You have done fine. You have lived and have received the graces of this world as anyone else would have. Your actions have spoken, and they have been either accepted or defied by your children, but nonetheless you have shaped, determined, guided the life of your child. We, as children, are you. We have been blank canvases which you have painted upon, in collaboration with living artists we encounter every day. I accept your rule, your ideas, your mistakes, your successes with open arms. I accept the continuous and unrelenting changes that you have catalyzed in me. I would not be me without you. Surely I can disagree with you, but that dissatisfaction with your rule is only available to me because you have instilled, somewhere in the vast history of my being, moments which are not even recognizable any more, my rebellion against you. You are individual, human, and so to fight your being, rather to act without recognizing the long term effects every moment we as children share with you, would be destructive. But! Even if we do fight, disobey, disagree, act without thought, you are still molding us into the beings we are.
Though, considering that you have this great effect on us, I would suggest that you consider your actions to a greater degree, especially at this point in our lives, when we are exploring independence. We, as teenagers, are changing course, becoming or at least trying to become self sufficient and directed. We swim in murky waters with you, being able to do much of what is necessary in our lives by ourselves, but at the same time being dependent for shelter, food, and occasional help. This pond that we now swim in is new to both of us, but it does not seem to me that we act as if it is. We as people, are reactive, not proactive. Furthermore, we are reactive in the worst way, we judge another person's actions based on what we would have done.
Your children are not you. They are of you but are not you.
So when your child, swimming in the cloudy waters of independence and self discovery, makes mistakes, I would suggest that your actions be carefully considered. One of the most dreaded words of a child from their parent is disappointment. We do not want, whether biologically or psychologically, to disappoint you, but we will. In our exploration of the world and ourselves we are going to make mistakes. We are going to continue making mistakes until we die, but you will not be here to punish us. The world will be. I am under the impression that besides the countless cases against this, in general things work out. People are good. We are good. We want to do good, for you, for ourselves, and even for humanity. At this point in our lives your words are as good as the rest, so your attempts to rear us are futile. If we are going to do wrong, we will be the only ones to correct it. Your punishments or praise, at this point, are only impediments to our nature. It no longer matters. While we fundamentally don't want to disappoint you, your disappointment becomes less and less potent as we grow older. The only power you have is that you are currently our guardians. It is your duty to consider our position in life, our state of being and mind, and while it is also your duty not to let us destroy ourselves, many of your actions for our self preservation in your world are now misguided. I can only hope to beseech to you the knowledge that our rebellion is not against YOU, it is against anyone who limits and controls the gateways to our independence, which at this point is you. All that is available to you at this point is the hope or knowledge that your years of raising us, when it did in fact matter, have instilled in us the ability to see right and wrong, to do good, to be good for ourselves and others. We are becoming adults, and it's a strange thing to witness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2DUdsN_f5k
XoXo
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