Chapter 3: New Life
My mom and dad both held this ideology: we had no right to speak on their lives.
So I backed off. What more could I do?
I backed off and was left to simply sit and watch my parents self-destruct.
I wanted to separate myself and my wife from it, but our own bad choices early in our twenties had left us
tied to them.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my parents, and they have done a lot for us over the years.
They did not want us to leave, but at this point, I found it incredibly difficult to sit and watch everything
unfold.
Time and time again, I would try to interject, and each time I would be shut down.
“Put in my place.”
This was how I perceived it.
Gradually, I began to ask myself questions, examining what was happening with them.
Thus began a journey into self-reflection.
I couldn’t get over the disconnect between us, and I couldn’t understand why my opinion wasn’t valued.
It took me two years with a son of my own to really begin to break through.
At first, I saw my son as a burden, selfishly focused on what his birth had cost me. I focused on myself and
how his life was affecting my own.
Shortly after he turned two years old, something began to change within me.
I had finally begun to see the person, not the burden.
I began to realize that I had been treating him not as a person, but as something I had to take care of. More
like a pet than a fellow human being.
I was disgusted with myself for taking so long to realize this.
Once I began working to change my relationship with my son, I couldn’t help but wonder about my own
relationship with my parents.
Thinking back, I felt there had always been a hierarchy between us. I had my place, and it was beneath them.
To my mind, their version of love often seemed to be buying me whatever I wanted so that I would stay
occupied and quiet.
I don’t blame them. I don’t know their own histories well enough to judge them. Perhaps this was all they
knew how to do at the time.
Nonetheless, I struggled to understand them.
So I began paying attention to details I had never thought much about before.
Comparing the present with my few memories of childhood, what I began to discover was quite depressing.