an open letter to every parent.

An Open Letter to Every Parent,

In fear of loss of privileges you have provided, in fear of getting comments like “it’s just a phase”, in fear of being thought of as weak, we have silenced ourselves for way too long. Harsh parenting is just as scary as any other violence. It can lead to self depreciating thoughts and physical ill health. Overprotecting us, keeping us “safe” from unpleasant social situations won’t help us, that deprives us of our skills we still haven’t explored, our abilities we are yet to discover. The life events are unpleasant but they are ordinary. We want to know our parents support us. It is a tough world for us out there but we want our home to be safe.

We know your childhood was more difficult than ours. We understand how it affected you but we want you to understand that ours is just as difficult.

As teenagers, we are constantly trying to find ourselves; we are forming our personalities, our behaviours, we are still learning about ourselves and people’s opinions about us, our surroundings play major role in it. Telling us our interests don’t matter, our opinions don’t matter can lead to individuality complex because since a young age we are being taught things we like are ‘bad’.

“It will all be fixed with age”, yes it will. We will grow enough to understand but right now we are here. We are feeling this and if we can’t understand right now, we want you to understand.

“It is just a phase”, neither of us have permanent state of ourselves. We are constantly evolving, learning to be a better person, unlearning our toxic behaviours but what we are now, what we feel now is real, it matters. We want it to matter to you too, we want it to matter to you enough for you to make us feel that our emotions are valid, that though thick and thin you are here for us.

With Love,

Avni Jain