Throwback Episode: Parents Are People Too

For a lot of us, throughout our childhood, parents were parents, not normal humans. As kids, we often saw them as something like superheroes. But as we get older, we start to see beyond the cape and mask we gave them as kids. This week, we started talking about how we're continuously discovering that our parents are, in fact, human beings. The more we see them as people, the more we empathize with their experiences and appreciate the complexities of being human and apparent at the same time. I'm Chloe Marino, and on this episode of This Teenage Life, we'll be talking about our experiences seeing our parents as people too. I was just going to ask if you guys had a moment when you realized that your parents were our people too. I think it's one of my dad's talk about high school when he went to high school and how he would feel like dating life and all that stuff and I'm like, you date a people life. I think it was a summer fifth grade, but it's like one of my parents got divorced. I took them, like, if my dad wanted to teach me something, so if he wanted to tell me something, but I was serious, I don't know. My mom would hear about it, but they were like everything went through a filter before my team because I was super young. But when they went through different ways, it was like each of them had their own lifestyle and their own morals that were quite different. That didn't see until there's a part. When my parents were breeding, I definitely got to see them in a different light. They're really more happy. But I got to see how they were different in their own person. And I just, yeah, kind of similar in the way that I saw my parents and then I saw my mom as my mom and my dad. Seeing them like, dating again, just seeing a weird thing. I kind of a weird thing. I didn't quite notice until you said that actually. My mom one time, this is a time when I found out she was really human, excellent at the mail out. And my grandma was like, you can't eat the same way. Throw the weights right through it away. It was like a giant job though, and we just opened it. And I was like, I got away bad by throwing away what we had to because I could have gotten bad. We're going to the beach and I'm making sandwiches and she's like, put extra mail in there. And I was like, oh, we don't have any more mail. And then she's like, what? And I was like, we don't have any more mail. And then she starts screaming at me. She's like, we don't have mail. I want it mail. And then she starts throwing the thing in. And I'm like confused. And she's like, I want mail. It felt like seeing a five built in a four year old body and I was freaking out because I was like, oh my gosh, she's going to be so mad at me. And then you might rather still make kind of her till this day for it because you like to stop that her brightest moment in parenting. But she's definitely been like, that's like a moment where I definitely saw that she was human. Is that a mail? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why the fast go with it? I'm not leaving the mail out. We're still here. I'm not going to make it. I'm sure we're going to. I'm going to make it. I'm sure we're going to make it. I have a lot of memories of realizing that my mom was like a human. And a very specific one that I remember, very distinctly, was moving to California and like driving away from my house. This was like my child's house. I lived there my entire life. And we just made her and we moved here with 30 boxes and then left the rest of our stuff in this house. So we're just driving away from everything. And I remember like, I don't want to say like the first time in my life, but I'm very like distinctive going in my life of seeing my mom very afraid and like seeing my mom like sad. My mom and I just had this song when I was super happy and like super upbeat and we drove away listening to it. And now and we like soft, you know, we cried really hard. And now like neither one of us can listen to the song because it's so like painful. But like listening to this like very happy song, whilst like crying and then just like driving away. And like I remember like looking over at my mom and seeing like like the confusion and like pain and like sadness and also very like afraid and like seeing like my mom who's like my like fearsome oil protector, you know, like afraid of like not knowing what this like life is going to bring for us across across the country. Parents always like how to plan, you know? And like seeing this very like raw state of my mom like not knowing and like having to figure that out with her was a very like, you know, this is my mom and she's like a human. It's kind of like on the topic of emotions, but I really appreciate how my mom, she kind of like conceals her emotions from me sometimes. She has a lot of anxiety about like the world and about us in general, but she never lets that show because I think she knew she knows that that would make me anxious. And I just think that that's like a hard thing to do. My mom has always really allowed me to be like very emotionally open. So like any time that like like like like literally yesterday I got into the car and like cried, you know, like, you know, no shame. But like I got into the car and just like cried and she was totally like she wasn't, you know, like okay, let's like immediately