quite know how to reconcile my parents’ individual identities and experiences with their roles as my mom and dad. I didn’t have the mental capacity or emotional maturity to feel comfortable processing the new perception of my parents, so I just tried to avoid talking to them about anything that felt too deep or real. But as the years went on and I grew more mature and empathetic, and life continued to happen to us, I began to be able to reconcile my parents’ existence as people beyond parenthood.
As an adult, our relationship has completely evolved
It wasn’t until after I graduated college that I was able to fully appreciate the fact that my parents have every right to be messy and make mistakes and be imperfect and fully experience life beyond parenthood—to be human. For me, a massive part of my 20s has been digesting the fact that you never know what the hell you’re doing as an adult. As a child, I thought teenagers seemed so mature and confident. Then, I became a teenager and felt like I definitely wasn’t as cool as I thought I’d feel when I reached that age. So then I thought, well maybe when I go to college and then become an independent adult, things will feel more comfortable and make more sense. But sure enough, I reached that point in life and still feel confused and unsure and anxious a lot of the time—and experiencing that myself is what made me fully realize that my parents went through the same exact thing at my age.
Getting older and realizing that, oh shit, there’s never a point where you feel like you’ve got it all figured out—THAT is what helped me come to terms with the fact that my parents, and all parents, are just people.
After I graduated college and was interviewing for my first “real” job, I felt so much imposter syndrome and had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I remember expressing those feelings to my mom, who was also interviewing for a different job at the time. Although she had been immersed in the professional world for decades, she confessed she too felt imposter syndrome in her search for a better job. Almost 20 years after she felt insecure and anxious searching for a full-time job while enrolling me in preschool, she was feeling the same emotions with decades of experience under her belt. The moment was one of many that again made me realize that my parents are still going through life’s trials and tribulations, just at a different phase of adulthood. Getting older and realizing that, oh shit, there’s never a point where you feel like you’ve got it all figured out—THAT is what helped me come to terms with the fact that my parents, and all parents, are just people.
Life doesn’t stop because you’ve become a parent. Being a parent doesn’t mean you have to stop chasing things like love and dreams and fulfillment outside of parenthood. Your identity isn’t stripped down to nothing more than Mom or Dad. Now that I understand this as an adult myself, I feel more comfortable talking to my parents about pretty much anything. They’re still my mom and dad, but they’re also confidants, mentors, and friends. I’m more able to appreciate and apply their insight and advice because I’m no longer placing them on a pedestal that confines them to an unrealistic standard. As time goes on, I also feel more comfortable and secure in my own skin to be my full self around my parents, not just the version of myself I feel like I should be around them as their child. Life is a never-ending process of trying and failing and growing and adapting and experiencing, and realizing that your parents are people going through the same thing all along is a powerful part of the journey.