The growing up, and the growing old
The inevitable change in my family is here, and will be here for good. I feel that I can no longer trust my parents' ability to make decisions for our family or even themselves. As the years makes its relentless toll on all of us, I started to lost faith in their judgment, decision and problem solving skills.
- Insufficient information input from sound channels
Lousy friends, hearsay, market aunties and uncles, misinformation, misleading/misunderstanding reports from media -> Bad information sources. Their sources are frequently as good as they are. The /ignore + /kickban type. Cannot withstand further scrutiny. - Poor logic flow, faulty reasoning
If you draw a flow chat, things don't connect, breakage everywhere, infinite loops and all hell break loose. Being trained as a programmer, it's easy for me to see deadends and loops. - Inconsistency
Double/Triple standards, moving goal posts, changing their facts and statements to fit the situation. - Reliance on guts feeling instead cold hard facts
To me, it's as good as random generator. Will you choose a monkey to drive a school bus packed with overgrown gorillas ?
- Refusing to believe that they can be wrong
Finding it hard to admit mistakes, intolerant to the fact that the kids are pointing out their flaws - Leaving things to fate
Certainly not my style. Being passive will rather you a punch bag, a magnetic dart board and most importantly, nobody will respect you and just have their way with you - Meek, fear of authority, afraid of trouble
Their lack of education leads them here. Their lack of proficiency in the English language makes everything impossible to understand for them. So fear the government ! The pen is mightier than the sword ! The English text all over the place is so scary ! I don't blame them. It is just as scary as my visits to Malaysia when there are no English or Chinese words around. - Afraid of external negative impressions for their own failures
Children telling the parents what to do is bad. Worse still if people get wind of this. Why can't they be proud of it instead? I will be a very impressed and proud father when my kid offers me a good explanation and suggestions.
So I tried 3 approaches
- Try explaining
As the years go by, their ear wax seems to have thicken as well. I can spend time standing there explaining how to do things in the proper manner. But the next moment, they screw things up because they aren't listening. Wasted my time. - Try giving simple instructions
They refused to listen, do things their own way and screw things up. When seeking an explanation for their failure, it goes back to approach 1. - Screw it. Let them perish on their own
Being in the same family, their failures will also affect us. Maybe it's time to take the hard way out. Which brings us to point 3a and 3b ...
3a) Seize control of the family
Nothing to gain, not interested, waste of time
3b) Start my own family, ignore the current family
Actually, I am interested in this one. Interested parties please email me.
Nothing vex me more on their brutal refusal of the reality quicksand they are standing on. Most frequently heard crap ...
- I am your [mother/father] and I know what's right (They don't)
- I know what to do (and actually they are clueless)
- Don't tell me what to do (and continue to screw up)
- If we can raise you up, there will be no problem this time (I am actually amazed that despite their apparent missteps throughout my life, I am still here, alive and kicking)
- Start raising voices, then claim that you are rude to them (Desperate face saving move)
- Try to divert to another topic, refuse to come back to the point even if it's totally off track (Smoke bomb tactic)
- Why change, this works before ... (The world moves on without you then)
Their ego and image as the perfect parent is so important, so much more than doing things right, and it ends up making themselves into fools.
So I told my sisters some years back that...
"Our parents are not making sense as we are growing older"
A couple of months ago...
"I think our parents stops making sense already"
And yesterday night, I told them that...
"You can safely ignore them will I say so"
They can get hyper worried over situations, which I took minutes to resolve and settle. I really find it hard to understand why they have to procrastinate so much even when I offer them the solution and my help.
Like it or not, the tide will change as reality sets in.
Money = Power
As the breadwinners, the children will eventually gets the last say in the important decisions in the family. Nothing works without money nowadays.
Despite all the parents bashing above, I still love them. I don't need much from them, just cooperation is all I ask for. I will try to respect them but regaining the lost respect is really hard. Hopefully they don't screw up something major and give us (the children) long term problems.
