#alhamdullilah for the lessons that came with his passing

[shufaya]

And if you’re missing a lost loved one, I pray a reunion in Jannah is written for you.

[ghinanotlinetti]

Things My Parents Did and Didn’t Teach Me

Hi! For this post I thought I'd do an exercise from one of my favourite podacats, On Purpose with Jay Shetty, from the episode titled: 6 Reasons Why We Need to Develop the Emotional Skills Our Parents Never Had. For this episode, Jay recommended listeners to create two lists: things we learnt from our parents, and things we taught ourselves. This exercise is helpful in our self-reflection and character development; it makes us realise that we shouldn’t take the valuable lessons that we passed on to us from our parents for granted, and it’s not the duty of our parents to provide us with the utmost perfect childhood and equip us with ever life hack, life lesson, emotional skills, because this is difficult to learn on our own, let alone teach a child. I’ve been living on my own for over four years now, it’s been a crazy wild journey, so I’ve been taking as much time as I need to process and figure out myself for myself and the people that I love. Here is my list and my take on the exercise:

Things my parents taught me

So just to be straight forward, I grew up with relatively strict, conservative Muslim, Asian parents. I’ve been through the typical stereotype aspects of this upbringing, I can’t say my experiences came under the extreme cases nor are they the polar opposite, but with that being said, there’s a lot more to it than the stereotype you see online, it’s never black and white. For those who may be unfamiliar with this childhood, let me briefly explain. Strict Asian parents are not the most gentle and affectionate parents, they have a weird way of showing that they love you and care for you. So their children would tend to chase success in greatest form success can come because they feel like only then will they be able to receive affection. Asian parents also have a tendency to have an obsession with controlling their children’s lives. In conservative Muslim households, some parents might use religious duty to manipulate their children. It isn’t uncommon for people with this upbringing to recall their parents pushing them that they had to do a certain thing because if they didn’t not only would they go to hell but their parents will also go to hell in the afterlife. There’s definitely a great level of pressure to fulfill great expectations, which is unfortunate because not everyone is blessed with opportunities and privileges in this life to exceed societal expectations. Sometimes I feel like it’s not the fault of the parents or the kids; there’s some parents who tell their kids “no, I don’t want you doing x” and the kid doesn’t even think of arguing back because the thought can’t even cross their mind, and in retrospect you never really know maybe the parent is willing to change their viewpoint had they made a sound argument in support of doing x because let’s be completely honest, parents don’t fully know what’s best for their kids and aren’t always right. 

My parents taught me the basics of how to be responsible, hard-working, and have respect for others and one’s self. Growing up I always knew being kind, genuine, authentic, spiritual, and patient was the key to living a peaceful life. As a child I was disciplined to the point where I felt shame and humiliation a bit too much, I would say it got unhealthy at a point so I could never discipline my own children, should I have them in the future, in the same way that my parents did to me. I couldn’t learn how to trust them as a kid. As said in the podcast a great many of children don’t learn trust from their parents, which is a shame but it also doesn’t mean that we’re doomed because it’s never to late to start again. If I have children, I wouldn’t use fear and manipulation as the first and ultimate tool for getting my children to listen, I want them to respect me but I also want them to trust me to the point where they know in their hearts they can come to me at any given situation and time and I will be there for them. 

