THE CHILD IN THE ADULT

Have you ever caught yourself doing something and suddenly thought, “Wait… why do I behave like this?” Then, somehow, you remember your parents and everything begins to make sense. Funny, isn’t it? We like to believe that once we grow up, we become completely independent people. We make our own decisions, form our own opinions and live according to our own rules. But how much of “us” is really just “them” showing up in different ways? Our parents are often our first teachers. Before school teaches us mathematics, life teaches us through the homes we grow up in. We learn how to communicate by watching how our parents communicate. We learn how to handle anger by observing how they handle theirs. We learn how to love, apologise, trust, argue and even forgive from the people who raised us. Sometimes, we don't even notice it. A parent who constantly says, “Don't trust anybody,” may unknowingly raise a young adult who struggles to trust people. A child who grows up hearing, “You must always be strong,” may become an adult who finds it difficult to admit when they are struggling. Someone raised in a home where mistakes were treated like disasters might grow into an adult who is terrified of failing. And sometimes, it is the little things. Maybe your mum always overthinks every possible problem, and now you find yourself doing the same. Maybe your dad rarely expresses his emotions, and somehow you also learnt to keep everything inside. Maybe your parents always settled disagreements by shouting, and now shouting feels normal whenever you're angry. But does that mean we are doomed to repeat everything we grew up with? Absolutely not. Growing up means reaching a point where we can look at the behaviours we inherited and ask, “Is this really who I want to be?” Our parents are human beings. They had their own childhoods, fears, struggles and mistakes. Some things they taught us were intentional; others were passed down without them even realising it. They may have given us beautiful lessons alongside behaviours they themselves never had the opportunity to unlearn. As young adults, we have the responsibility to separate the two. We can appreciate our parents without copying everything they do. We can understand where certain behaviours came from without allowing them to control our future. We can say, “This is how I was raised, but this is not how I choose to live.” Because growing up isn't just about getting older. It is also about becoming conscious of what shaped us. So, the next time you catch yourself reacting in a certain way, ask yourself: “Where did I learn this?” Is it truly your personality, or is it something you picked up along the way? After all, there may be a child somewhere inside every adult—still carrying the lessons of home. The beautiful part? We get to decide which lessons we keep.

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