the hidden implicit

the thing about parents is that in their endeavours to parent you, they try to hide their personalities behind their reponsibility as a parent. while this may work when the kid is younger, it backfires when the kid begins to be hit maturity -- this may be as early as the late teens but usually in the early twenties.

as you grow older, you start to see them as people too. not that they have always been inhuman, but when i hit my twenties a few years back, i started seeing my mom and dad as personalities with their inherent flaws and all. their personal histories started to interest me more as i sought to understand what made them make the decisions they do today.

you thensuddenly realise the basis for your resentment against them beginning to fall apart. for all those things that you held against them for not providing for you, you realise that they couldn't give you what they didn't have within them to do so. and then you begin to fall apart and try to reconcile the new truth that you have just encountered with. and then comes the process of coming to terms and accepting your parents for who they are and at the same time, tolerating their nonsense at the same time.

when you begin to understand the context behind the action and behind all the nagging your mom does without flinching an eyelid, you will begin to appreciate her for who she is. when my mom was immobilised for a while earlier this year because of some nerve ailment, i realised that although she fell short of what i expected of a mom, she was all i ever had.

yet in the heat of the moment, you lose your perspective ever so easily. like today, when i was reminded of the inherent child that my dad can be. he pissed my mom off so bad that she was scolding him at the top of her voice and i totally hated it. at that point, i was reminded of how much i detested my dad and for a period in my life, swore never to be like him. in fact, i think remnants of that still remain in me. i guess i may never see my dad as the father figure that he was meant to be, but now after that heated moment, my anger simmer off when i remind myself of why he is acting the way he is and to have more grace in my attitudes towards him. never easy, but i just got to keep doing it because God first showed us grace and mercy.

the reality of having to 'parent' someone can not get any clearer than having to mentor someone.

while you want to help this younger dude by being an older friend who is able to offer the benefit of hindsight, you cannot violate the singular golden rule in mentoring -- you got to maintain a certain aloofness from their circumstance, and not let yourself get too immersed in the whole emotional dimension of their situation.

that can be very difficult if you let "concern" get in the way and start rationalising that you are violating this golden rule on the pretext of "genuine friendship."

because at the end of the day, by getting yourself unneccessarily embroiled in emotions that were not targetted at you in the first place, one thing will follow another and the whole essence of mentoring will be lost altogether. because then the focus of the mentoring relationship -- God -- is then thrown out of the window.

it's uncanny how 2 seemingly polar opposite situations resonate with each other so clearly. oh well. that's what studying too much of sociology can do to you. heh.