Parents and Emotion Lords

I'm almost back home, which means I'll be back into the "regular" swing of blogging.

However, in the meantime, I thought I'd touch on a touch of parental difficulty I went through at home. You know, instead of just talking about it with my dad like a mature adult. Blogging: The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.


So, I was feeling awful a few days ago while at my dad's house with my two brothers and my brother's roommate. Me feeling bad was from lingering paranoia and depressive thoughts which originated from my self-deprecating view of how I am in relationships.

I was just trying to stay out of everyone's way, since everyone else was mostly watching football- so not an activity I had any wish to engage in- which was fine. Somewhere in the day, I realized how little I wanted to be there, but I wasn't going to say or do anything about it because I know it meant a lot to most of the people there that everyone was together- I get that.

However, after the hour long tribulation that was "what do we eat and how can I pinch as many pennies as possible, Mr. Krabs-style?" I let my depressive mood get the better of me. I didn't want to be involved with any of the ridiculous argumentation going on about saving five dollars worth of food that could be saved at any point in the future (the coupon could literally be used any time, but there we were, trying desperately to print one out for forty minutes). In the end, I opted out of food. Not good, I know. Didn't really care though.

My dad, for all the world trying to be a "nice" guy by helping me with my emotional problems, decided to try confronting me all eight feet away from everyone else in a volume that suggested he didn't seem concerned with matters of privacy. Looking back, I should have made up some really ultra-private issue to be upset about so that he'd realize why it's problematic to confront someone like that.
Regardless, I tried to get him to back away from his insistence that he was the person to help me (due to being my father), even though his best guess as to why I was "cranky" was because I hadn't eaten yet.

Parents who may be reading this- Your child does not owe you emotional exhibition. No one will EVER owe ANYONE else their sense of privacy if they don't wish to give it. It does not make you a good parent to demand it even if you may or may not know how to solve their problem. By the same token, you don't owe your child emotional asylum. It makes you a good parent to offer it in discretion whether or not they seek it, but you cannot demand that they use it, nor should you try to demand it in front of others. That's basically one of the surefire ways to ensure that your child will never seek that emotional asylum.

Emotions are intensely private and individual to each person. Many people go through the same emotions, but often for very different reasons, while simultaneously approaching their emotions in varying ways. Some are okay talking to others by virtue of them asking what's wrong. Others, like me, need to feel like we can trust you completely before we're willing to tell you much. Trust like that is not created by virtue of being a parent. It's earned by being there, being understanding, and knowing that your experience only means so much when it comes to someone else's subjective experience of the world. You don't have all the answers just because you're older or just because you solved your own problems or even just because you've managed to solve other peoples' problems. Your ways may have worked for you or some others, but they may not for someone else. That's the complication with every human being having different chemical balances in their brain.

When in doubt, offer asylum and drop the subject. That's how you build trust.