How to deal with parents blaming for your life choices?
I am an only child. Both my parents are fairly educated. I am from a lower middle class family.
Even though I have always been a meritorious and obedient student I was made feel not enough. Whenever I would take 2nd rank, my mom would beat me and warn me of sending to hostel. If I took 99/100 my dad would ask whom did you leave another mark for. So I studied, eventually it being my safe place. If I studied, I was loved my parents, would get recognised in school. The only expenditure my parents did on me was my college fee and my marriage (since I was not earning at that time). I opted for engineering merit seat since my family could not afford sending to a medical college (even if it was by merit).
Today I heard my father blaming me behind my back for not taking income certificate , otherwise we could get waiver on college fee.
Today I earn enough, at least enough for myself, my child’s and my parents’ future. I sponsor yearly trip to my parents, sometimes domestic, sometimes foreign. I am doing it not as a responsibility but by will. I want to show them the world and secure their future.
I felt bad when my father complained about my choice.
I do have a child now. Isn’t providing her health, education and other fundamentals my responsibility?
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Ignore what they think about you. Focus on your family and also fulfill your responsibility towards your parents no matter what they say. They are aging and in that time people create mess.
Well you are grown up enough and should be mature enough not to need any opinions on this, but anyway here it is:- Middle class and lower class parents in most parts of India are like this only (specially those from Tier 2-3 towns, or from more traditional regions).
They have struggled in their times, they have struggled with lack of money and resources, they are bound by specific kind of societal mindset. Many of them are toxic, abusive and controlling in nature. Most of them bring up their children and expect their children to be life-long obedient robots.
All that nature is drilled deep in their psyche. It is part of their whole being, and being in old age, they will not change. It is true with everyone, the more you grow, the less likely you are to change your mindset or life expectations.
So all that nature and behaviour is going to remain forever, will never change. You need to navigate around that. Bottomline, you can never make people happy all the time, specially parents- you can seldom make them happy, they will almost always find things to complain about.
One of my friend- highly talented- sacrificed his entire career to skip graduation and join job after 12th only (for lack of money and for need of money for sisters’ marriages), and yet his parents and siblings keep complaining to him.
So that’s how many Indian parents and families are, it is very common, they will never be happy, they will always find things to complain about. So just don’t try to bother so much about it. Just do what you think is right and needs to be done and ignore the rest.