So I've been reading this book about self-esteem, The Psychology of Self-Esteem, and I just finished a portion about emotional maturity. In one particular passage, the author, Nathaniel Branden, essentially says that kids believe that there are things that are unknowable until they're adults. The exact passage is: "To a child, the world around him is - necessarily - an immense unknown. He is aware that adults possess knowledge far in excess of his own and that there are many things his is not yet able to understand."
This book has been all about reason, conceptualization, and, most importantly, integration, and so I find it perfectly appropriate that my immediate response to that line was to start singing in Olaf's voice, "When you're older, absolutely everything makes sense!"
Questionably funny anecdote aside, this actually bring me back to something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I've been spending some time on Reddit lately, and a few of the subs I interact with regularly are about parenting, as I have a small child. It's finally helped me to realize a few really important things that just clicked really in my head this week.
You ever hear the saying, "Kill your heroes"? I've heard it before, and I had a vague notion of what it meant, but never fully understood until yesterday. You see, as a kid, I had an expectation of my parents that I now understand was outside the realm of reality. I thought they knew everything, could do anything, and, most importantly, would always be there for me. As a teenager, I was disabused of those notions, but not in a way that made any sense. My parents didn't act the way I expected them to, but they were always just extensions of my own consciousness and when they "misbehaved" it was upsetting.
No, "kill your heroes" means that those heroes you're worshipping are human, too, and should be treated as such. We shouldn't worship another human being. They're just as flawed as we are.
Just this week I understood for the first time (fully understood, conceptualized, and integrated), that my parents are their own people whose actions are of their own volition and who have their own ideas, opinions, and flaws.
Parents aren't super heroes. They're not perfect, and they have motivations beyond the grasp of their children. I can't believe it took me till I was 31 to fully realize this, but I guess it took having a child to fully understand.
I guess Olaf was right. This all makes sense now that I'm older.
