I thought it would be extremely rude if I kept parents in Chapter 140. Just kidding, I won't have a Chapter 140. Or I hope not. I don't think I have that much to share... Or will I?
*Siri, play Phantom of the Opera - Overture*
My parents are the best parents in the world.
^ says every kid ever.
Do they all really mean it or is it just something we have to say because they are our parents? Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my parents and I am so grateful for everything that they have done for me. But there have been times when you sit back and think, holy crap what are they doing? It's okay. I have those moments too.
So my parents are pretty cool. Considering that I am a millennial child, I could have had it way worse so thank God for cool parents. Questions popping up in both your brain and mine.. Why did she bring up millennial? What does that have to do with anything? I'm glad we both asked the same question. Mostly because we need to understand how different we are from our parents and the best way I can think to distinguish our differences is the generation gap to be able to truly understand how blessed we are as children.
Let me show you some research I did by typing in Baby Boomers vs. Millennials into Google. Trust me, this is a reliable source as it is not from Wikipedia. I clicked on a PDF file instead of Wikipedia because that seemed more reliable. Also it is from wmfc.org, it had .org in the end so it's definitely legit.
I'm adding the link to this in case anyone is interested to read in detail but I will summarize my amazing research below.
http://www.wmfc.org/uploads/GenerationalDifferencesChart.pdf
Those born between 1946 to 1964 are known as Baby Boomers aka our parents. Those born between 1981 and 2000 are known as Millennials aka us.
So our grandparents, they had experienced hard times while growing up. Which is why they wanted to make sure that their children (our parents) had everything they needed while growing up but also suffer a little bit because they had experienced hard times in their past. This is why our parents are they way they are with us.
One of the core values that our parents were brought up with was 'anything is possible'...
Oh sweet millennial of mine, do you now understand even more why they are the way they are? Why haven't you gotten straight As? What do you mean you failed in class? How do you not understand advanced mathematics? Anything is possible was their value, that was a core motivator for them to get things done but unfortunately anything is not possible. Funnily, another core value was 'question everything' but I already covered that with the questions above.
However, for humor purposes, here are a little more. Where are you going? Who is going to be there? How are you getting there? What will you be doing? When are you coming back home? Why do you have to go?
Our parents family experience was more of 'mom stayed at home' and 'children are special'. Which is why when women work nowadays, it is seen as something groundbreaking in either a positive or negative way, depending on the cultural background of the family. But that's a whole different story that I don't think I want to write about so sorry. They have not witnessed working women as much as we have, so to them, the idea that a woman has to work is close to bonkers.
Additionally, they were part of the era that had the highest divorce rate and most second marriages in history. All my desi females, can we get an 'OMG this makes so much more sense'?
They are from the generation that will make sure that their children are taught so much about marriage that they never get close to the words 'divorce' or 'second marriage'.
On the other hand, when you look at us, we came in an age of digital media, we grew up more sheltered than any other generation as our parents do anything to protect us. Our core values are being confident, tolerating things and having fun. We are independent people and extremely ambitious.
This all sounds so positive right? Wrong.
We are all those things but we are not entirely focused. That's because we were never taught to be entirely focused on one thing. We need direction to be able to achieve the goal.
Yes, we are independent, confident and ambitious. If you give us something to do, we will overachieve and get it done. But we are never really taught how to get from point A to point Z in a step by step guide. We're kind of just told to do C, S, L, J, K, in that particular order and then out of nowhere the project is completed and we're onto the next one.
Does that make sense?
Is it just me?
Okay then. *cries in a messed up order because I might be doing that wrong too*.
Our family experience is more of having merged families and meeting with the Father's second cousins children's pet animal. It's a whole situation. Also the type of children we are, according to my amazing research article - we're coddled kids. We're massively spoilt. We as in you and me, not just me. How dare someone say, "Oh Sara, you're an only child, you must be so spoilt". All you millennial children got what you wanted, when you wanted, at the drop of a tear in the middle of a toy store. You know why? Because your parents love you just as much as my parents love me. So stop it with the "Sara must have been so spoilt". We're all spoilt brats in one way or another.
Now, about my parents. They are absolute gems. They love everyone.
You know when Justin Bieber sang "my Mama don't like you and she likes everyone". That's Mama Haseeb. She loves everyone and everything. In her world, no one can do anyone any type of harm because all people are good people that are serving their time in the world and will reunite with everyone in Heaven.
Baba Haseeb is a little more realistic, but he would never openly hate on anyone. He will just make sarcastic remarks if required but nothing too intense. Just to clarify, he has never expressed hatred towards anyone, ever. These sarcastic remarks would be for someone on the television who has said something that he does not agree with.
Basically, my parents are anger-less happy souls.
They are very protective of me, as any parents would be for their child. They worry about me too much, they would call me minimum 2 times a day while I am not at home and majority of the time, the conversation that we would have would be one of the following:
1. Have you eaten?
2. When will you eat?
3. What will you eat? Fruit is not lunch.
4. When will you come home?
My parents have done a lot for me and spent A LOT on me. "Oh see, we told you Sara is spoilt". Shut up, let me finish. They have spent A LOT on me on my education. You know, considering that they are Baby Boomers and think anything is possible and children are special. They thought it would be great if we gave Sara the best of the best education so that it would be possible for me to follow Baba Haseeb's path and make Mama Haseeb proud. But does that happen? Stay tuned to find out (or not, if I forget to write about what my fathers path was, what I ended up doing, what I'm doing now).
The theme of my blog is starting to take form, it's more about me talking about topics with all my other personalities. Hope you're enjoying reading this as much as I'm enjoying writing it.
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