Parents - what do we owe them?

Parents, what do we owe them?
This episode is inspired by questions from our listeners who noticed that their relationship
with parents reflects on their relationship with work colleagues due to learnt behaviours.
And it's Yuen.
And Mike, welcome to The Imperfect Clinician.
Have you been influenced by parents?
Definitely yes.
I think parents are one of the major influences on children.
They've got multiple functions, I guess.
They are an authority when you're much younger.
They are a source of knowledge and inspiration because what we see, we learn, and we desperately
want to be them.
And I think when we arrive in our teen years, we start to develop our own voice that can
often be suppressed by parents.
So I wonder when you were younger, do your parents trust your choices?
And if they do or they don't, how does it change you now?
Does it mould you?
Yeah, that's very true that when you're a child, the only thing you know is the parents
or guardians, you know, whoever's looking after you.
Sometimes it's somebody who may not be directly directed with you.
Could be a stepdad, stepfamily in general, grandparents, whoever is there right next
to you is the biggest authority for you.
And I remember, I think we went for a swimming lesson and one of the teachers said, it doesn't
matter how you sing, as a parent, you'll always be the best singer for a child.
So at least keep trying, keep going.
And I think that was something that made me realize that actually the power over children
is absolutely huge and how you portray yourself and nobody's perfect.
I mean, we all make mistakes.
We all have far lives that we make weird choices or, you know, or things that our children
see that are not perfect or sometimes things just happen and they have to, they have no,
nothing else to compare.
The comparison starts later at school, probably where they are exposed to others over a prolonged
period of time.
And I think that in my case, I think it's a story of two tales in general because my
mom approached the things a little bit different than my dad, but I think at this early ages,
my parents were more guiding rather than forbidding in that respect.
So not dictating, although there were the rules that were set had to be obeyed.
The boundaries, you know, there were some, I think, safety nets sometimes that were due
to the obvious danger that the kid can go into, but sometimes they were because how
things are supposed to be.
And you, I think at early ages, you are taught not to question the parents.
And then when you get a little bit older, you start to develop your own brain because
you start to develop some sort of experiences and you've seen your peers, you've seen other
children you've been exposed to a bit wider world.
And all of a sudden you start to question those, some of the decisions of your parents,
they still are your authority in a way.
And the point of reference more than anything.
I mean, I now being a grownup will dispute the fact whether you need authority in general,
whether you can be an authority for yourself, but then I would like to say that your parents
are the point of reference.
It's like, I don't know, you cook, your mom cooks a soup at home and you're always going
to recognize its smell and you go to somebody else's home and they're going to make the
same soup, but the smell is going to be different.
So you, your point of reference is your forming years of your childhood and your early youth.
So you said your parents trust your choices or partially, would you say one parent does
and one parent not as much and do you have to switch between two different environment?
No, I think, I don't know.
It depends a bit on the setting, I guess.
At home, I think we spend most of the time with my mom, especially after my parents divorced.
Obviously that was where we came back home and that's where our home where we slept was.
Do you know what I mean?
I spent a lot of time with my dad later on when we were working together or, you know,
in a business life in January, just spent a lot of time with, I did spend a lot of time
with my dad, but at home, my mom was setting the rules.
I think she was quite understanding and quite trusted our judgements.
We, I think she was trying to agree things with us, with me and my sister.
And I don't think she appreciated when we were trying to bend those rules and she thought
that if we agreed to the rules, we should stick to it.
So come in, depending on the time when we agreed to come back home, depending on the
time when we were agreed to do homework.
And I wasn't a disobedient child, not by any means.
I think that started in my adult life, maybe a bit before that.
But I think that in my early years, I was quite calm and uneventful young man.
And how about yourself?
I think for me, it's a yes and no when you say whether my parents trust my choices.
So I started with, you can't, you have to listen to me because I am more experienced
or there is a saying that eat more salt than you eat rice.
So you have to listen to me because I've done, I've done my time in life.
But then there are, this switches to you are the oldest of the siblings.
So you have to take on extra responsibilities and it's not a two-way street.
So it's not a, as the eldest one, you take care of your younger siblings, but the younger
siblings don't have to take care of the older sibling.
So it's more because you're being put in that position.
There's greater expectations from the older.
I was the oldest as well.
So that's similar.
And so it was quite, I guess, confusing for me when I was younger, when I have to make
that switch to, why do I have to listen to you all the time?
Even though you've gone through it, it's not the same experience as me.
But also when you put in that box, when your role in the family is defined, she's the
eldest, she knows what to do.
