Overprotected?

There are days when we feel overprotected and overcontrolled and there are also days where we overprotect and overcontrol others. Right from the days when we are kids and our parents do not allow us to play till late at night or watch TV, especially late in the night, we are exposed to this feeling of being 'Overprotected.' But as we grow up, our parents start diluting their control over us and try to give us more and more room and in fact encourage us to make our own decisions in life. During our teenage, our parents mellow down by our reluctance to listen to them which forces them to change according to our wishes, for the heart they have for us  But we have our own "WORLD" by then, which does not involve much of our parents. They still advise us when they feel that we are going to fall and the fall is going to be grave. In other cases they let us fall and learn from our own experience. And how well they do it! They adapt so well to our growing up and readily give up the authority which they have been so used to, and which in a way played a major role in our shaping up.

A few days back when I was having a quiet dinner with my mom, along with a little chat, which is becoming rarer by day, she happened to say that she knows there are few things in the back of my mind which I regret like not performing up to my capacities in the exams especially during graduation and CA-inter. Normally I am very reluctant to admit that I regret something. I like to think that whatever I did is right and I do not have any regrets about it. But on that occasion i couldn't deny it. I just smiled at her. Today finally when I have got some time to think about it, I realise how well she knows me despite the fact that we do not talk as much as we used to and I cannot open up in front of her like I used to before. Well guess what, I don't have to. She knows me perhaps better than I know myself. And for the very first time, after a long time I am missing her "Overprotection." How I wish I was a kid again!!! 

I now realise that its not their nature but our perception that has changed over the period. Now, we  consider their care and concern for us as an intrusion in our superficially important "Private Space." There are few parents who really are controlling. They might have their reasons but they are not helping their cause by imposing their decisions on their children. But we need to realise that our parents are humans after all and they are equally prone to making mistakes as any of us. After all we are going to end up in their shoes sooner or later.