Meet the Parents

A STORY BEST TOLD IN THREE PARTS

34 To call this a journey of enlightenment feels a little hyperbolic. It is as if I am equating my personal relationship with my parents to the age of new ideas and philosophical movements that dominated the 18th century. But I’m not talking about Enlightenment with a capital ‘E’. When written in all lowercase, enlightenment is really just the ‘full comprehension of a situation.’ This is the story of how I came to fully comprehend my parents. So, in a way, it really is a journey of enlightenment.

Part I: My Parental God Complex

Part I starts with my childhood. This is where I thought I knew my parents, and how I thought I would continue to know them for the rest of my life.

I was one of the lucky ones, really. I had an entirely uneventful childhood. I quietly and contently accepted every word my parents said as gospel. After all, no one knew better than they did, right?

As a child, I couldn’t (or maybe didn’t want to) distinguish between my parents and the stable home they had given me. As far as I was concerned, they were my stable home. They were the pillars that supported not only my childhood, but my entire worldview.

To be clear, my parents never presented themselves as having all the answers, but the thing you need to understand about me is that I wanted to believe that they did. I love routine, I adore predictability and I thrive on structure.

The best way to maintain structure is with authority, and my parents were the obvious choice. Growing up in a religious household only reinforced this. Authority wasn’t just authoritative; it was also infallible.

I think the first time you see your parents cry will always change you in some way. For me, it was when we lost our brother. Mum collapsed and Dad held her. This could have been the moment I realised that my parents were human after all. I mean, grief can be an ugly emotion and if it's not ugly, it’s definitely very human. But instead, it only reassured me that they were omniscient because we got through it, just like they said we would. Our perfect home was shattered but my parents put it back together. And for that, they remained deities to me.

Part II: Meeting My Parents: A Reintroduction

“Well, I feel like I’ve failed you as a parent then.” As I inhaled sharply — ready to release a foray of apologies and reassurances — I froze. I knew she hadn’t failed me. Mum was an incredible parent. She was wise, selfless and hard-working.

But in the few seconds I had allowed myself to process what was being said, my subliminal need to reassure her turned to anger. Anger because in that sentence my mum had suggested that I was also a failure.

But I wasn’t.

I hadn’t made the choices she and Dad had hoped I would. I wasn’t living the life they had dreamed for me. They only wanted what was best for me and I knew this, but the problem was that their idea of what was best didn’t align with mine. I was carving my own path, and that was okay. In fact, it was better than okay. It was exciting and formative and everything in between… everything except a failure.

A crack had formed in the perfect exterior I had spent years projecting. That was the first domino to fall in a series of realisations about my parents. For me, as a compulsive people pleaser with an I-must-make-my-parents-proud-at-allcosts complex, this moment was the first time I really met my parents — my very human parents. And it was all because I had allowed myself to be angry at them.

Part III: Knowing (and Growing With) My Parents

The turbulence of my twenties very quickly taught me that building and maintaining adult relationships is very often about forgiveness. The inherent flaws of humanity make forgiveness a very necessary skill to master (but one that should always be exercised with care, of course).

I made a lot of mistakes that Mum and Dad needed to forgive me for, but what I hadn’t realised until now was that I also needed to forgive them. And I did.

As it turns out, anger was a very necessary step in getting to really know my parents.

The thing about holding your parents up to a God-like standard is that you begin to expect God-like behaviour. When you have impossible expectations of people, life will catch up and when it does, you won’t know how to handle it. My parents are real, complex human beings and I needed to give them the grace to be just that… human. Our relationship is a work in progress, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

WORDS BY Matilda McNeil @matilda.mcneil

Though I was born in Wellington, New Zealand and spent the early years of my life there, I don’t remember much (if any) of it. However, I’m still fond of the place and it gives me a homely feeling. Pictured is my Dad, brother and I at the Wairarapa Balloon Festival.

WORDS & ART BY Meili Tan @meilimade

WORDS & ART BY Monica Ouk @mono.goose

I grew up in Siem Reap near the ancient prasats (temples) of the Khmer Angkorian empire. I would play in ancient stone ruins as a child, not knowing how important they were. Pictured here is my mother and I at the South Gate bridge of Angkor Thom built in 1200 AD by Jayavarman VII.