fix this. And then I tried to find a way to like immediately make you stop crying, you know. There was no rush for me to be like, okay, like she accepted the fact that like I wasn't going to be like automatically okay. And she's done that like throughout my entire life and it just been very like like any time I was like feeling emotional about something has always like openly invited me to like share my emotions about that thing or like why I was feeling that way. And I think that that's something that like like at least I found like in my friends like some of their parents don't really allow them to do that or they don't feel like they want to share some emotions with their parents. And that's just something I've never felt with my mom. I think it's really the opposite of my parents as in they're there for me if I need to type out my emotions and I respect them and I'm very grateful for that. But they also understand the fact that I don't want to discuss my emotions with them and that it actually like it's not that I'm uncomfortable with it. It's just that I don't want to. Both because first of all I don't like share being super up from my emotions also because I don't like the feeling of having everyone know how I feel. Like I prefer to have my own emotions to myself instead of like having to share with everyone my current mood. But so and with them they understand that if I need to go a day where it's like like our relationship and our interactions are strictly like business-y like just like hello good morning. Good bye. Do you think I understand that? And that even if I ask you for a long time they understand that too. And I'd say my dad wasn't my mom but my mom of course you know she's more like worried about me and she checks up on me and it kind of goes both ways with like at times it like it feels nice to know that someone's worried about you but also at times like you know if you're in a mood or like you're easy to like aggravate like it can be kind of annoying if someone's constantly checking up on you and you just need space. So one thing that I'm grateful for is they understand like my need for space and like independence. We're the past couple months my mom we shall be like going to bed and she'll come into my room to like hug me goodnight and then instead of giving her a hug I'll just like try to like high five and then she just turns around and she goes that's okay tonight. Couple months. So we've been like a couple months. For a majority of my life and even like up to now like my mom has just been a single mom and I really appreciate just how she's navigated that because as like any single parent like a mom or a dad like when being a single parent is never easy you know like and especially I think I grew into a teenager like a teenager who's like movie and like dealing with every single other thing in like the world it's so hard to like navigate that you know and then on top of it being alone trying to navigate that. So there are so many little things that my mom has done and I'll be like oh my god like my mom did like this little thing and like at the time like this didn't really like mean anything but in the grand scheme of things like my mom knew that like I like needed this. I get really stressed like very easily. I have a lot of things on my plate my mom sits down with me and we've created something called game plans together like when I'm gonna get what done like where like I'm really grateful for that and I think that if my kids ever get stressed out or feeling overwhelmed I'll do that for them. That's so crazy because I remember like last year. You did the same thing with me and like made me make a game plan. My mom knows I really like long car rides so whenever not even if I'm stressed but like whenever I'm bored or like whenever we're bored at the same time and like we're not doing anything where we don't have plans or just like drive places and sometimes it's like we'll go to like a fast food place and get like really gross greasy food and then eat that while listening to music or like we'll go to like the beach and have like a really nice scenic drive and like I really appreciate that because like I don't know it's just it's nice. Most of us have a specific memory that's eye opening about parents being people too. A memory I have was not of myself but of a friend who sister idolized her dad. Thought he was the greatest and never could do anything wrong. But when my friend sister was applying to college another boy from the neighborhood who And her family's eye was a competitor, was also applying to college. He had worked for my friend's dad over the summer and asked him to look over his essay about the experience. He had misspelled a word in several places. Her father had purposefully not corrected him. And he told her thinking that he had somehow done something that would put her in a better position for getting accepted, and that she would be happy about it. This shattered the sister's ideas and beliefs about her dad. It truly showed that at the most basic level, he was just as human as anyone else. Flot, passionate, full of good intentions, but not always living up to our own ideals. We really appreciate all of the listeners from around the world and would love to hear from you about topics for episodes or just saying hi. The email is [email protected]. The more years invoices the merrier.