First Slice

"The heart rate triples. The brain swells, pressing against the skull. And as that keeps going, then the lungs began to shrink, making it impossible to breathe. The pressure increases on all the internal organs until [rat explodes]... Rat jam!" - Owen in episode "Day One", Torchwood

Ah, the inaugural post.

Beware, ye who enter for the spleen shall be vented and the rat jam spread thick.

Today's topic? Parents. I know, how colloquial and cliche and completely teen-angst-ridden EMO. But here's my theory.

For the first 15-20 years of your life, you are the center of your parents' world. Nearly everything they do revolves around you. Granted, as you grow older, you aren't quite as dependent on them for food, clothing, shelter, etc... as you were when you were an infant who couldn't poop without their assistance. Okay, so you could. But you'd be messy.

During those 15-20 years, you grow a personality, a character and individual separate from your parents. You make friends, you go to birthday parties, you start working, you start 'going out' with the cute boy in your homeroom class who sits 2 down and 1 to the left, 'going out' entailing giggling at the inane things he might say in typical highschool boy fashion and cooing as he struts his stuff in front of the guys and awkwardly tries to hold your hand while you watch a movie with your group of friends. Later on, you start seriously dating, maybe even fall in love in that head-over-heals first love kind of way. You graduate highschool, move on to college, have a life. All on your own.

And you realize, somewhere in this time period, that your parents are no longer the center of your universe. Everything you do doesn't revolve around them. They're still important, you still love them, but you realize your universe has shifted in some lateral shift. Your universe now revolves around a focal point of your own creation, whether it be a spouse, children, work, etc...

I could go on about interconnected spirals and whatnot, but that would get tedius and boring.

Thing is, I don't think the parents have an idea how to handle not being the central focus of your world because in a way, you still remain central to theirs. It's hard to let go of the complete and total time/thought devotion and let them go be circles of their own. You'd feel unwanted, unappreciated, unloved, and the kicker...secondary. And likewise for the children and the circles they create. It's not that the children feel any less, but that would be hard, I think, to accept. Or to rationalize. Leading to insecurities and fear, fear being the root cause of all things wrong in the world. Next comes the great last gasp of control, a stranglehold tightening it's noose around the kids' necks - 'if I just hold on a little tighter, I can keep them for that much longer.'

The (no longer) kid rebels, yells with all their might that they are an adult, to let go and let them live their own circle. Relationships deconstruct to their elements and reform. Some parent/kids survive into adult/adult or mentor/adult relationships, some never take breath - dead in some heap of crushed egos and arrogance.

Why do some survive? Why do some grow? What exactly is the formula producing equation 'happy lifelong relationships?'

Rather simplistic interpretation, I know. Relationships are full of variables changing between siblings, parents, friends, neighbors. But that's the only rational thing that makes sense in an irrational world.

Reason #264 why I am never having kids, which I'll probably address in another post.