NOT WRONG, JUST DIFFERENT

Art by Henri Matisse

Growing up I would have multiple arguments with my parents. Especially as I reached my late teens, a day wouldn’t go by where we didn’t have disagreements. We would shout and fight for all matters significant and trivial. I would tell them they don’t understand me. That the way they think is outdated. They would announce they know what’s best. That they’ve seen the world.

One moment I would be grateful to my parents for supporting my choice to pursue what I want, another I would be mad at my mother for not allowing me to apply to colleges outside of our city because she believed it was unsafe. On occasions, my father would nudge me to try for a government job and my mother would remind me that it wasn’t very nice to date boys in school. 

With my raging hormones and blinded by the need for rebellion, I couldn’t rationalise our differences at the time. It wasn’t until I had my first work experience.

My first job had me working with someone 10 years, 20 years older than me. During lunch breaks and intermittent office chit-chat, we would talk about our ambitions, our families, our investment plans. It was during these conversations I realised how unique each of our experiences were with how the world works. My co-worker who grew up in a small town in a middle-class family had different experiences than another whose father was a businessman. One’s motivation was a promotion, a salary hike while the other cared more for job satisfaction and fulfilment. These differences didn’t stay limited to career goals or ambitions.

Colleagues from different countries, who grew up in different decades, with different values had their own unique perspective of the world. One grew up in a country engulfed in war, another in a progressive developed nation. One with very conservative views on women, the other more liberal. Where and when my colleagues were born shaped much of what they thought of the world. And as I found myself understanding those around me, I felt I was maybe too harsh on my parents all those years ago.

My parents were only echoing what they had seen around them when they were growing up. They grew up during the 70s and 80s in small towns, to parents who worked factory or government jobs, at a time where the country was grappling with poverty and the only goal was survival. Televisions, refrigerators, and landlines were commodities considered superfluous, belonging to rich households. Owning a car was considered a luxury. Liberalisation, Globalisation, and Privatisation didn’t occur till the 90s – the decade I was born.

The economy opened and the goal became more than just survival. Now, it was about having a good life. My parents worked hard at their jobs to provide a good life for their kids. I grew up with everything they didn’t – A TV with a hundred channels watching entertainment and news from around the world, A phone to text friends in abbreviations, the internet to share photos and connect on social media, all the while eating burgers and fries from McDonald’s. There was a new interesting representation of ‘cool’. It was cool to dress a certain way, look a certain way, talk a certain way. Things which would have seemed completely unfamiliar and even unacceptable during 70s or 80s were now in the vogue.

They say knowledge is power. And with all this new information available to the generation born in the 90s, we felt we knew more than our parents. We had a modern outlook while we believed our parents’ way of thinking to be outdated and rudimentary. However, now with my teenage angst behind me and not blinded by the need to rebel anymore, I’ve come to see the situation differently. 

The arguments and differences were not because my parents knew less or were less sophisticated, but because of the sheer chance that they were born in a different time, a different household than me. They were never wrong, only had a different perspective than mine shaped by their own unique experiences.

So now when my mother tells me, she got married at 22 and had two kids by the time she was my age while I’m still single at 25, I don’t feel annoyed or angry anymore. And when she backs up her reasoning with biological benefits, I only feel amused at her unrelenting efforts to convince me.

Recommendations : Watch the Disney animated movie ‘Brave’ for the ending had me crying-hugging my mom. If you’re not in the mood for tears, watch the TV show ‘Fresh off the boat’ to follow along misadventures of a quirky Asian family.