I don’t spend a lot of quality time with my parents too often, but after listening to one of my friends tell me that he spends hours most weekends hanging out and having pleasing conversations with his parents, it made me feel bad that my relationship with my parents wasn’t as fulfilling. And, I felt that maybe I should place more effort into trying to build a quality relationship with my mom.
After sitting for about 30 minutes talking to my mom in the kitchen this morning, I realized why our relationship is the way it is 🙂 . However, I do feel that I could have a great relationship with her; it’s just that I will have to make a huge sacrifice. I will have to sacrifice my feelings, especially since it’s very few topics worth talking about that we share common feelings. Plus I feel she makes a sincere effort in most of our conversations to constantly criticize how I live my life, what decisions I choose to make, and lecture me about stuff that has no application to my life. Which by the way, makes the conversations we do have more formal, and less chill and informal.
I remember hearing a message from John Osteen where he basically said that, “Being right all the time isn’t always a good thing. Love sometimes means that you have to allow people to be wrong, and support them still.” Now, I love my mom. But, she is very formal in so many ways with me, I guess she’s still trying to teach me about life. And, I feel I have to sacrifice so much just to have a chill dialogue with her.
Now I totally understand that we all need people in our lives that hold us accountable, rebuke us if we are at fault, and who don’t agree with everything we do. I just wish my parents would ask me questions like: Jason, what makes you happy? What can I do to make you happy? How can I support your dreams?. Instead of questions like: Why can’t you find a wife? Are you gay? Do you want to live a stable lifestyle?
I may never have the relationship with my mom or dad that I wished for, but I promise that I will do my best to have the best relationship with my kids when the time comes. Quality time is one of my love languages, and engaging in quality conversations and being around people I love makes me happy.