She knows all of the answer.
We don't have to worry about her.
Doesn't that leave you a little bit more freedom?
In some cases, more freedom, but also it makes it harder for me to break that role that's
defined for me.
So it makes it harder for me to ask the questions.
If I'm worried, it makes it hard to show, I guess, weakness because I am the eldest.
So I have to know it.
I have to be able to lead.
I have to be responsible.
I cannot not be because that's the role of the eldest.
And so I find it very hard to break that mole and can find it quite suffocating at times
because I didn't know how to communicate that across.
Okay.
So based on early years, I was thinking because now we have children and they are very young
and on your experience, what do you think that do?
Should we make an effort in or allow our children to make more independent decisions?
Of course, within the safety boundaries and the safety netting around it.
But should we put more choices for our children to do quite early on so they get experience
in making choices?
In order for me to answer that question, then I would like to understand because you were
given that choice when you were growing up, did it help with your decision-making process now?
Did it give you more practice?
I don't know about practice, but what I'm pretty sure is that quite early on, you start to
develop your own brain.
You start to assess events around you independently within the remit of what you are as a child.
And because the thing is, as a young child where you can't leave the child completely
with the consequences of the choices because very often they're not resilient enough.
They don't have the resilience that you gained later on in life through your experience.
So I think that you should encourage decisions as young as possible, I think.
I think that it allows them to create their own idea of things that they like, but also
idea of things that can benefit them, can be also considered as, for example, kind if
they see that there is approval to the decision by others.
So the impact on others is positive.
I think they're more likely to remember that if you take this decision process away from
your children, then you're risking that they're not going to develop their own way of assessing
the world.
I think it's simple things, even like, you know, to put the right clothes.
I mean, who are we to decide what they might feel comfortable in?
It doesn't really impact us for our pleasure just to make sure that the child wears what
we want them to wear.
If we want them to wear, to choose from what they wear, we buy them clothes and they have
to pick amongst those, but let them pick what they like.
Then I think what you mentioned about freedom earlier on for me, I think for me benefited
in my risk assessment skills because I was given in some ways opportunities to make mistakes.
And four, I was able to have that confidence to look at things around me and think, right,
what's going to be best for me?
But there are also situations where, because I'm in my teens, my brain's not working greatly
because it's still forming, so hormones take over and I don't make great decisions, but
I also get to learn from it.
So I think having the freedom or the space actually helps me to grow because I am going
into unchartered territories without someone who is micromanaging or constantly trying
to hover.
I agree, and I think that we started doing
something with our children where we started, it was a bit of a jumpstart during pandemics
because there was no opportunity for them to use that skill.
But then we restarted it a while ago.
We give our little kids a pound a week for them to spend on whatever they like.
They can save up, they can, you know, we explain how the money works, roughly, okay, that you
have to pay for things, that some things are dearer than others, and sometimes you have
to make an effort in order to save up for something bigger, or you can do whatever you
like with it.
And we're just now observing how they are learning from that piece of independence because
we do not interfere on how they spend.
They want to spend it on sweets, fair enough, they're not going to get any sweets from us.
If they want to spend it on toys, books, whatever, it's entirely up to them.
And I think this is the beginning of making an independent decision.
I think there's also one more thing.
We don't condition this salary or weekly wages on the performance.
This is something for them that is independent from anything else.
This is for them to start to organise their planning of the finances quite early in the
childhood.
And then I hope that it's going to benefit them in that respect, that they'll be able
to make more conscious and savvy decisions later on when they have got more money to
spend.
You know, they will understand the consequence of it.
If you buy yourself sweets, you can't buy something else.
And I think that this is quite important to understand.
Based on the decisions that we as parents want to take on our children's behalf, I think
we all and all parents want happiness for the children and all parents think they know
how to get it.
I think to some extent, but I feel based on observation, a lot of these aren't driven
by fears from parents, whether it's some level of risk aversion or pain avoidance.
So I wanted to take this opportunity to ask you, not just Mike, but you, the listener,
how are you now as an adult in dealing with your own fear and pain and how much of those
are learnt behaviours?
And if you have any learnt behaviours or you've made efforts to do it differently, share in
the comments below.
Yeah, I think that there is one more thing, one more aspect of parenting and their affecting
the children is that there is a risk of unfulfilled parents' opportunities that is talking through
their actions to, I don't know, convince, order, let children to follow their dreams,
their parents' dreams, and that feels like they like spoon feeding them to children.
