Your parents are wrong. Just face it.

Before you begin judging this article, I should be very clear that I love my parents the most in the world and there is no way I would want to disrespect them. I can confidently say that there is no way you can do anything in life without the support of your parents. They are the most important people for you, period.

Having said that, there are 100% chances that your parents are the reason for the miserable life you think you have. And the bigger problem is, nobody is the culprit here. Just the old problem: generation gap!

It’s either you blindly follow them, or stop at once!

Remember the time when your 10th-grade board exams were the most important thing in your life? You prayed to all the gods (well that is a topic for another day) to make sure you do well. Even if you didn’t like trigonometry or a chapter on Nationalism in India, you know you have to just learn everything in it or else you will fail your parents!

They were right then — it was important for you to focus on that class and then on every other class, until you complete the engineering or CA or Doctor degree or government service exam and get yourself the best job and marry the right person and then have the child and repeat what your parents did for you. But, if you are not following any one of the above-mentioned plans they set for you, well, you are failing them. Just like you were failing them at the age of 15 and a half.

They just don’t want to take any risks when it is about you!

You are the most important person in their life unless you are their 7th child and there are 2–3 more after you. Population jokes in the second highest populated country apart, you are very much their responsibility. Even if they are the richest of all or just another self-certified middle-class family, they know that life outside is going to be tough for you, and they don’t want you to struggle there. But hey! In that ‘no-risk’ life, you can become an FD — very safe but without ambition. Think for yourself, do you want to be Fixed Deposit or you have other plans?

Unfortunately, they have the ‘Log Kya Kahenge’ Syndrome!

Your parents don’t like that either, they know people are stupid and they feel sad about the generation before and after that. They know the song selection of yours is pathetic, and so is your taste of food and clothes. In most cases, they are right. But not when it comes to more important life choices. They can’t understand the fact that aspiring to be a writer, musician, actor, chaiwala or a Prime Minister of the country is possible. They know it can be done, (they read the newspaper too, dummies!) but they don’t know if you can do it. And of course, if you aren’t able to do it, log kya kahenge?

Ego is the enemy, for them as well!

They don’t like to be wrong, just like you. And, definitely not to the person who has asked 99 stupid questions to them while they were helping you solve addition. For them, you are still that kid who cried for a red pencil box. Joke’s on you, bud.

But, they want the best for you, and they have seen your choices. They don’t know if you will be able to manage what you are planning to do. Choosing the right career or the plan of marriage or the dream relationship you have. Well, they just can’t help but think they are smarter than you. What should you do then? Convince them that you don’t cry for a red pencil box anymore, and maybe now they can trust you more.

They will test you, don’t hate them for that!

Your father and your mother love you the most. Spiritually feeling love is a terrible idea. Love brings hate with it. Their love for you automatically makes them hate anything and everything that is not right (as per them) for you. Be it your friend who called you at 5 pm every day when you were 12, or your other friend who took you out for a pizza party as his birthday treat, or the girl you gifted chocolates to or the movie you watched where the hero said ‘do what you want to do.’ They want you to have a comfortable life, it is you who have to take a test of choosing the discomforting life.

If you want to be an entrepreneur or a Sadhu, you want to marry a girl, boy, dog or a tree, or you want to travel the world and do nothing, or you want to join the army or politics, till the time it is not illegal or unethical and you are 100% sure about it, please don’t worry about your parents much and just do it. Your parents will understand it, and they will support you, one day they will believe in you and you know what — they will be always proud of you. As they were when you, little rabbit, got the third price in a stupid fancy dress competition.