I am not a zen like patient person but neither did I think that I am easily triggered to a rage albeit non-violent. I am being put through the test starting a year or so back when the girls hit the dreading teens. A simple statement avalanches in to an un-stoppable argument draining my energy and loosing focus on what is the case in point which started the argument. Almost always there is never a case in point. Few months back I was forced to a take a step back to think about it, thanks to various situations leading up to it. I was surprised to realize how quickly I was engrossed every time when there is an argument to prove my point , yelling over them trying to prove that I'm right jut because I'm a parent so I know and trying to make them surrender and follow my words. I realized I did not come to terms with the fact that they are growing in to adults and they are bound to have their opinions, right or wrong, which I had a hard time to accept. So really the problem was me not growing as a parent and accepting them as individuals. I blame partly the way I was brought up. I was conditioned basically to believe a dependent child does not have a voiceor decision making right , leave alone raising the voice to state an opinion, as long as the decision is made by the adults aka parents. If at all there was a difference of opinion, there was prompt raise of a authority to put me down in place. Authority, I was made to believe, is the way to raise the children.
Being authoritative clearly did not work in my case with my girls. It just resulted in heart ache, ego crumbling self pity that I'm not being respected and I did not raise them properly. It took me a while during that time of stepping back, to understand that being respected does not directly equate to children follow your orders without any opinion, there is nothing wrong of them to confront me. They are not robots, they are blossoming individuals. I felt I just snapped out of some vicious inner circle. It is OK to have an opinion, especially when they are trying to find an identity for themselves, they want to oppose everything just for the sake of it, Many a time I do see that they confront even though they know they make no sense,it is part of growing up which clearly I did not have. Some times it is better to let them take wrong decisions and experience what it takes to correct the wrong choice then to force them to do anything that we think is right. This is so very valuable for them, to arrive at right decisions later in life.
I realized that this very thing is what I missed growing up which made my life not very smooth when I started out first outside of the shadow of my Parents. I was so fearful to make a decision on anything, because I was used to parents making it for me under the idea that they are experienced , will never let me fail. True, may be up until that point before I was independent I was not essentially a failure by social standards, but then I was fearful that I might be a failure left on my own, which was crippling me to do anything on my own, I was always looking for assertion by someone, help from someone to lead me, who can take care of me, take right decisions for me so I'm not burdened by all of this. I was willing to be submissive.
I definitely don't want the girls to go through the same thing and realize at 40's like me. Now a days I catch myself when we are getting in to an argument. I state my opinion but let them decide though not that easy I should say. This is were I'm working on my patience to not get agitated. Can I say I see a faint light at the end of the dark tunnel. I have seen them come back to me reversing their decision , reason being they discussed with their friends couple of times though not all the times. I'm willing to let them fail now rather later in life when sometimes it might be more difficult to turn around.
