I’ll try to explain my point today through a short metaphor. I am trying something new here, so let me know how you feel about it.
There were 3 female pigeons. All 3 of them laid eggs on the same day. All 3 of them took a lot of care of their eggs. After a few days, all the eggs hatched and 3 baby pigeons came out. After a few days, it was time for the baby pigeons to start learning to fly.
The first baby pigeon was trying to get out of the nest. It started flapping its wings and started to gain some altitude. But suddenly, its mother pulled it back into the nest. The baby pigeon asked, “Why did you do that?” The mother replied, “I was just making sure you don’t fall down. It is too dangerous out there. You are not ready for this yet.” This started happening regularly. Every time the baby pigeon tried to fly, its mother would pull it back. The mother pigeon gave it reasons of pulling back every time. She mentioned eagles, vultures and human airplanes. The baby pigeon knew everything about the dangers of the sky at this point. It was too aware for its age. This awareness came with a cost. The baby was too scared to fly. It was unable to even start flying when all other pigeons of its age had already started flying.
The second baby pigeon was also trying to get out of the nest. The second mother was watching this. She said, “My mother never allowed me to fully explore. I will not let that happen to my child. Go, my kiddo! Fly as high as possible! Explore! Enjoy! Have the time of your life. After all you are my child. What could happen to you? You have to be capable.” The child flew. After a few tries it was able to fly properly. It started going high. Too high. It was too high for the mother to keep an eye. The child suddenly was face to face with an eagle. The eagle was big and hungry. The baby was of no match. The eagle attacked the baby. The baby was extremely scared. It flew as fast as it could to get back to its nest. It could eventually escape the eagle but it was severely injured and there was no possibility of it flying. It started falling and it felt the world melting around itself. Luckily it fell on a soft surface and was saved. But one of its wings was severely injured and the possibility of flying again in future looked remote. The mother found the child and started cursing it, “You IDIOT!! Can’t even fly properly. How will I tell everyone that you are my child?” The child wasn’t able to recover from this and never flew even when other pigeons of its age were flying properly.
The third baby pigeon was also trying to get out of the nest. The third mother said, “Go ahead and fly. You need to learn. Just don’t fly too high. Be careful.” The baby took some attempts to learn to properly fly. It was in front of its mother’s eyes. But once it learned to fly properly, it started going high. It went higher and higher, the mother wanted to keep an eye so she went behind the child, but in a way that the child doesn’t come to know. This child also was face to face with an eagle, but the mother was watching. She immediately swooped in to divert the eagle’s attention. The eagle attacked the child and the child suffered a minor injury. The mother brought the child safely to the nest. She said, “I told you not to fly too high, didn’t I?”. “Yes”, said the child. “It’s okay. You have learnt your lesson now! Don’t give up on flying, just know your boundaries. Do you understand what I am saying?” “Yes”, said the child. “Now show me your injury, I will fix it.” The child was able to fly again after a day of rest. But it was cautious this time. It avoided going too high. It eventually became a very good flyer.
Try to relate which of these are your parents? And more importantly, which of these do you want to become? It is not necessary that are always one of these three. It changes from situation to situation. It also could be a mix of these three.
The more important point here is, if your parents are of type 1 or 2, forgive them. Because it is their love for you that is making them do it. Also, if your parents were type 1, it is highly likely that you will become a type 2 parent or vice versa.
I am not a parent and I usually avoid topics that I have never personally experienced, but I think this topic is an exception because although I myself have never experienced parenthood first hand, I have seen a lot of other parents and observed a lot. Don’t want to say much more here. Let me know what you think about the new style of writing that I tried.