No doubt our parents are absolutely lovable, super cute, adorable, caring, considerate and the rainbow of our life. We owe our success and our life to them and lucky are the ones who are bestowed with the love of parents. But at times we do wish they were less over dramatic, over protective, over emotional, over interfering. In short we wish and wish and wish our parents to get over the “over” part. Here are a few habits of our Indian parents which might seem funny but are quite annoying actually.
1. Blaming our phone for anything and everything that goes wrong in their life and/or our life : You might wonder what your talking over the phone has to do with your mother’s brown rice, I mean the burnt rice! Leave it to your mom she will surely find a connection between the two and surprise you with her answer. And you will be even more surprised to hear your phone and Facebook being labelled as the culprits.
2. The “I never did this in my time” syndrome : Who will make our parents understand that time changes and so do people! Don’t even try, they won’t understand. The best thing to do will be to allow them to go on with their talking while you plug in to some soothing songs of your choice.
3. Emotionally blackmailing us to visit our relatives place : With due respect to our relatives there are a few whom we do not wish to see or meet or talk but parents fail to understand this simple thing. They will force us to go to places where the only thing we can do is to sit like an idiot and smile and nod at things which are of no interest to us. And the worst part is whenever they meet you, they brilliantly manage to give you the same “ever surprised” look and utter the words “Oh my God! How big you have grown!”. I mean what were they expecting? You to remain a pygmy throughout life? Huh!
4. The “Ask your Dad-Ask your Mom” technique : Asking for a permission to go out can literally make you feel like a tennis ball as you will keep on shuttling between your mom and dad in anticipation and more often than not both of them finally will convince you to drop the idea and you will literally curse yourself for even trying to persuade them in the first place.
5. Baseless comparison : Comparison can never do us any good, on the contrary comparing us to our siblings or cousins or friends or just anyone reduce our confidence, makes us sad, develops hatred towards the other person, breed negativity and pulls our morale down. You at times may even conclude that God made cousins so that your parents can compare you with them. Comparison by our parents lay the foundation for an inferiority complex and bitter the parent-child relationship.
6. Bombarding us with too many questions : Where have you been? Why didn’t you pick up the call? Why are you so late? What were you discussing over the phone? Did you eat? What did you eat? Whom were you talking to? Why didn’t you wear the shirt that I asked you to wear? The list is endless. I mean, we do understand our parent’s concern for us but our parents should also understand that we need our own space and privacy too.
7. Forcing their likes and dislikes on us when it comes to choosing a career : “Why did you take up science when you actually love to sing?”. “My Parents wanted”. According to psychologists, parental pressure dominates children’s career choices even today. Despite the potential in offbeat and unconventional courses, most children are forced by their parents to take up routine subjects of engineering, medical and law.
8. Chaar log kya kahenge : Ever heard your parents saying “What will people say?” at almost anything and everything different that you tried doing? I wonder who these “chaar log” are who are supposed to supervise us and shame us for almost everything our heart desires to do.
True, some habits of some of our parents are annoying but the fact remains they do care for us. There can be issues and things that we don’t agree upon but at the end of the day our parents are probably the ones who genuinely want the best for us. Remember your parents may not be perfect but they are the most precious gift God has ever given you. Love them.