I thank my parents every day for teaching me how to have a night routine; this has always kept me focused and I never actually appreciated it at the time. I have struggled with sleep as an adult but I would think back to what my parents taught me and get my ass back on the line by working on routine. I also have to thank my parents so much for giving me a love of reading and observation, because this has always kept my mind sharp and steady. I loved quiet time as kid and continue to now, it goes hand-in-hand with self-care so although self-care wasn’t explicitly taught it was indirectly taught to me by my parents. I dread to think of where I would be if my parents didn’t teach me how to love God. Teaching me to be a dedicated worshipper of God was one of the greatest gifts my parents gave to me because it’s always given me hope and lightness in my life. I learnt about my Indonesian-Acehnese culture and tradition from my parents. They taught me about my family lineage, how to be proud of where and what we came from because life is a journey about finding your way back, back to home, back to beginnings, back to God. My ethnic features as a kid used to be an insecurity of mine. This lesson was one that I took for granted and had to relearn from looking back at how my parents raised me. It since has become my source of strength. I used to hate my big ethnic nose, now I love my ethnic features for what they are because they represent my Arab lineage and what I came from. I’m even thankful for the important lesson of how to cook rice the proper way taught by my parents so I don’t have to learn the BuzzFeed way, which is horrendous. Now that I’m pondering, I think I got my sense of humour from my parents. My parents just know how to tell funny stories, always had a knack for storytelling. My mum does the best imitations of people that are just spot on. I always love talking to my parents when I’m not home. So that’s some of the valuable lessons my parents taught me. Moving on to what I taught myself...

Things I taught myself

I knew the basics of good work ethic, responsibility, and independence from my parents but I would say that I mastered those things for myself in my young adult years. This was done by trial and error, and also observing my close peers who I admire and look up to. How to live alone is also taught through trial and error experiences, it can't truly be taught from mere theory. I expanded my love of reading and read in all areas I could, although I still need to work on my reading habits. I love reading but sometimes I’d rather waste my time watching YouTube videos, I know, I really shouldn’t but I can’t help it sometimes! I knew the importance of loving God but my parents taught me strictly by the book from the Islamic teachings. Nothing wrong with that but I decided I could do more so I dived in much deeper in faith and spirituality and grew to love meditation because it kept me calm and helped me check in with my intentions. Self-love is a difficult concept to grasp because of all the unlearning which needs to be done, and personally I think the best way to approach self-love is in the self-discovery journey, so I don’t think my parents would be able to teach me this. As I’ve mentioned before trust is difficult to learn, it needs the relationship to be balanced and balance comes from seeing the other as an equal. I’m still learning to be good with money but so are my parents, and I’m glad we get to learn together. Stress and anger management is another thing I struggle with, but so do my parents and other people around me. Perhaps I could’ve benefited if I was introduced to meditation and breathing technique at an earlier age because this would be helpful for me as a child to manage stress and social anxiety. They say that social anxiety is inherited and I can see that in my parents and me. We’re all getting better at it, Alhamdullilah, but I shouldn’t have overthought my friendships and have as much social anxiety as I did back then. I was too anxious to let myself enjoy life's moments at times, and today I still feel like I'm doing this. I was never taught Indonesian history as a kid from my parents. I barely knew anything about my country being an expat. Nothing wrong with this but it was something I had to learn later on, glad it happened that way if I’m being honest because it meant that I was able to critically analyse whilst also taking in information. I knew I was fairly familiar with indifferent cultures and traditions because I grew up in a multicultural/multinational community, but I was tested to the limit in my learning of acceptance when I travelled in my uni days. This doesn’t just apply to people’s cultures but also people’s mindset. I've met so many different types of people through travelling and boy did I mert some crazy people over the years, but thank god for the crazy good people I've met along the way!

I’m not in any way resentful of my parents for not teaching me these things. Maybe with some of these things I as frustrated at the beginning and I may have lashed out at my parents out of stress because I didn’t know what to do with what I felt. But I’ve learn to let my emotions pass because they are afterall temporary. By doing this exercise, I know that I need to love my parents not for what they are, but for who they are. I hope to make my parents proud of me, not for my accolades but for who I’m capable of becoming. If you’re interest in doing this exercise, I hope you get to do so and share with as many people who might benefit from this too! Also before you do so I recommend to heck out On Purpose with Jay Shetty on podcast streaming platforms, go to the episode titled 6 Reasons Why We Need to Develop the Emotional Skills Our Parents Never Had and have a listen. Whilst you’re at check all other episodes too because they’re really good for self-reflection!