So right, you have to go to that house, you have to go to become a doctor or a solicitor
or whatever, and they look this rational head that this is going to benefit you in the future,
because even if you don't enjoy it, you're still going to have a decent life.
It's just the fear then of either losing out, whether it's a hobby that they couldn't pursue,
they want their child or children to do so.
Or the career that they think that's going to provide the safety to do, to have a decent
life.
So that's the risk aversion that was mentioned previously, because as parents, you want minimal
risk to your child just to make sure that they thrive better than you were.
So I think it's only fair to say that in adulthood, we continue to strive to fulfil the
desires that we developed in childhood.
So what should we be grateful for, for our parents, and what do we know we can do better?
I think, well, it is a very individual question, and I want to say that I quite early decided
on what I want to do in life, and it wasn't really affected by my parents.
I mean, pharmacy was a family business, and I decided that I want to be a pharmacist,
not I want to believe, I'm leading myself to believe that it wasn't a decision, it wasn't
a family decision because I decided to become a pharmacist much earlier.
I came across a genuinely amazing tutor who told me a few things about the pharmacy world
and how exciting it was, and I think I owe to him that I made quite early a decision
to become a pharmacist before there was a time for parents to influence, because usually
this influencing starts around mid high school, I want to say, I'm going to put a point on
it in mid high school.
So the timing is quite important then in your case, because the interference or the chatter
around you didn't start until after you've made your decision.
So yeah, and I think that this was, of course, I think it was in line with what my parents
thought would be good for me, because obviously it was a family business and all that.
So they didn't have to do it, and I think it was quite a relief for them in a way that
I want to pursue something that would be a good thing to do in the future and is going
to be in line with the family business.
I mean, the world turned itself upside down.
I went, I decided to move to a different country and there were some other decisions that happened
since then.
But I think that by being exposed to other people, not necessarily only your parents,
by being shown another example, that has a great impact.
I think it's a bit like with an impact of music.
Our music tastes are formed when we are 13, 14 years old, and that's sort of hardly ever
for majority of people, hardly ever shifts to something different.
And this is the time when if you start making decisions for yourself and you are supported
in that, because I was very lucky because it was in line with my parents' idea.
I think I was supported with it, but I can see and I speak to a lot of clinicians and
a lot of grownups, adults that did it to please their parents to, well, follow the brain rather
than the feelings.
You know, they wanted to play trombone, but they decided to become a solicitors because
that was safer, that was less passionate, but that's something that may affect their
future life to provide them a decent life.
I mean, being a trombone player, I could imagine that it can be absolutely fascinating, but
may not always mean enormous success, you know, financial.
And how about yourself?
Where was your decision-making process affected and how was it followed through by your parents?
So every time when I've made the inverted commas, right decision, it has always been
followed with praises and exhibition of love, whether it's verbally or physically.
So then I see that it becomes, I perceived that as a conditional love, or in some ways
it can be performative because I get the praise after I've performed well.
So I had to unlearn and relearn the definition in my head where achievement is equivalent
to self-worth.
So if I do well, I am better.
If I don't do well, I am not worthy.
That still crops up from time to time, but when I am having the practice to ensure that
it's separate and not used to shaming language on myself, it is helpful when I can see the
distance, no matter how well I achieve, I don't know, job career-wise.
It still doesn't define me as a person.
Similarly, if I have a very bad day, it still doesn't reflect on me as a person because
you mentioned earlier on about the, you don't want it to see as a reward when you mentioned
about the money for the children.
I think motivation or stroke reward and punishment, we've used this, or I want to say, these are
tools that I've been using in developing people because I guess it's quicker than actually
taking time to explain why you're doing it and taking time to understand why are you
not on board.
So how are we as parents and how are we as leaders, how do we empower and ultimately
trust our fellow clinicians and team members instead of using the reward and the punishment?
What do you think works based on your experience?
I think I'm not the best example of a person who would like to micromanage everything.
And I think leaving independence to others.
If you're working in a team, if you're working with others, you have to accept that people
can make choices different to your idea of the best choice for them would be.
And you have to suck it up.
I mean, live with it, you can guide, you can mentor, you can provide necessary data for
people to make a decision.
And ultimately, you have to work in the team with people who you trust to be peers to trust
to be on the same level as are you.
Because if you are feeling more important than others, that creates imbalance.
Now what happens when you're a leader, when you were leader of a team or a manager, then
there is a greater responsibility to provide right environment and right structure for
decision making, I think.
And this is the responsibility of the leader.
So you share the vision, you show the purpose, but you don't necessarily micromanage every
single thing that is happening around you because you are working with independent people.
