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November Thankfulness Campaign, Day 29

I’m thankful for my parents.

I think, when you’re a kid, your parents are superheroes. They possess magical powers of healing and safety and bandage you up when you crack your head open on a fireplace and/or cut your mouth falling down the stairs (ahem) and take you to the hospital when you’ve fallen on a pool ladder and sliced yourself up and keep their cool when they’re investigated for child abuse (true story). They make you giggle and read to you and play endless hours of paper dolls and feed you and lead your girl scout troop and take you fishing and throw you epic birthday parties and leave you alone for hours at a time so you can play by yourself in your huge walk-in closet full of toys. They put up with your stubbornness and your tantrums and your antics and your mischief, and they tell stories about the time at the New Kids on the Block concert when you cut the line for the bathroom. They are your world, your everything, your life, your parents.

And then, I think, when you’re a teenager, and maybe into your early 20s, these superheroes suddenly and inexplicably lose all of their magic, pretty much overnight, and are replaced by these two completely out of touch ogres who just totally don’t get you at all and suck at everything they do and are so embarrassing and oh my God, everything bad that’s ever happened to you is their fault entirely and you’re not responsible for any of your bad actions or choices or attitudes because it’s their fault, they made you that way. And all of the magic, all of the big and small acts of love and sacrifice and tenderness and compassion and accountability and responsibility, all of the parenting, is shrugged off or rationalized or under-appreciated or not appreciated at all, because that’s what they’re there for, anyway, isn’t it - to revolve around you, like the rest of the world does.

And then, I think, when you grow up a little more, and you get a little older, and you have some distance, and some perspective, you finally begin to see your parents for who they have been all along. You can see the magic, you can see the flaws, you can see the people that you feel proud and lucky to call yours, and you are so, so thankful that they raised you.

29 November 2011 ·

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