Are we evolved enough to question parenting in our culture? The article hints a sensitive issue of toxic parenting in our culture.
The toxic culture especially related to parenting is quite visible if one looks microscopically and with the lens of objectivity. Strangely, in this part of the world, parents can never be questioned that is why till recently, toxic parenting wasn’t even a tabooed topic, it just didn’t exist as a topic. Parents were there and they were supposed to be respected no matter what. Until recently, parents enjoyed a demi – god like status where they could do no wrong, maybe this is why many of us are dissatisfied with our spouses, our careers and generally with our existences. We have grown up with some of the extremely toxic parenting examples on massive levels. Toxic parents often remind their offspring of what they have done for them, this is what a desi parent will often do if not always. One will often find example of this in vlogs made by our loud but blunt vloggers, the vlogs focus on Pakistani parents who keep lecturing their kids of how miserable a life they lived when they were young and how ungrateful their kids are, what such parents don’t mention is that most of people of their class at their time went through almost the same struggles and secondly their kids are not responsible for what happened to them in the past, thirdly parents need to understand that they are not in any form of competition with their kids. Making children feel guilty is another tool that our Pakistani parents use, it often becomes the children’s fault that a mother has to tolerate an abusive spouse or bad in – laws or, the dad often points out that the kids are the reason that he has to work so hard! Well, children didn’t ask before being born so it is hardly their fault. The controlling of choices! Oh yes! Most visible when a child suddenly wants to get married to someone he or she likes. The guilt, the choice of controlling all combines there.
The question arises is are we ready to face the fact that our parents might be toxic? That the pedestal that we have placed them on, they might not be as divine as we are brainwashed to think always? When parents start using you as a punching bag for all their failures, expect you to fulfill their dreams and lead life the way they wanted to lead, when they want to control your choices even at the age of 30, which is when you know what toxicity really is. Many of us don’t realize this even at such age because we have been culturally brainwashed to think that parents can do no wrong. Are we as a generation ready to break these parenting patterns?
