Raising Each Other…

While watching a lovely movie last week, the female protagonist who shares a crazy relationship with her cranky paranoid father, when asked why she puts up with her old man, answers plain staccato and simple… that after a certain age, a certain stage, parents have to be kept alive… they can no longer do it on their own… their children are their lifeline… their elixir…

That stayed with me. And it hit me… that that’s exactly how it is. Especially when the age difference between parents and children is of more than 25 years… because by the time the children step out of their teens, the parents start to run out of steam. The anxieties and flailing health combined with the dreams cum expectations they have from their children, make them the biggest kids ever. Attention seekers, with a tantrum always up their sleeve, the reverse game slowly begins.

My father, from the last few days, all fed up that he is of me (for sure) and my sisters (I hope), has been telling my mother that daughters are indeed a curse. He has never said such things before; difficult and strict he has always been, but never has he been so lavish in his praise. So I believe I would have to take the credit for it… the third daughter… the son who wasn’t…  The root of the problem is that I have my opinions; I am my own person… So my decisions, howsoever brave, secular or life-saving, automatically become his defeats… and since I am the one who is checkmating him, he is losing it (pun most intended).

After having let the toxic out through my eyes, I am now treading softly, finding my balance, equipping myself, so as to be the rational voice between him and I. I can almost foresee how things will pan out… a battle in the making… he will call himself names, he will beat himself black and blue, claiming he has failed as a father, failed to instil good values… these virtual slaps have to be borne with equanimity and a silly, sometimes teary smile… because he is my father. So even if he cannot help being a big sadistic kid, I have to be around… because he is at his lowest… and I have to raise him up.