There's a scene in both the 2016 movie Fences
and the 2017 movie Lady Bird where both of the child characters ask their parents a version
of the question "Why don't you like me?" In Lady Bird the titular character portrayed by Saoirse Ronan says to her mom, "I wish that you liked me." In which her mother Marion portrayed by Laurie
Metcalf responds, "Of course I love you." Unsatisfied Lady Bird asks her mom again, but do
you like me? Marion says, I want you to be the best version of you that you can be, and
Lady Bird says, "What if this is the best version?" Leaving her mom Marion speechless. In Fences Jovan Adepo plays Cory, the 18 year old son of Troy portrayed by Denzel Washington and asks the dad, "How come you ain't never liked me?" In which Troy responds, "Like you? Who the hell said I got to like you? You eat every day." "Yes sir." "Got a roof over your head?" "Yes sir." "Got clothes on your
back?" "Yes sir." "Why you think that is?" "'Cause of you." "Hell I know it's 'cause of me,
but why do you think that is?" "'Cause you like me." "Like you?" "I go out of here every morning, I bust my butt
putting up with them crackers every day 'cause I like you? You about the biggest fool I ever saw. It's my job. It's my responsibility. A man is supposed to take care of his family. You live in my house, fillyour belly with my food, put your behind on my bed because you're my son, not because I like you,
because it's my duty to take care of you. I owe a responsibility to you! Now let's get this
straight right here now before it go along any further. I ain't got to like you. Mr. Rand don't
give me my money come payday 'cause he like me. He give it to me cause he owe me! Now don't you go through life worrying about whether somebody like you or not you best be making sure they're doing
right by you." "You understand what I'm saying boy?" "Yes sir. "Then you get the hell out of
my face and go down to the A&P." *applause* He takes ownership as a parent and says you're
my responsibility, I bust my ass because it's my job. And I don't like it, and most of the time if not all the time I don't really like you but I'm going to do right by you. And I want you to respect yourself enough to not worry if people like you, but that they do right by you. And though on the
surface the two movies do seem very different as Fences about a poor Black family living in
Pittsburgh in 1957 and Lady Bird is about a poor white family in 2002, they both are trying to do
the same thing, which is explain why parent-child relationships are so messy. When Marion and Troy
are faced with a question of do they like their children, they give very different answers. Marion has no idea what to say probably because she never really thought about it before and honestly deep
down inside doesn't like this version of her child and she is not okay with that feeling even though
it is completely natural to sometimes dislike your own child. Troy of course gives his iconic
answer and I do really like what he has to say here even though we later discovered that Troy is
a horrible parent, he doesn't live by his own words, his son in turn fears him, he impedes his son's
dreams, but we're going to get into that later. So in this video I want to explore the themes that Lady Bird and Fences present, the main one obviously being complicated relationships between
children and their parents, and trying to answer the question of why parent and child relationships
become strained and how parents can do better and in Troy's words, right, by their children. Hey
everyone and welcome back to my channel! My name is Cheyenne and I'm an Asian American adoptee
and expat living in Brazil. I post new videos about pop culture, movies, tv shows, and look at their
themes and dissect them so if you're into that please subscribe and ring the bell to be notified
every time I post a new video. And if you end up liking this video please please please give it a like
and leave a comment, do both so this video gets boosted and you help me with the algorithm.
