Sometimes people confuse education with intelligence. Someone can have a Ph.D. but still can be an idiot.
Similarly, some people believe that age gives them better wisdom. When two-generation meets at a place, the older generation assumes that they know everything better about life as they are older, thus more experienced and wiser. But this older generation fails to see that age has nothing to do with life experience.
Parents think they are always right because they are older and have more life experience. Due to parents’ superiority complex, distrust of their child, and controlling mentality, parents falsely assume they understand everything better than their children.
Parents believe they are more experienced:
Two people raised in two families can have two widely different life experiences. It will vary depending on the place, sex, race, parents, etc. A child who suffered severe trauma from her father (incest) will differ in life experience from a child who didn’t suffer those horrible things — these two children, when ages to 30, will have vastly different life experiences.
Therefore age is irrelevant when gathering life experience.
In the eyes of parents, children stay a child their entire life. They took care of their children, fed them, nursed them, and provided every provision for them. Children grew up in front of their eyes. They saw their child’s first step, heard the first words, felt the first touch. Therefore, Parents falsely believe that they know everything about their sons and daughters.
This false assumption leads them to believe that they also know their children’s psychology or why their child does something, or they firmly believe they can read their child’s mind.
Therefore, several fallacies plague parents’ minds —
- One, they are older than their child, so they know more.
- Two, they understand their child’s psychology and their psychological needs.
- Three, their children’s reasoning is wrong.
The saying that parents always look after their children or want better things to happen for them is entirely false. Parents can be toxic, narcissistic, abusive, controlling, and ignorant.
To understand why parents do or believe certain things, we must understand why humans do or think certain things. Family, government, team, nation, or corporation is nothing but a group of people with their ideology.
Parents want to exert their control:
It’s human nature to exert control over another human. People love homogeneousness and hate diversity. Parents want to raise their children according to their plan in a family. According to their belief system, whatever they do is right; anything that challenges their decision is disrespect or disobedience.
For example:
- If you take vaccines, but your parents believe that vaccination is terrible for you, they will tell you how ignorant you are without any medical evidence.
- If a parent is a democrat and you support republicans or vice versa, your parents will tell you your moral values are wrong.
- If your parents are Buddhist, but you don’t follow any religion, your parents will tell you how wrong you are.
People can be wrong on many levels, from the political spectrum to religion. If they are incorrect on these things, they can also be wrong on their ideological values while raising a child. Age experience has nothing to do with it.
Parents, Police, Government, or Managers, everyone wants control over other people. For Police, it’s civilians, and for parents, it’s their children.
As parents give birth to children, they believe it’s their right to exert control over them. A government hides their unethical behavior, and parents hide their wrong judgment by saying, “you have to do it because I said so.”
Parents don’t trust their children:
Parents believe they know what is better for their children. They have seen their kids make many mistakes in their early life. But parents fail to realize that even a 6-year-old child can make a logical decision. And before they know it, their child is in college.
Many parents forget this sudden transformation. They refuse to accept this transformation that their child is now a fully grown adult and can make their own life decision. Therefore, any children’s decision is met with resistance from their parents. Parents don’t trust their children with their judgment.
This distrust towards children gives rise to the parents’ “always right” mentality.
Suspicion is a destroyer of a relationship. In any relationship, trust is critical. If a partner in a relationship doesn’t trust the other partner, it will create suspicion, rift, and a broken relationship.
For a parents-children relationship, this rule also applies. However, many parents don’t trust that their children can make better decisions or have better friends. This distrust raises undue suspicion in them. Thus they force their judgment on children.
Parents with superiority complex:
Some parents never apologize. In fact, some parents will comment to make their child guilty of their fault. For them, it’s easier to blame others than take responsibility. Even those parents know they are wrong, but they will never admit it.
Parents are humans. And humans have various biased opinions, and their activities reveal those biases.
Doctor parents want their child to be a doctor; engineers want their child to be an engineer; a business person wants their child to do the same family business.
Or sometimes, parents want to fulfill their failed dream through their children. These parents feel proud of their child’s success and shame if their child fails to achieve specific life goals.
The problem with these parents is that as they never see their faults, they never fix their attitude.
If children ask them why their life goal should be to become a doctor or engineer, parents will answer that “it’s for your better future or you won’t understand now, but you will realize in the future.”
If a human being thinks that he knows everything which is better for another human, then we can undoubtedly say that person will unleash some bad stuff over another person. These toxic things can come from a parent, either knowingly or unknowingly.
If a parent wants their child to become a doctor, but the child wants to become a musician, the parents will show various toxicity in the family. And that parents will justify their every behavior in the name of the child’s future.
Walk away from your toxic parents:
If you believe your parents are wrong, you can try to make them aware of this fact. However, experience tells that parents will not fix their wrongdoings most of the time. It is seen that those parents double down on their misdeeds, deny, avoid, or gaslight. It’s not worth your energy.
Millions of people visit a psychologist who seeks treatment for their childhood trauma. Even adults suffer from their toxic parents. In western countries, people can talk about it and seek professional advice. However, in third-world countries, it’s more severe.
Therefore, if a parent shows a repeated control freak behavioral pattern, it’s best to walk away from that house or relationship. It’s not worth your energy to fix something unfixable.
It’s human nature to become defensive once confronted. If you encounter your parents, they may try to gaslight you. You can fix someone’s bad behavior only if they are actively trying to fix them. Otherwise, you will only meet with resistance. In these scenarios, it’s better to walk away.