So I think then it would be a great opportunity for us to reflect on relationships at work
based on your upbringing.
So there can be external validation.
So where people are constantly people pleasing because they are so afraid of facing disappointment
Is that because there were parents pleasing in the past?
Maybe.
And or their parents are people pleasers too, because there is some level of conflict avoidance
or risk aversion.
So they can be as an example?
Yes.
Okay.
So I think I'll either be example or they approving your decisions by, well, you are
externally validated by your parents and they say, Oh yeah, that is good.
So there's like a positive.
Yeah.
And it's a trait that you take with you no matter where you go, whether it's work, whether
it's social life or the other way around.
S if you don't have the people pleasing side of it, you constantly trying to prove someone
wrong.
So you take comments very personally, I guess, because it's more of the emotional regulation.
So how you take things personally and how you react to it.
Okay.
So what is the ideal way to encourage a team then?
So I think exploring what individual people on the team or big teams, what are their reward
feedback in their brain?
So some people I find take praise minimally or reject it because of various factors.
Sometimes they don't think they're worthy of the praise.
And while they're doing that, they take rejection or criticism deeply.
So when I observe that, I am trying to adapt feedback or communication to that particular
person or particular group of people.
I think a lot of these can also be quite emotionally draining, especially when you
are in the process of learning to set your own boundaries.
So you have, it's for me, I think it's important to say what's okay and what's not okay.
And where does the link between this way of feedback or, you know, managing or leading
the team, feed in with setting goals and targets because that's sort of external validation
to some extent as well, reaching the target or achieving the goal.
I prefer to do a little bit differently.
So I want to understand what drives people because if I don't, a generalized statement
can be received differently.
And I know each person will have their own different drivers, different values.
And when I do this as a team activity, everyone actually have sight of what is important for
each person.
And as a whole, the team then improves understanding of each other.
The relationship improves.
I've noticed that it really empowers them to support each other.
When I do that, I set purpose for the team instead of, I should say, I set goals, but
then we're working towards the bigger purpose.
So we have shared values and shared purpose and goals are just the steps of getting there.
The goals don't define the team.
So it's like the money is not the ultimate prize in life.
It's just what you can do with the money.
Exactly.
Okay.
Okay.
And I want to go back at that point because we discussed the dynamics and the team and
discussed the childhood.
So going back to our initial question, what do we owe the parents?
In my opinion, we owe them the view of the world because we look through the lens for
a very long time and we should be encouraged to also challenge this view.
I think the biggest lesson that you can get from a parent is not to teach them how to
read is to question what they read.
The critical thinking.
Whatever it is, to get the critical thinking because parents can be wrong and I want to
set a different example for my children and I shouldn't be, I shouldn't have thought of
myself as a bad parent if the feedback from my children is negative when I'm doing something
that's not really benefiting me, family or people around me.
The same thing at work, I guess if you receive a negative feedback, learning to not take
it personally and take it as a learning opportunity, not just for yourself, but for the whole team
because for them to be able to have the courage to say that to you, it must mean that you've
created an environment where they feel safe to bring it up.
Absolutely, 100%.
I think that the parents have a huge impact on our lives, but do you think that you achieve
things because of your parents or do you think you would have achieved more if you listen
to them more or less?
I think…
Because that's the ultimate decision.
Should we, I don't know, so far, have you trusted your parents to the degree they would
say, right, I've made the right choices in life because of my parents or despite of my
parents, so trying to work against my parents?
Can I say both?
Because whatever that they have done, I want to say not just my parents, but all parents,
speaking as a parent myself, we always do it from the best of intention.
Yeah, I wouldn't say that we should assume bad intention in some parents.
And I think that helps because that makes me feel grateful for what I have and what
I have missed.
That is my own journey to find out and to understand because, like us, our parents have
their own baggage, baggages, fears to address.
And it might be that when they were having me, they were not given the time and the capacity
to do that, which means it's then down to me, to some extent, to break the cycle when
I have the awareness.
And when I work on it, I'm hoping to break some part of the cycle and not pass it on,
not just to my children, but to people around me because it's a ripple effect.
You can't just say how I am as a child, have no impact whatsoever on me as a clinician.
I think that is quite an impossible thing to say from my own observation.
So yeah, both.
I listen to them when I want to do and a lot of the times I paved my own way and it got
me to where I am.
Based on this, would you prefer to have been more challenged by your parents to challenge
your decisions or would you prefer them to completely let go and I wouldn't say don't
care, but just fully embrace your decisions?
I don't think that would have changed how I made that choice anyway.
