Dear Farnaz:

“when we are children, we are told that the people who have our best interests are our parents and nobody gonna be that way“- we are told that by our parents (self-serving) and by other people who are parents to other children (self-serving). Parental power is necessary when raising children, and it is a good thing (children need their parents to be powerful). Problem is when this power is abused.

Look at the ending of the quote I am responding to: “and nobody gonna be that way“- this is what possessive parents say, parents who abuse their power as parents. There is nothing loving about parents implementing the idea/ belief in their children’s minds that there will be no love for them for the rest of their lives, other than… parental possession, which is not parental love.

“It makes it very hard to believe that they can be selfish and self-serving“- believe what is true, no matter it being easy or hard to believe.

“I don’t deny the fact that my parents put a lot of efforts on improving their children’s lives… the main reason was making themselves happy and if we succeed that would make them look good.. other people’s opinion mattered more than our feelings“- their motivation: to make themselves happy, to make themselves look good, by pleasing other people in their lives, their neighbors, friends, siblings, strangers.

“so they could lie and mistreat us as long as it served them , in my father’s case, he couldn’t hurt her as much as me because she could divorced him, but I couldn’t. it is so nasty to view your children like that“- nasty for us (and for our children, if we repeat and maintain this tradition of abusing  parental power), but not nasty for them. For the millions of parents who abuse their power.. it’s business as usual. It was done to them.. now, it’s their turn.

“do you believe the only people who have our best interests are our parents? I guess not, I met people who were selfless and kind, there are not many. But still“- I think  that parents (having power over  their children) are less likely to have their children’s best interest in mind and heart than most strangers. Most people abuse power when power is available to them, and parents are no exception. Becoming a parent is the most common way- for the masses- to gain power. No wonder it is abused so much.

Abusing parental power is the opposite of having the children’s best interest in mind and heart. The thing with strangers who do not have power over you, is that they have no power to abuse; so, they are more likely to have your best interest in mind and heart.

anita