So thank you so much and let's get started! Before we get really deep into it however let me
first briefly explain the plot of each movie and the themes they individually present before I put
them in conversation with one another. So part one Fences. Fences is a movie based on August Wilson's
Pulitzer Prize winning 1985 play of the same name . It was Denzel Washington's passion project and he
actually decided to use the screenplay Wilson wrote before his passing. The movie centers around Troy
Maxson, a once legendary baseball player for the Negro Leagues, who is now a garbage truck driver,
and his complicated relationship with his family, particularly with his son Cory, his wife Rose Lee,
portrayed by by Viola Davis, and his own father. At the outset of the film Troy seems to be a
decent guy. He has his best friend who he's known for years, he has a wife who he seemingly loves,
and though he's not the best parent in the world, he seems to be trying his best. However as the
film progresses we see Troy's facade fade away as he lashes out and impedes Cory from meeting
a football recruiter from the university of South Carolina, threatens to kick him out of the house,
and later reveals to Rose that he cheated on her and now his mistress is having his baby. Rose then
gives a very emotional and truly moving speech about how she gave up everything for him because
that's what a wife is supposed to do and maybe she wasn't happy about it but she thought they could
struggle together and she was willing to do that. "You're always talking about what you
give and what you don't have to give, but you take too Troy, you take and don't even know
nobody's givin'." She then talks about how she feels betrayed how instead of Troy coming to her he
escaped into another woman's arms and she asks the very real question "What about me Troy? What about
me?" Troy does admit to her that he was trying to take the easy way out "stealing second base" if
you will, and Rose is not here for it thank god, though she still does agree of course to raise
the baby after Alberta, Troy's mistress, dies in labor. "You can't visit the sins of the father upon
the child." As Rose puts it, "but you a womanless man." However this is the last straw for Cory, who
tries to physically stand up to Troy and not just because he cheated on his mom, but because he has
all this pent-up anger at his father for impeding his football scholarship for making him feel as
though he has to walk on eggshells around him and never knowing when Troy is going to
lash out or how he will react to things. Cory has feared his dad for so long and also has
been trying to appease him for so long. Holding down a job and being good in school, but none of
it is ever enough and he's sick of it, especially after seeing what a hypocrite Troy really is, and
how kind of mentally unstable he is. So with all this pent up anger Cory releases it the only
way men in society are taught to release anger, through physical violence. However Troy attacks
him in a drunken rage almost killing his own son and then finally kicks him out of the house for
good. Cory later joins the Marines and we only see him again when it's time for Troy's funeral
in which he says to his mother he doesn't want to go. Rose then slaps Cory and says that she's
made her peace with him, saying that you know they didn't get along very well but she made
those choices and she needs to live with them. Cory then explains to his mother how he felt
as though his dad's presence in the house was like a shadow always following you around trying to crawl into you trying to get into your skin. "The whole time I was growing up living in his house, papa was like a shadow that followed you everywhere. It weighed on you and it sunk into your flesh. It would wrap around you until you couldn't tell which one was you
anymore. That shadow's digging into your flesh, trying to crawl in, trying to live through
you." And he says and explains that he doesn't want to go to the funeral because he finally
wants to stand up to his father and this is really his last chance to do that. "I've got to say no to him. One time in my life I got to say-" "I don't got to listen to that!" Rose responds with "Now I don't know if he was right or wrong, but I do know he meant to do more good than he meant to
do harm." Which is fine, Rose can say her peace and try to convince Cory all she wants, but in the end, it really isn't her decision to make. But after meeting Raynelle, Cory's half
half-sister and the daughter of Alberta who Rose has been raising, Cory breaks down and
cries decides to attend his father's funeral and that's kind of the end of the movie. You'll
see this pattern a lot in these kind of child and parent movies of the child needing to forgive
the parents at the end, which is honestly very annoying because it's usually not the child that should feel guilty or should learn to let things go, it's usually the parent
that needs to do that. But I personally like to believe that Cory isn't crying because he's
suddenly forgiving his dad, but rather because someone who was close to him for a big part
of his life is now gone. And it's fine that Cory can feel resentful for his parent and even
hate him, but also still be sad that he's gone. It's not either or and that's what I really like
about Fences. Now one thing in the movie that iI didn't really bring up, which is a big part of the
movie, is tToy's relationship with his own father. "Daddy ain't had no walking blues, but you know man, he stayed right there with his family, but he was just as evil as he could be." In one scene Troy explains his backstory, his relationship with his father, and how his father was the reason
why he had to leave home at 14 and live on the streets. Troy explains how his dad only saw him as another pair of hands to help out with the farm and also as someone to beat on whenever he
saw fit. He then adds however that he tried to beat up on his own dad for trying to rape
his 13 year old girlfriend, but of course as a child himself his dad overpowered him and after
that he ran away and never saw his father again. Troy is I think somewhat aware that he's doing
the same thing to his own kid, making him afraid of him, pushing him away, beating on him, but I also think that he thinks that just because he's not a sexual predator or not as abusive as his
own dad that he's doing a good job as a parent. A lot of parents set a very low bar
for themselves in order to not be bad parents or at least see themselves as bad
parents because since the bar is so low how can they really fail? But kids need more than the
bare minimum, which is why Cory gets so angry. More importantly, the real function of Troy's backstory
is to not only make us understand him more as an adult and realize where all this abuse
