Parental Ego
Dr. Chandana D. Karathully
When you become a parent, you get to control two psyches, one of your own and the other of your child. For some people that might be a little overwhelming, but for some others that’s a huge high for their ego. Parental Ego is kind of a big deal, not just for the parent, but for the kid too. Taking responsibility of a child, who knows nothing, who completely and absolutely depends upon you, whose survival even depends upon you, is huge. That kind of responsibility actually puts the parent in a position of entitlement. ‘I brought you to this world, and I am looking after you, so you need to be submissive to me, and you should obey me and respect me and do what I say’ is the root level thinking process of a parent. And it is okay. Because, we need to protect our child from the harm’s way, we need to make sure that everything goes well with our kid. But the problem arises when the little control freak inside of us gets unleashed and our child starts resisting it. Yeah, that’s when the whole warzone gets shifted to our little home.
When it comes to our children, we always bring our own personal vendetta into the mix. Always. How they look, how they behave, what they do for a living, who they marry, are always connected to us. We feel they are a reflection of ourselves, an extension of our existence. They are supposed to make decisions after taking into consideration that how could that affect us and our image. We always ask them: ‘Did you think about me when you did this, Is this that I have taught you’ in order to make them feel guilty and do what we say. In all these instances, we are using our children to feel good, to fill some kind of emptiness within us in the disguise of nurturing and protecting our child. We need to fulfil our longing of something greater, may be wealth, may be fame, may be success, may be status; but the problem arises when we use our kids for that. We even use our little kids for that, “Oh! meet my little one who is so obedient, brilliant and dependent over me”. What a high for our ego!! And when that little prince or princess do something stupid, we go like “Why are you embarrassing me in front of the guests?” In a split second, our precious darling became a shame for us. Why? Because we use our kids to foster our ego. We feel the most competent when our child is under our domination.
Living in such an egoic state all the time, we fail to see our child, not as an extension to our self, but as a free soul, who has its own true self. See, it’s the job our kid to bring peace to our life. It’s our own job to find peace and happiness. We should face our fears, we can’t imprison our child in the dungeons of our fears lifelong. If you are scared of them not being successful, you need to look into ‘why am I so obsessed over success’. If you are scared of what others might be thinking, you need to look into ‘why do I care so much about other’s opinions’. It’s not about our child, it’s about you. Everything our child does or doesn’t do is not about us. We shouldn’t miss the opportunity to enter our child’s world, to see how he/she sees the world, to meet their own inner world. While holding on to our own ego, we are not getting connected to our child. As a result, we may become distant to them, alienate them and abandon them. Why? Because they didn’t foster our ego. How sad and unjust is that?
To let go of our ego, and our prejudices, need a lot of hard work. But for our children to grow into what they truly deserve, our support and unconditional love are so necessary. And to provide that kind of support, we need to ask ourselves: Am I acting upon my ego or love?