Parents' care

At age seventeen, Sarah was sure parents were over protective. They always wanted to know exactly where she was, whom she was with, and what time she would be home. If she was going to be even ten minutes late, she had to phone her parents so they wouldn't worry that she had been in a car accident. Her parents, on the other hand, loved Sarah and wanted to make sure she was safe. They were concerned that she may not yet be able to assess and handle potentially difficult situations. Sarah and her parents fought regularly over this, making all their lives unpleasant. The more Sarah tried to assert that she was capable of making decisions, the more her parents seemed to try to restrict her movements, and the more her parents did that, the more she asserted herself. They were caught in a vicious circle.

Several years later Sarah encountered the Dharma and began to meditate. When the situation with her parents kept distracting her during her meditation, she knew she had to look at it more closely. In doing so, Sarah saw that she and her parents were talking past each other and quarreling over two different issues. For her, the conflict was about autonomy and independence. She felt like she was an adult and knew how to make wise decisions. She resented what she perceived to be her parents' lack of trust, their interference in her life, and their trying to control her. She then realized that for her parents, the conflict was about safety. Looking at the situation from their view point, she began to see that her parents were not trying to control her life. Rather, because they loved her, they wanted her to be safe. Once she saw this, Sarah was able to let go of her resentment and stop quarreling with her parents. Once one partner in an argument has resigned, the argument can no longer occur, so her parents also relaxed.

In this instance, it was Sarah who realized that the needs and concerns of the conflicting parties were different. It could equally have been her parents. Had they realized that their daughter had tools to make decisions and was not simply being brash and rebellious, they would have spoken to their teenager with more respect, which would have elicited a different response from her.

Although Sarah's parents, from time to time, still seemed overly concerned about her, Sarah stopped being annoyed. An incident between her grandmother and her father confirmed her understanding of her parents' concerns and the foolishness of becoming angry at them. One day, when her father was sixty five, his mother reminded him to put on a sweater before he went out so he didn't catch cold. Sarah chuckled at this and realized that her parents would probably check on her in a similar way her whole life, no matter how old she was.

Years later, when Sarah was in her thirties, her mother asked her to wear a certain dress to the family Christmas party that evening. Sarah happily complied. Her cousin, who had overheard the conversation, later said to her, "I was aghast that your mother told you what to wear when you're thirty five, and I'm even more surprised that you didn't explode at her for doing so." Sarah explained to her cousin,"Unlike when I was a teenager, I'm now confident of myself as an independent adult. My mother's saying that doesn't threaten my confidence of my autonomy. In fact, now I'm happy to do something small to please her, for she and my dad cared for me with so much love when I was young."

(From Internet)