During this week we spoke a little about how our relationship with our parents reflects the type of lifestyle we live. Confucius stressed that we should love our parents out of abstract duty. Ultimately meaning that if we love ourselves, we should love our parents. We also spoke of the ideology of the fact that growing matures us as well as our parents. The professor brought up the point “The child is the parent of the parent.” Ultimately meaning maturity is obtained through parenting. This made me begin to reflect on my life. I was very self dependant at an early age and many times wondered why my parents didn't care about me. Today I appreciate these things they made me go through. But I always wonder, because we live in a society where primarily everything is handed to the next generation, will this enablement handicap us for future development?
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I feel as if I was brought up very independently and that my parents didn't care much about me as well. Its interesting though because when we were discussing this in class I percieved it as that because my parents didn't really give me anything other than life I didn't have anything for them to thank them for for the person whom I had become whom I like very much.
ReplyDeleteI don't think its true that things are being handed to the next generation. Everyone still goes through struggles and problems even if they aren't the same or don't seem as severe as the ones we had when we were growing up or our parents were growing up. So I think everyone will turn out just fine.
I agree with Samantha, I like myself, and it was no thanks to parents. In some weird, backwards way you can say that, that had influence on me down the road, but I learned to be who I am by myself and with the people I chose to be around. Not the people I was cosmically placed with.
ReplyDeleteI believe that generally we as a society are becoming a very entitled people. I believe this may have to do with how a parent raises a child, but I also think that it has a lot to do with the further development of technology. And how technology makes us impatient and lessens our need to think critically about things.
Just a qualification: I don't think Confucius is suggesting we love/worship our parents out of abstract duty. Rather, duty demands that we craft our relation to our parents as a holy ceremony -- and remember, there is no ceremony if you're just going through the motions: your heart has to be in it, and the ceremony well-learned and practiced, or it means nothing.
ReplyDeleteJust as a child should love their parents "out of abstract duty" I think parents should also be held to that same standard. This child-parent love should work both ways. The parent and the child are bound together forever and the parent should feel that it is their duty to love, and respect, that bond. Neglectful and abusive parents don't deserve this abstract love from their child, because it is clear that they don't respect the child enough to care about them and their well being. It is a powerful bond that works both ways.
ReplyDeleteAs he said in class "the child is the parent of the parent". I believe this to be very true not only because of the childhood I grew up in, but because I will eventually have to care for my parents. No matter what it is that we have experienced in our childhoods, we learn and grow from it. As we mature, so do our parents. Learning from parents is not only a one-way street. It is mutual as we learn from our parents and they learn from us.
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