I generally try to meet my parents once a week – and while I love them dearly – I must admit that they sometimes try a bit hard to change me. I am sure those reading this, and who may live away or even in the same home as their parents, may admit that interacting is a huge challenge in building understanding and a strong bond. I don’t think this is a cultural South Asian phenomenon as I know my parents mean well and have always been there for me – but it is strange that they haven’t been able to grasp the idea of letting their kids be as is without trying to create change.
Let me explain further with an example this week in the art of gift-giving.
I try to meet my parents for dinner once a week after work and with the cold days we have been having recently, I wear a long black woolen coat over my suit to protect me from the cold. With the way the coat is cut, there is a long “V-neck” opening from which cold air can enter and requires a scarf to cover it up.
As I was ready to head back home in the evening after a great dinner, I wore my white hand-made woolen scarf that was gifted to me by my sister, but which my parents didn’t like style and color of and how it looked with my coat. The reason they gave was that “it doesn’t look good.” Very simple words with no real context other than an expression of disapproval.
In all the disagreement of the way I looked – they verbally expressed their opinion and suggested that I wear another better-looking scarf than the one I was wearing. My dad scurried into his room and returned with a new black scarf with an interesting paisley design and handed it to me as a gift. One observation was that the scarf was much thinner than my woolen scarf and hence raised questions about effectiveness in chilly weather.
The premise of my point is that I can careless about how I look as long as I am warm. I expressed this concern – but they insisted that I wear it. So, I put it on and then they just didn’t like how I was wearing it. I wanted to wrap it a certain way and they wanted it to be kept open and fanned out. They again wanted me to change to accommodate their concerns about “my look” even once I was given a scarf of their choice.
Some of you may have experienced a situation similar to this where you accept gifts but feel that it is your personal choice to use that gift in any way, shape, or form as you please. Afterall, a gift is not a gift if there is a condition attached to it – right? I think so.
There are some interesting pain-bodies which erupt in situations like this:
- A feeling of not being accepted. This is a big one. If people don’t see you in their limelight, you are just not going to be accepted for who you are.
- A feeling of disrespect. Everyone is different. Why not respect the decisions of children to do and act as they please as long as they don’t cause physical harm to anyone.
- A feeling of not being worthy. Presence is important. Kids want to feel like they have been brought into this world for a reason. Comments to change them can drive them towards depression, anxiety, social awkwardness, and not to mention a subliminal giant wall that is built into their conscious framework that will be extremely to overcome as more and more incidents of shame are built up between them and their parents.
Bottom line with how things wrapped up in the evening: I handed the scarf back to my dad and told him he could keep it as I proudly put the nice warm woolen scarf to protect me from the cold and calmly walked out of the house. The great thing is that my dad graciously accepted the scarf back – a return policy with no questions asked – which I loved!
The lesson to be learned from this is that is one should never accept a gift – no matter from whom it is being given – if there is ANY communicated condition of how it must be used to improve your self-image, self-worth and dignity. Yes, there are millions out there saying to just accept the gift and walk away and in some cases you may have to – but in the long run this will not create change in the giver and leaves the door open for repetitive behavior patterns that could get worse in time.
So you just need to nip it in the bud and hand the gift right back or threaten to hand it back with the reason that you will not be able to put the gift to use to make the giver happy. Through this simple response most people with a conditionally driven gift giving drive will just accept the gift back because their intent to create change for their own personal gain is a realized failed attempt.
A gift based on a condition to make the giver happy is not a gift – it’s a direct command to change – and gift-giving is not intended to change people. The point of a gift is to give without receiving anything back in return. I know this sounds so cliché – but millions of you out there fail to realize this and create pain-bodies in others that can easily be avoided.
So, give gifts not to create change in the others to make yourself happy. Give gifts and let others decide how they want to use the gift without establishing conditions. In some cases you may get what you want with some changes to the recipient but that is not the point – and the change may be short-lived. The point of gift giving is to create happiness for the recipient and letting this happiness be the foundation for opening doors to build a stronger bond between the giver and recipient.