LESSONS IN ADULTHOOD
Why is it that returning to our childhood home always turns us back into children? For a long time, I didn’t even have to go back to a particular place, any interaction with my parents would send me straight into teenage mode. I would stop listening to what they had to say and feel my frustration rising. In return, they’d feel lost; not yet used to a world where their child is an adult, wanting to celebrate it, but also terriied of losing the hold that parenthood gave them. In short, none of us were ready to grow up.
This isn’t to say that we didn’t try, but somehow we lost the understanding that perhaps comes from spending more time together. Over the years, our relationship went from teenage temper tantrums to a formal, walkingon- eggshells situation where everyone worried about saying the wrong thing and turning the clock back to adolescence. When I noticed this, I began to wonder if the answer to a better relationship with my parents didn’t come from asking them to alter their behaviour, but from changing mine and seeing what happened from there.