We all know that nothing can be more annoying than being asked, "Where are you going?' 'Who will be there?' 'Who's driving?' 'When will you be home?" every time you leave the house. I still get these questions daily when I'm home and I haven't lived at home in eight months. We've grown up this way, accepting that our parents will always care about our whereabouts a little bit more than our friends' parents and we've grown to somewhat accept this fact of life. I also know what we're all thinking when our parents are especially acting like this: it's probably something along the lines of "I'm ____ years old and they still don't trust that I'm telling them the truth about what I'm doing" or "oh my god they're so annoying." I'm probably more right than wrong when I say that we're all super annoyed at this point, but have we ever really considered their point of view on this? We're so quick to judge and assume that our parents are just being super nosey and way too concerned with our business, but what we don’t understand is that they grew up in a completely different generation, and maybe they have a reason to be worried about us growing up.
Before I came to college I didn’t appreciate my protective caring parents, but now that I don’t have somebody constantly worried about my safety and what I’m doing, I kinda understand where they were coming from. We fall short of remembering that most parents still see us as “their little kids” and even though we are reaching the end of our teen years, I have a feeling that will never change. Their texts late at night asking “where are you?” and us brushing them off and chalking it up to being “annoying parents” is a bigger deal to them than we understand. If you really think about it, while we’re out and they’re home, they have no idea what kind of situation we’re in or what we could possibly be doing. It’s so easy to lie to them over text, and they realize that which makes them worry more.
Being away from home and living at college has caused me to reflect on my growing up and realize that all this time that I spent being annoyed and felt like I wasn’t being treated fairly by my parents actually made me feel more grateful for them than ever. I couldn't imagine being a person who knows right from wrong today without the protectiveness I experienced from my parents growing up. I also couldn't imagine being a responsible young adult without the pressure I faced from my parents saying to me “text me when you get there” and now I see myself expecting my friends to text me when they get somewhere safely because I, too, worry. I guess in the end their protectiveness has taught me that it’s okay to care and that I am not invincible. Bad things can certainly happen to anyone and that is something that I didn't realize until I was older.
Today, I thank my parents for teaching me that there’s nothing wrong with caring a little bit more than normal and looking back on it I wouldn’t change how I was raised for anything. They may have had different views than other parents, but I am grateful that I grew up with someone who cared about where I was or what I was doing, because who knows where I would be right now without it.
