Top 5 things NOT to say to your children
I think it’s safe to say that most of our psychological and mental health problems can be traced back to our childhood. While some of us were luckier with our biological parents, many others weren’t. I am commonly known for my very controversial views about parenting and family structure. I am a firm believer that not everyone is fit to be a parent. This might offend some people, but I am saying this after experiencing and witnessing traumatizing events caused by parents. Therefore, since my generation is starting to get married and will probably bring children into this world, I want to share the five most traumatizing thoughts a parent could say to their kids.
- Did you lose/gain weight?
The current world we live in created a generation of people suffering from body dysmorphia. The media we are constantly exposed to, starting with social media to Hollywood and Pop stars we obsess about have set unreasonable expectations of beauty standards leading numerous people including myself to constantly feel uncomfortable in our skin and even hate our bodies. When a parent, the most important person in your life, blatantly points out their dislike of your body because you gained or lost weight, it will further highlight those insecurities and create a source of pain. My dear biological father would never forget to remind me how fat I’m getting, leading me to become an adult paralyzed with body image. If a parent has valid concerns about their child’s weight, they have to correlate them with health concerns. Other than that, please try to help your children love their bodies and focus on feeling healthy and happy rather than leading them into harmful eating disorders.
2. What would people say?
The poisonous seed of living with people’s expectations on your shoulders is developed through constantly hearing this phrase. Caring about what people think and say about our lives will push us into a path of becoming satisficing adults who care about pleasing people rather than finding happiness. Societal expectations are one of the most crippling obstacles in life. When parents embed this idea within us, we become constantly wary about how people’s opinions can affect our decision-making process. This could discourage us from following our dreams, trying new things, or even being ourselves. You find parents prohibiting their children from dying their hair or getting a piercing because it might be frowned upon within their community. They start to dictate their children’s lives not based on their values but rather on this shared sense of morality that exists within a community that enjoys judging others for being different. It might start with simple life choices but eventually can lead to creating adults who experience an identity crisis in their mid-twenties after realizing that they don’t know who they are anymore.
3. Why can’t you be more like…?
This one is a personal favorite of mine. I can probably link most of my idiosyncrasies to hearing this my entire life. If you want to make your child hate other children for no good reason, start comparing them to each other. These comparisons can create a toxic competitive attitude that constantly focuses on what others achieved rather than celebrating your accomplishments. I will never forget being compared to this other violin player in my music academy who was miles ahead of me in terms of skills. The kid was the nicest person ever yet I grew up hating him and myself for that. Fast forward to high school and college, I became obsessed with grades and class ranks just because I wanted to eliminate my father’s voice that kept ringing “you’re not good enough”. It took years of therapy before I realized that you should only compete against your old self. Children develop all sorts of insecurities from these silly and useless comparisons so please avoid them and help your kid build some confidence and a reasonable level of self-esteem.
4. Man up or that’s not lady-like.
This point doesn’t just refer to these “enlightened” two phrases that encourage young girls to be more ladylike and young boys to be more manly. It’s referring to every single gender stereotype that you pass along to your kids. Let’s reiterate a valid yet misunderstood fact: GENDER IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT. Whether you like it or not, your child might grow up to identify with a different gender than their birth-assigned one. That’s a fact that you will have to accept. Keeping in mind that this journey of self-discovery is a rather challenging one, if you reinforce silly gender stereotypes on your children, you might make this self-affirming adventure even tougher. This gender ignorant society enjoys boxing people into a certain framework of gender accepted behaviors and enjoys, even more, bullying them, if they step out of line. If our parents follow in the same footsteps, it will shake our self-esteem even more and worsen our identity crisis. Please open yourself and your mind to the possibility that gender is more complex than society’s understanding.
5. Any reminder of what you did to them as a child…
This is possibly the most common and most tedious thing to hear from a parent but boi do they enjoy reminding us that they changed our diapers when we were babies (Yes I’m referring again to my dear father). Even though this is not as scarring as the first four points, it’s still the most frustrating one to hear. This might be shocking to some parents, but your children didn’t ask you to bring them into this “balanced and stable” world. YOU CHOSE to have kids and decided to be parents. This means you are NOT doing your children any favors by changing their diapers, buying them expensive clothes, sending them on trips, or putting them in private schools. Believe it or not, you make these choices to feel like a good parent more than to make them feel happy. Therefore, please don’t look them in the eyes when they’re adults and try to make them feel bad about it. Undoubtedly, we should be grateful to our parents but not let them push us into a life of guilt-tripping.
It might sound like I’m being harsh to parents but if any of the above points apply to you as a parent, you might want to take a hard look at yourself. If you heard any of these heartwarming thoughts as a child, I am so sorry and I hope you have/had enough time to recover from this trauma. Take care of yourself and never give up on your healing journey.
