shouting and teens

from google images

I was watching the news last night and I came across this noodle commercial with a teen slowly drifting away while the father shouts at him as they have their dinner.  I was almost in tears but I didn’t not want others to see me cry over a commercial.  But in my mind, fresh are the memories when I experienced the same period of my life where I really do not want to be inside our house.  I can feel the pain in the child’s commercial as the father shouts at him.  The only difference is that it wasn’t my dad who battered me with shouts.

I remembered the times where I would just want to stay out of our house.  I do not want to linger, much more step my feet on our house.  I didn’t actually felt I was home during those times.  Why?  Because I didn’t feel loved, understood or welcomed inside my own house.  Whenever I look at my family members, they look so indifferent and cold.  We do not even have time for one another to eat a meal together.  I was always alone. 

I never grew up with my parents.  I grew up with my brothers and sisters who already have their own families.  I admit, I was a difficult child.  Who wouldn’t be when you’re a product of broken home, physical, mental and emotional abuse?  I was lucky to have graduated college and be where I am now in spite of all the torments I experienced when I was young.  I didn’t even have a strong spiritual figure in my life that time.  So I really grew up to be a difficult, secretive, teen with a lot of masks and skeletons in my closet.

Watching that TV ad made me reminisce the times when people around me couldn’t understand my struggles.  I know it was my fault on occasions that I lied and got caught, but I never lied back.  So, it was really unfair for me to be doubted when I was already telling the truth.  I felt, I should have been given a chance to redeem myself.  But I wasn't.   

Now that I am a parent and experiencing the same situation with my older daughter, I was ashamed of myself whenever I scold and shout at her whenever she goes home late.  It dawned on me that she was me some years ago.  I felt cold like I was poured with a bucket full of ice on my head and thought that maybe, my daughter too doesn't want to be at the house because instead of me, asking whether she had her meal or what can I do for her to help her with her school work, there I was shouting frantically as if she eloped with a man she just met.  I reasoned to myself to justify my shouting and being mad that I am just protecting her from the evil ones lurking on the streets and that her always coming home late is my way to keep her away from those people.  But I didn't think that she also has a life and that her school works is just one of the things that she has to accomplish.

I cannot speak for all parents, but this I will surely do to my daughter.  I would be smart and logical in dealing with her late coming and thinking of many other preventive things like knowing who she is with or whose classmate’s house she will work her projects with including talking to her open mindedly that I will understand her but she can’t lie to me.  I will think of many other things before I end up shouting at her, because for me, still the safest place for my daughter is right where I am… Inside our house.  I have to make sure; she stays in the house and loves our house.