Father's Day happens to be this weekend, and while I will obviously be celebrating with my dad and making sure he knows how much I love and appreciate him, I thought I'd also take a moment to share my thoughts on why it's so important for us all to make sure our parents know how much we love them on a daily basis.
The easy thing is tossing them an extra "I love you!" on Father's or Mother's day, but what's harder is saying that every day, in addition to thanking them for all that they do for you. Sometimes we're in bad moods and we don't feel like getting mushy and professing our love and appreciation for our parents, but we've gotta work on pushing through that. And not to always blame the children; our parents are also allowed to be in bad moods, but in that case sometimes you just want to stay out of their way rather than trying to console them.
Anyways, it's really important that they get our love and appreciation, because no child would be anywhere without their parents.
They have been there to guide you while growing up --they saw you make friends, play sports and instruments and get smarter in school. They've also had to see you at your worst, but they never judge you for anything. They have provided for you (from backpacks to school lunches, to getting you that super popular toy that you just had to have) and given you the best opportunities that they could provide you with, and they never once complained because they simply wanted the very best for you.
That being said, they've had to deal with you wanting to play all the time, wanting all their attention, and pretty much wanting everything you set your eyes on. We sure are a lot of work, but despite how much we put them through, they love us relentlessly.
Our parents also get the brunt of our jokes a lot of times. I mean it's hard to resist, since they're sometimes so clueless with technology or they're trying too hard to be "hip" and relate to us, and then we can't help but make fun of them a bit. Since they do so much for you, the bare minimum you could do is make them laugh with some jokes or funny stories.
Cracking jokes at your parents expense is actually really fun and pretty much every child does it. And it gets even worse for them if you're around all of your siblings or cousins and the joking is just unstoppable. But even in these times, parents handle all the mocking with such grace which is highly admirable on their part.
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Lastly, our beloved parents will always have the upper hand on us because they truly do know best. They've lived longer than us and flat out just way know more about the world than us and because of that, they give the best and most useful advice. Parents are rarely wrong about something that they insist on, and even if we choose to defy them, they usually win and end up right. We make mistakes but they keep on loving us and doing their best advising us, which is why they deserve appreciation all the time, every day of the year.
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When you're a little kid, you look up to and absolutely adore your parents, and then once you hit middle school it generally starts going south just because you start bickering a bit and you're preoccupied with becoming mature and weening yourself off of being around your parents as much. And then high school is usually pretty rocky too just because that's when it's most important to you to be independent and not need your parents around all the time. An adult family friend once described this to me as "the tunnel." He joked that every kid enters the tunnel at one point (usually end of middle school) and becomes more withdrawn from their parents, trying to be independent, and then comes out of the tunnel, generally once they're in college. It is funny to think about, but it also makes a good amount of sense.
Now I know that no one takes their parents for granted, but truly reflecting on all they have done for you is important to do; because as much as you say "I love you" and "Thank you" to them, it means much more when you're thinking about the full extent of all that they mean to you.
So, here's to all the amazing, supportive, loving, and hilarious parents out there.
But of course, a special shoutout to my mom and dad--thanks for being you and for being so incredible to us all the time. Love ya, mean it!
