parental cycle of wisdom

Here’s a salute to the parents out there that have always taught their children the ways of life and have done the best they can, and still do, to steer them in the right direction. These are the parents whom have lived life and have already been through certain hardships that they don’t want us to follow, and advise us time and time again not to follow, yet we find ourselves as the great Dr. Cosby has described as “brain damaged.”

Yesterday I spoke with an old friend about how we have matured over the years, car maintenance, and where a lot of our classmates that we graduated with had ended up. I honestly don’t keep in touch with too many of my high school friends, even with the popularity of Facebook. Nothing against them, it’s just life. But our conversation turned to our parents and how after all these years, they were right about everything. All those times they told us to go north but we defied and went southeast, and now we understand they were trying to help us. We find ourselves today in predicaments that could have been avoided had we listened to them weeks, months, or even years ago.

But that’s the way it goes, right? I’ve heard my parents tell stories about their parents and what they told them to do. Sometimes their parents didn’t tell them at all and they had to learn on their own the hard way, so then they pass that down to me. And speaking with my friend, who has children of his own now, he’s finding himself wanting to pass along that information hoping they won’t make the foolish mistake he did and not heed his warnings.

Sure, we both turned out alright so far, mostly. Our parents sage advice hasn’t fallen on completely deaf ears. It just takes a little time for the information to process. Unfortunately for us, sometimes that nugget of knowledge doesn’t process until after the fact. Then we have a facepalm moment, or we think of a cliche statement such as “Mother told me there’d be days like this.” In other words, we have our moments of realization that these people that birthed us kinda knew what they were talking about all along.

Ultimately these pitfalls are inevitable. It’s probably something most 20-somethings go through, or probably all offspring at any given age. And even then they still probably won’t fully process whatever wisdom their parents had been trying to supply until they have offspring of their own doing the same exact thing that they did at that age, and that’s when it hits them. And the cycle continues.