When Your Parents Turn Into Teenagers During Lockdown
How do you cope during this lockdown in 2020?
The biggest disruption for me at this global-wide stay-at-home social experiment, is on how to balance intimacy and personal space with my loved ones while we are staying together within that 4 walls 24/7. Does anyone feel the same?
Especially when you realise your parents now act like rebellious teenagers who either feel very fearless when they want to head out of the house, or their new addictions to the phone and news (+ fake news) that shrinks them into frightened couch potatoes; What are you going to do about it?
Not everyone adapts as quickly when our usual momentum for decades are now disrupted due to unexpected circumstances.
That could bring discomfort, impatience, frustration, and antsiness in the process, which is perfectly normal; Or like that viral video of an Italian Papa getting out of the door to buy un caffè at the kitchen window from his wife, we could find humour amidst all these😂
I know I have to do something to help them get through this.
Like forming new habits?
So I tell my Dad, “Sitting too much HURTS, Dad, stop watching those crappy content farm videos; now get up and move your butt!”
“How about you? You have been sitting like a statue all day long for YEARS; look at your muffin top and rounded back lol”
Well I cannot rebut……So I set an alarm on his phone with a classic song from the 70s; And now 3 times a day, when this song is played, the entire family will drop whatever we are doing at the moment, stand up, and do a dozen of jumping jacks together. AND IT’S SO MUCH FUN 😂😂😂
Forming new habits definitely takes some discipline and regularity until it sticks to create momentum. What’s more, peer pressure works.
How Your Relationship with Parents during Lockdown Can Benefit You For Life
Amidst all the pain and suffering the world is enduring, I’m thankful for having this opportunity to grow a deeper relationship with my loved ones.
During quarantine, we have long talks about our childhood dreams, stories of them during difficult times when they were young, which gives me a-ha moments on why they are sometimes obsessed with doing things a certain way. Reparenting ourselves starts from moments like this.
I also get to know the unheard-of stories of my ancestors.
And we are still working on how to respectfully honour our different needs on personal space and boundaries.
Generational differences are like the elephant in the room that exists in every family – between you and your parents, and between you and your children.
If we don’t mitigate the differences within our homes, how are we going to build new orders on the country level, and on the global level?
We are in this historical time and cultural making moments together.
Something for sure is, we won’t go back to the old normal. We’ll all come out from the other side with our new norms, new habits, and new priorities.
So as if you are moving to a new house and now packing your stuff, what parts of the old normal would you like to bring forward to your new normal? And what not?
*P.S. If you are called to do the reparenting work for yourself, and be your BEST parent you wish you had, take a look here.
