Friendships and their Need to be Discussed with Parents
Generation Z, or Gen Z for instance is a lot more progressive and inclusive. However, most of us don’t feel comfortable sharing the depths of the friendships we create with our own parents or guardians.
Friendship is one of the universal experiences every one of us participates in. Engaging and socializing with people, with the same feelings and ideas as us is easy. Talking and confiding in them is easy. At times, it’s easier and more comfortable to vent and confide in our friends than our parents.
Friends are the people we feel safe with. Not that we don’t feel safe with our parents but teenage is that phase of our life, where our blood runs with rebellion and revolt in it. Parents are the soldiers and we try to escape them, naturally. They did the same and so did their parents.
No friendship is a smooth road. It’s full of bumps, we wish we could avoid. Unfortunately, we aren’t that evolved to just erase them. We need to face them in order to grow more as a human and as a friend to someone.
However, we do have the power to make sure that it doesn’t traumatize us to a large extent.
Parents often feel that their kids are disconnected from them because they are growing up and have unlimited access to the Internet. They feel as if the kid they once looked after and cared unconditionally for, has “turned against” them.
The kids go through hardships in silence because they don’t want to wreck their “private boundaries” and the parents feel like their upbringing was faulty which led to their kid not being able to open up. This leads to a messy and walking on a tightrope with a valley below, kind of situation.
Honestly, neither the kid or their friendships nor the parents are at the fault for feeling their respective emotions. Nothing is more heartbreaking than kids losing the friendships they once kept wrapped in a strong, protective armor and the parents feeling the unnecessary guilt.
We need to tell the parents about what we are going through, whether it’s about bumpy friendships, blooming relationships or a tiresome journey about finding yourself. Yes, we are “modern” to them and yes, it might be difficult for them to understand our situations but you know how it goes, “Time is the best healer.”
In the end, your parents will always be your greatest supporters, with your truest of friends following right behind them.
Thank you for reading.
Regards,
Shikha Shah.