Because when I was doing all those decisions, when my parents disagree, I was in a rebellious
stage.
Remember when I say I was in a box and I was trying to get out?
That was my way of rebelling that I don't want to be in the box anymore.
Whether you embrace it or you question it, I just don't want to be in it anymore.
Based on my own experience, I think that I value independent decision and integrity
in making your own decisions.
I think it's the most important thing that everybody should have, that you have got the
right knowledge, that you have knowledge to make your own decisions.
But I do sometimes wonder, what if I listened more?
What if I listened less and where would it take me?
I do not regret anything that happened in my life, but I know that there are some regrets
or there were some regrets for my dad because he always said that I'm not going to achieve
anything and he would probably...
He supported me to become a pharmacist because that would provide me a decent job, but based
on his experience, he wanted me to get into business.
Those things are not always that possible to go together at the same time because you
have only limited capacity for one thing or another, so either commit to one or the other.
And there are some people who are more keen to do things in business and there are some
people that are more keen to become, I don't know, a professional or whatever, musician,
whatever they want to be.
And I think that I could have ended up differently, but I think I'm trying to stay very humble
and I'm very happy with how things worked out and I'm very appreciative and very grateful
for what's happened to me so far.
I'm still alive and kicking, I have a beautiful family, I'm happy and I think this is the
value.
No matter what route you start on with or you set off, as long as you develop some critical
thinking, which should be ideally stimulated by parents and people around you, but if it's
not then I'm pretty sure that in life you will be challenged and you will have to make
those choices at some stage that ultimately should provide you with the desired outcome
or if you don't get the desired outcome, you're going to achieve the outcome that you will
start to appreciate because you don't know whether it will be a happy choice for you
to become more successful, for example.
I think that this is quite an important thing to appreciate.
And I think, you know, when I say I've accepted where I am now and my past, I hope people
don't think this is an easy process.
I know some of you are still struggling to reconcile the difference, struggling to come
face to face with the pain that has been inflicted and how that changed you as a person,
as a clinician, as a friend.
And it is going to be a difficult journey, however you can always seek help.
You can listen to us, you can speak to a therapist, you can speak to a counsellor.
There are so many sounding boards around you, as long as you take the courage to ask,
take the first step to come face to face with the pain, then it will be worth it in the end.
I'm pretty sure it would be.
And I'm pretty sure that when I'm looking at my choices in life, I want to say that
some of them were good, bad, and we all make mistakes in life and we have only one life,
so we have to make most of them.
But I want to say that most choices, all the choices that I made were the best at the time
when I was making them.
They led me to where I am now, but I made at the time the best choices with the information,
with the world around me and the environment for me.
You always try to make sure that you make the best decisions, whether they are influenced
or not influenced, there's only yourself too late to live with those.
So I think it's important to be proud of what you've achieved.
And that's probably the reason why I never say that I'm proud for somebody else.
I can't be proud for somebody else's achievement.
I can't be proud because I'm tall.
I can't be proud because I'm from a certain country.
I can't be proud.
You know, these are the things that made up my genome.
There's only one I have.
I can be only proud with what I have achieved and I can only be appreciative and appreciate
the fact of what I have seen and done in my life.
So the ultimate question this time at the pretty much end of this episode is, would
you have done better in life if you listened to your parents?
There is also a second ultimate question.
Would you have done better in life if you have not listened to your parents?
Let us know in the comments below.
Have a think.
Until next time, it's about time for Yuen Reads.
Welcome to the segment of Yuen Reads.
This is called from scratch by Tembi Locke.
Um, this is a Netflix series.
I heard about it from Netflix, but I thought I would like to read it first before I explore
watching it.
Oh, and it made me cry, it made me laugh, it made my heart melt.
I haven't come across a book that made me feel so much all at the same time and it felt
quite cathartic actually.
Really highlights the difference in different generation, different race, different culture,
and the food in it, oh my goodness.
If you are a food lover and you like to read things about food, please.
And it talks about three different generations, Tembi's daughter, and then her mother-in-law,
and the whole culture, and the grief, oh, I won't tell you a lot more than that, but
it was the grief that made me cry, but made me cry because they had such a good thing
together and then he had cancer.
So it's having a glimpse into grief of somebody and how it requires community and food to
slowly let Tembi adapt, because you'll never recover from grief, but adapt and in doing
so allowed her mother-in-law and her daughter to come together cross-culturally.
Yeah, it's a love story, but it's enjoying, definitely, especially if you need a cry.
This book will do it easy-peasy for you.
Thank you.
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