Do You Validate Yourself Through Your Parent's Approval?

Quote from Kim Wong Keltner's "Tiger Babies Strike Back":

... now that we're older and a little wiser, we may still never fully feel our parents approval, get the attention we deserve, or achieve pinnacles of success good enough for their specifications ... ... ... ... we can rewrite the scripts for our own lives and become where we want to be

Have you been living your life always wanting to be approved by someone else and that person is your parent?

I have been one. That's why when I read the above quote from Kim's book, I felt so connected with what it was saying.

Since young, I have always wanted to make my mother happy.

I studied hard and scored excellent grades, because it meant a lot to my mother and to me. To my mother, it meant relief as it showed that I was getting a good education and would be able to find a good job in future and support myself adequately in terms of finances. It also meant a lot to me, not only it meant I would find better prospects, it also meant I would be the most highly educated within the family. I graduated with a degree in computer engineering and is the first degree holder in my family.

My mother also cared about survival skills. She taught me and my sister how to sew our school uniforms for minor patches and buttons that were dropped. She also taught us to do housework and to buy ingredients, prepare ingredients, and how to cook. She also cared about our expanding our horizons. She paid for our overseas vacation to Thailand, Hong Kong, China, and the USA. She talked to us about current affairs, ancient Chinese history, western history, literature, economics, and politics. She also left me with a love for music.

However, what was lacking was praises. I kept working harder and harder to score better grades but I hardly receive any praise from my mother. Finally at my university convocation that I invited her to, she had pulled a long black throughout the day and I was so mad. Why was she still not happy with me?

Whenever she commented that the floor was not swept clean enough, or the dishes were not washed cleanly enough, or the ingredients I bought were not fresh enough, or that I did not cook nice enough, I would strive to do better and better next time. I like to be recognised by my mother and I wanted her approval so that she would feel happy. But it was like a race without end.

In my book, I also talked about the two years of financial hardship that followed after my mother's retrenchment from Compaq as an assembly worker. For two years I had to endure the daily reprimand that she hurled at me and the occasional beating as well. I tolerated. Why? I understood that she was going a difficult period and the best I knew that I could was to help out in whatever she wanted me to do. She complained to me that I contributed too little to the family and she really liked my sister's husband who bought her a new microwave oven. So I reminded her how I helped her through those two years after she was retrenched. But she told  me she could not remember anything about it. I was devastated. Two years of hardship for nothing? I wanted her to recognise that I had done something important for her.

Recently, because of my disapproval of my sister's marriage, I fell out with my mother. Subsequently we went into more serious loggerheads. Once, she told me that if my sister needed money to buy a new house, then I had to help her. And if my sister needed financial help to buy milk powder for her kid, I had to help out too. I turned her down. I felt it was too much for me to bear. Those demands were on top of taking care of my parent's retirement as well. Our conflicts were so serious that when I finally asked her for forgiveness, she told me sternly that she would never forgive me. At that point of time, I had already moved out to stay with my grandfather. Later, she relented and told me that if I moved back with her, she would forgive me. 

By this time, I had already felt I had no need to seek her approval for everything. I don't care if she forgive me because I felt I didn't need her to like me. It was also very devastating to know that after giving in to her so much, not only I did not get any goodwill back but she had turned the table against me and claimed that I did not do much.

Finally, after doing a series of emotional cleansing at my mentor Suria Mohd's Soul Detox class, I was finally able to release myself of much of these negative emotions inside me. And now, what do I focus on? As you might have read in the "About Me" section on the right sidebar, I am focusing on making a positive change in the world, focusing on education, health and entrepreneurship. I want to leave a positive legacy behind, both for my family and the rest of the world.

What about you?

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