Always

by V R Rutledge

Created on: June 30, 2008

The question Are parents always parents is redundant. Certainly there will come a time when the children are independent, self-sufficient and perhaps even support the parents, but it is the parent or parents that they support. For thousands of years humanity has espoused the 'traditional' family model. In the Torah, we are told to honor our father and mother, in the new testament children are told to obey their parents. Mark Twain even said, "Always obey your parents, when they are present." The term parent is not age Dependant. A parent-child relationship goes from cradle to grave, even in computer programming. The term Brahma denotes the highest and most sacred conception in Indian thought, and in it the Buddha includes parents, noting that they are East in the divisions of the heavens (north, south, east, west, zenith and nadir). For the millions of people who practice this Hinduism, it is a way of life that encompasses all aspects of life including family, social life, politics, business, art, and health behaviors. Again, we see the immutable status of parents. Even in Islam parents are always parents, despite the fact that the family structure is not part of the Articles of Faith.

The above discussion goes to a basic truth. Parents have been parents, throughout the lives of their children, for as long as humankind has had society, and possibly before. The system works, and if it works it doesn't need repair. The concept of 'letting go' of children as they mature is valid only in the sense that parents don't have the right to control their children directly when those children have reached adulthood. What a parent teaches a child will remain with the child throughout life, and it is the responsibility of the parent to provide the child with life skills that will endure and help them to become all that they can be. Given this, the child will return to the source for assistance should life introduce problems that aren't covered in the lessons of youth.

Insofar as the unstated debate in the question, whether parents have trouble 'letting go' as the child ages, the answer is a resounding yes. Parents spend a time, money, emotion, worry, and suffering in the upbringing of children. If the parent is worthwhile, they care very deeply about the child, whatever the circumstances of that rearing. In a perfect situation,(and there is no such) a bond exists between the parent and child that transcends the mundane and purely physical. That bond has been likened to a psychic connection, and has sparked many stories of parents who 'sensed' that their children were in danger, and children who did the same with regard to their parents. You cannot 'let go' of a child. When my Mother, God rest her soul, was nearing death, and becoming senile from disease and a hard life, I never lost the sense that she was my mother, even though decades passed between the times we saw one another. She will always be my mother, even in death. My father has the same place in my heart, even though we were never close. I am a Christian because of him, even though sometimes I wonder how I can believe so completely those things I believe.

The final question would have to be "Do Parents and Children remain connected throughout their lives?" And the answer is a hard one. Parents should never abandon their children, and children should always remember their parents. The connection between parents and children should be found in the love that they have shared and continue to share. Without this love, there is no relationship. The child that is not loved as a baby will die, and the parent who never has any children will spend the end of his life with a void which cannot be filled. Adopted children, step-children, foster children, it doesn't matter. The child is your child if you raise him or her. We are biologically, genetically or emotionally structured to have children, and we cannot be complete without them. We cannot survive infancy without parents. Do we really want to 'give up' a relationship that is necessary for our survival?

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