We cannot escape from our parents. Today this piece came out of a certain A's story. That friend is influenced by their parents in many respects. About those influences, A sometimes feels positive and sometimes negative. Above all, A now feels themselves to be an 'adult'. But the parents, while thinking of A as an adult, find it hard to accept that in the circuitry of their hearts. That's because what they see is the A of the past, not the present A. We often see not 'someone as they are right now', but the span of time we've watched that someone through. More often we see something like an encyclopedia or a video that has recorded that someone up to now. In that sense, all parents are the only ones who remember the documentary of their children from the past to the present—rather than seeing them as 'someone in the present'—so they are meaningful and at the same time a burden to the child. Because the present child is the same as, yet different from, the past.
Everyone, at some point, becomes independent from their parents. Of course, these days there are cases of not becoming independent, but in many cases people do. When becoming independent, what matters falls broadly into two parts. One is the 'financial' independence we know well. We always tend to think of independence in this respect first. As another independence just as important as this 'financial independence', I often mention 'emotional independence'. A child who isn't emotionally independent from their parents, and parents who still keep their child's thinking within their embrace, are bound to have conflict even if they become financially independent. Because emotional independence is less complete.
Often I tell people that the 'one with more room to spare' should give. When do I usually say this? I say it when the one who can understand should extend 'understanding' toward the one who needs to be understood. A person with a certain experience can understand and empathize with someone newly going through that experience. If that's impossible, then it can't be helped, but usually those who've lived more of life have a greater likelihood of such empathy. In love, in marriage, and in the parent-child relationship too, the side that has had more conflict finds it easier to understand the conflict of the side that has had less. Regarding the 'independence' I mentioned above as well, the side that became independent first can empathize at least a little with the problems of a household now becoming independent. As the line in Tolstoy's novel goes, happy families resemble one another, while unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way, perhaps.
When you're with someone who isn't emotionally independent, everything tends to be decided after consulting with 'their parents'. I don't say this is wrong, but I do say it isn't self-directed. Because for someone around my age, I feel it's about time to start grappling with 'self-determination'. It's an age at which, legally and socially, 'responsibility' has become something I have to bear. In that sense, I think emotional independence is even more important than financial independence. Because the parents' decisions can't take responsibility for my reality. We must not forget that, to some degree, my own decisions are all involved in it too.
I'd like to say a word to the many who haven't yet become independent. Your life is not your parents', but yours. While parents have the duty to raise you, they don't have the right to tailor even your thoughts. They have the right to educate your thinking, but never forget that whether to accept that education and put it into practice is, to some degree, within your power too. The 'me' under my parents is also 'me', but only when a person steps forward not as a 'me' defined by someone else but simply as 'oneself' can that person become truly independent.
In that sense, I wonder whether I'm truly understanding others' conflicts on the basis of the many things I experienced first. My mother sometimes says that while she's grown used to my absence, she still feels that empty space after I've visited home and left—and while I understand that feeling, on the other hand I tend to accept it as the unavoidable flow of time. Because that, in the end, is the process of growing up, the process of becoming an adult, and the process of stepping out of one's parents' embrace to exist as a whole 'me'.
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