In our daily lives, we have to deal with people who have power over us. These individuals can be our friends, family members, colleagues, as well as influential figures in society or industry. To serve their own interests, they may often railroad us into doing things that are out of sync with our dreams, goals and preferences. This pressure can be devastating for us because it can force us to lead a life that’s not aligned with our true calling.
Family pressure is one such example of psychological force exerted by people – in one’s circle – to further their own interests. Because of family pressure, one is often forced or manipulated into adopting a way of life that’s not of one’s choosing, getting stuck in an unsatisfying career, relationship or lifestyle. Parental pressure is the most potent form of family pressure because parents are the “heads” of the family and hold the greatest sway over our lives. Due to their roles as breadwinners and emotional pillars, they exercise enormous influence over their children’s life choices.
Their authority permeates every aspect of their children’s lives – lifestyle, education, careers, travel, friendship, finance and romance. Parental authority is difficult to challenge because it’s been firmly entrenched in the minds of people over centuries through various institutions. This social conditioning compels a person to seek their approval when making important life decisions. Should they refuse to support their child’s aspirations, denying them either funds or permission or both, or even simply voicing their disapproval, children tend to feel pressured to compromise on their original intent to win that approval, accompanied by guilt for not acquiescing.
Are your parents pressuring you into leading a life that’s not true to your calling?
The pursuit of meaning necessitates the cultivation of close relationships. But often, we end up shooting ourselves in the foot. For instance, after an argument, we tend to demonise the other person. We focus on our differences, rather than our similarities. These differences are the aspects of our identities that don’t match, whether they are values, opinions, aspirations, or lifestyles. Our minds magnify these identity differences and create emotional distance and barriers. While the walls that go up enable us to nurse our hurt egos in the short run, in the long run, these differences can cause permanent rifts in our most important relationships and prevent us from maintaining closeness with the other person. We might end up losing a crucial potential ally in our pursuit of meaning, as a result.
To turn this on its head, we should keep in mind that more than differences, we share similarities with our parents. Similarities of traditions, culture and genetics. In the heat of conflict, we are often unwilling to accept that we have anything in common with the other person. And even if we do, we don’t want to go looking for them in that tense moment. We feel that that is tantamount to endorsing the other person’s view over our own. Our egos cannot handle such a retreat from preconceptions.
This is especially true for parents and children. With the rapid democratization of technology and education around the world, children are more knowledgeable, skilled and socially conscious than their parents had been at their ages. By using the rich arsenal of tools, resources and connections at their disposal more effectively and dynamically than their parents, the values of children have become far more progressive, their interests more specialized, and their connections more global. Consequently, their identities have become more multifaceted. This divide has always existed between parents and children, but in this “turbo-polarised” age, the generation gap has become more pronounced than ever before.
In the lives of young people, the identity divide between them and their parents poses a huge obstacle to the pursuit of meaning for either party. This divide expresses itself most often in the form of parental pressure. Parents tend to direct their kids towards their own aspirations, that may belong to a different time and social context which are no longer suitable. Kids who succumb to this pressure, ultimately compromise on their true selves and experience a deep lack of fulfillment in the long run.
It isn’t easy for a parent to build a connection with a child who is suffering from parental pressure or a more deep-rooted psychological challenge. The first step for them is to be empathetic and listen without judgment. Children often reveal the source of their angst, only for parents to recognize that they had also experienced similar feelings at some point in their lives. Thereafter, an honest and heartfelt exchange can lead to the discovery of common ground. In this story, Birgitte connected with Freya on the pain of loss. Parents can make use of opportunities when they and their children are facing similar emotional challenges to forge bonds that could last a lifetime.
In the long run, the identity divide can be bridged if parents and children have an open conversation about the deeper facets of life such as sharing their hopes and dreams with one another. During this necessarily two-way exchange, both parties may realize that they want all the same things, just in different packaging. By sharing their aspirations, they also speak candidly about other personal aspects that have contributed to their identity-formation process – experiences, inspirations, passions, strengths, weaknesses and relationships. This promotes comfort and might even result in them giving the other loved one access to their warehouse of personal memories, which parents often aren’t able to do. It’s likely they both uncover many common threads in these vast, rich storehouses, to weave into a beautiful blanket that provides them with comfort, love, understanding and joy, especially when the going gets tough.
Excerpted with permission from Stress to Zest: Stories and Lessons for Personal Transformation, Aritra Sarkar, Penguin India.
