parents

Parents are the last people on Earth who ought to have children.

It is not difficult for an unwise mother quite unintentionally to centre the heterosexual feelings of a young son upon herself, and it is true that, if this is done, the evil consequences pointed out by Freud will probably ensue. This is, however, much less likely to occur if the mother's sexual life is satisfying to her, for in that case she will not look to her child for a type of emotional satisfaction which ought to be sought only from adults. The parental impulse in its purity is an impulse to care for the young, not to demand affection from them, and if a woman is happy in her sexual life she will abstain spontaneously from all improper demands for emotional response from her child.

A criminal always returns home.

My parents seemed incredibly special and outrageously handsome to me then.

Silence descended on the house. [....] Amma must have sensed that this was the sort of silence that, left unchallenged, could consume the family from within.

They projected an illusion of warmth with their home-cooking and hand-stitched quilts, yet underneath the facade was an institutional rigidity, as if they were running an orphanage where children would be fed and cared for but never loved. Love was such a key ingredient in molding humans, yet it was inaccessible to kids inside of the system.

We are all entitled to our own share of mistakes and learning experiences in life. No one should take them away from us. Not even our parents.

What tethers me to my parents is the unspoken dialogue we share about how much of my character is built on the connection I feel to the world they were raised in but that I've only experienced through photos, visits, food. It's not mine and yet, I get it. First-generation kids, I've always thought, are the personification of déj_ vu.

Who said that parents_ beliefs should be adopted by their children?

I always envisioned myself as traveling the ocean of life in a rowboat where my mother was one oar and my father, the other. Having two good, solid oars made rowing much easier.

They (parents) use this guilt-tripping to stop you from fulfilling your plans, but most important, from believing something they don__ (something which contradicts their beliefs)

They (parents) want life to unfold according to what they believe. Most people want that. The last thing they want and need, is somebody (let alone their own child) telling them that their beliefs about life are bullshit / full of holes/ severely flawed.

There is no better way to crush someone__ self-confidence than to tell this person that her / his choice was wrong, and that she / he should have listened to us (parents). Because, obviously, we know how to make the right choices and she / he does not.

If we are wonderful parents and family members, then there__ really nothing else to prove.

Well, it's true for every elder sibling, We have this supremely potent weapon "parents " on our side in such matters. In fact, such are the times when our maturity works wonders in hitching parents to our side over these younger siblings.

Our parents are not the only people on this planet, and we should not base our life choices on what they want (what will bring them a peace of mind, satisfaction, and give them a reason to brag), but we should make those choices keeping in mind that there are upwards of 7,5 billion people in this world, and that we should use our talents and energy trying to improve the lives of as many of them as possible.

How can it be, after all this concentrated effort and separation, how can it be that I still resemble, so very closely, my own detestable mother?

They (parents) have been doing this (imposing their beliefs about life on you) since you were born. That__ more than enough to establish a habit.