I spent my younger years in Cambodia attending religious Buddhist ceremonies and temples. Pictured here is my father who was a Khmer Rouge survivor and a devout Buddhist for 50 years. The photo was taken in 2004 and I was 4 years old at the time.

I was eight months old with a trophy in arms when my parents decided to take the three of us out for an impromptu photoshoot. After multiple knock-backs, they’d managed to harass the judge panel of an Oakleigh Central baby pageant into crowning me the “Most Beautiful Baby” In the World City of Monash. A year before these photos were taken, both my parents were in Serbia fleeing airstrikes during the 1999 NATO bombing of former Yugoslavia— they just wanted someone to tell them their baby was pretty.

WORDS & ART BY Dina Ivkovich @dinanotdiner

WORDS & ART BY Lily Anna @funkyspaghettii

When I look back on these keepsake photos of my childhood I see a bright, colourful girl. Someone I’m so proud of and whose remnants still remain within my being today. I’m still dressing like I did then, constantly playing dress up and I don’t think I’ll ever grow out of it. If there's one thing my childhood taught me — life is zesty and you should dress accordingly.

I spent the first four years of my life living in Sri Lanka. While I don’t remember much from this period of my formative years, I somehow recall this snippet vividly, where my best friend Lavinia and I were chosen to be flower girls at my aunt’s traditional Sri Lankan wedding. With my puffy green dress on and my frilled socks folded in place, I can happily report this was the first of many 'main character' moments I'd be lucky enough to experience.

WORDS & ART BY Tiffany Forbes @tiffanyforbes

WORDS & ART BY Dena Tissera @dena_c_t

This photo was taken in Buffalo, New York in 2004. My mum was completing her Masters at the University of Buffalo and the whole family was over there for a year. I was five and my older brother was 11. We arrived in the middle of winter and seeing snow was a magical experience for my brother and I. We built wonky snow men and had countless snowball fights. This is one of the happiest memories of my childhood. This is a picture of me practising basketball at my local park. I spent years practising here, waking up early before school and spending whole afternoons doing drills to eventually achieve my goal of playing for the Melbourne Tigers Basketball Club. Now that I’m older, I come back and shoot around sometimes, it has become a form of meditation. A place for me to work though my thoughts with my basketball.

We’ve always had pets at home, but one of the ones I most fondly remember was Kitty, a feisty little ginger cat who showed up at our door one day and wouldn’t go away. He kept me and my brother company when my parents were at work, and I knit him pompoms and taught him to sit.

If you can’t tell by the dinosaur cake and the jungle themed jigsaw, I was a die-hard animal fanatic at four years old. We didn’t have much growing up, but my mum always did the absolute most — she stayed up the night before my birthday making the entire cake from scratch.

WORDS & ART BY Joseph Lew @josephyylew

WORDS & ART BY Tiffany Forbes @tiffanyforbes

In every photo of my childhood following the birth of my little sister in 2002, she is either with me, next to me or lurking somewhere in the back. We were inseparable and gave the phrase ‘two peas in a pod’ a whole new meaning. This picture is just one example. Fast forward to the present day, while we rip eachother's hair out at least once a week, our bond is still just as strong. She is my best friend.

WORDS & ART BY Meili Tan @meilimade

Growing up in Australia I was rather disconnected from my Chinese-Malaysian heritage and culture, though I came to appreciate it more through my grandpa (Kong Kong) while visiting Malaysia. He showed my brother and I his paintings and how to mount them using traditional scroll mounting techniques.

Every two years, my parents and grandparents would take me and my brothers on huge six-week camping trips around the country. I was so lucky to see the most mind-blowing places in Australia at such a young age. This trip was in 2004, when I was six; the first photo is of Dad and me at Uluru, the second is me and my brother Keegan spotting wildflowers in the East MacDonnell Ranges.

WORDS & ART BY Kiera Eardley @kieraeardley