might have stemmed from, but also to illustrate intergenerational trauma. When Cory talks about
how he felt as though his father's presence was like a shadow trying to crawl into you trying
to get into your bones or your soul, he's really talking about the intergenerational trauma. The
trauma that Troy faced as a child trying to enter him, but he's not going to let it. Cory's not going
to let the trauma he faced as a child or the trauma that his dad faced as a child you know impact
his life, he's going to break the cycle of abuse. He's not going to let it manifest in him and sit in there and make him lash out at people or angry he's going to, like I said, break the cycle of abuse because Cory is self-reflective something that his dad isn't. He's conscious of the world around
him. He knows that his dad doesn't want him playing football because he doesn't want his son to outdo
him, and though Troy may impede his scholarship because he's trying to protect him, that's not his
choice to make. Cory realizes what's going on at home at a very young age, which is why he asks
the do you like me question. He can sense that his dad needs some type of help and he tries to make
him happy and proud, but can't because Troy needs therapy and a child's purpose is not to fill their
parents emotional gaps. Cory is just trying to do what most kids of struggling parents do, trying to
go out into the world, leave their small town, and make a name for themselves. They try to
leave the lower class, and in the end corey does that. Maybe in spite of his father and also having
this need to not end up like him. And though Rose says that Troy will always be a part of Cory and
that Cory is very much like Troy, he really isn't. And that's okay. Kids don't always need to end up
like their parents, especially if they were toxic. And kids not trying to end up like their parents
or trying to diverge from their parents paths and having resentment towards them isn't because they
actually secretly love them or that all this hate is actually a manifestation of love because that's
really not how love should work. Rather love and hate can exist at the same time and that's how
Cory feels and that's valid. As Odie Henderson put it in his review for rogerebert.com, "Fences is
a film about how our environment shapes us and how no matter how noble their intentions our parents
can't help but mess up in some fashion just as their parents have done for them. This is our
legacy as humans, either we indoctrinate ourselves against which we saw what's wrong with our parents
or we catch their disease and pass it on." So part two Lady Bird. Similar to Fences Lady Bird is a
movie about a child and parent who don't get along, except they're white, living in 2002, and it's about
a daughter and her mother rather than a father and son duo. Lady Bird also known as Christine to her
parents wants to go to a college on the east coast. However her mom doesn't want her to because of money and also because she doesn't think Lady Bird is good enough to get in. So Lady Bird, offended at
this and also know that bringing it up again will just lead to another fight, she applies
to east coast schools behind her mother's back. We see Lady Bird grow and mature throughout
her senior year of high school. She loses her virginity, falls in and out of love, and reconciles
with her best friend who she abandoned for almost an entire semester when trying to become popular.
She also fights with her mom a lot. "Mom!" "You can't even pass your driver's test!" "Because you wouldn't
let me practice!" "This isn't right. We can't treat our clothes like this. I don't know what your
wealthy friends-" "Why do you care what I do to my clothes?" "If you need to use two towels you just have to say because this affects my whole day because I have to do laundry before work." "The
eggs are not done." "Fine make your own [ __ ] eggs!" "I wanted to, you won't let me!" "Do you have any idea
what it cost to raise you and how much you're just throwing away every day?!" Marion is always telling
Lady Bird about how they're poor how they can't afford things, but when Lady Bird tells her friends
that they're poor and they can't do this or that her Marion suddenly becomes offended. "Wrong
side of the tracks!" "I didn't mean it that way it was a joke." "Yeah it's just a joke." Or when Lady Bird doesn't clean up her clothes this instant her mom goes on this whole rant
about how Lady Bird is disrespectful and only cares about herself. Lady Bird and
marion's relationship fluctuates throughout the film. Sometimes they're at each other's throats,
other times they are having a great day together, and they never reconcile after the fighting
parts, life just goes on. It's realistic and you can see the tension that you have on screen even when they're just standing next to one another. You can feel the resentment closing in on around you as you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. Later it's revealed that Lady Bird's father,
who is a lot more respectful of her, knocks on the door before entering her room, "How'd you know it was me?" "Mom doesn't knock." has depression. Lady Bird finds this out and it's a real loss of innocence moment and I really appreciate this part being in the film because I don't think we talk enough about how parents have mental illnesses and how that affects their children. And of course Marion being the controlling person that she is uses her husband's depression in order
to make Lady Bird feel guilty about wanting to go to the east coast. "No Larry you
can't just be the nice guy! She has to know. She has to know how you feel otherwise she's just gonna think she can say anything at all and nobody ever gets hurt." Marion is not a good
parent nor can communicate very well with Lady Bird because they both are unsure of one another. They
see each other through this warped lens of mother and daughter instead of just two human beings.
And of course the reason why Marion can't let Lady Bird go is because she's afraid of losing
her like any parent, but has like an irrational fear of losing her and not only that but because Marion has wrapped up so much of her identity in this being that she cannot fathom losing her. When it's revealed that Lady Bird has applied to east coast schools and is actually going to one
Marion completely shuts down. She basically acts as though Lady Bird is dead to her which is extremely
immature and annoying behavior, but again it's realistic. Many parents are not mature enough to handle the fact that their child is an independent human being separate from them that has their own
inspirations own interests and you know own life. The best version of Lady Bird to Marion is probably
a child that just sits down and shuts up and obeys and has all the same interests and disinterests
as her, but if you think that your kid is going to be exactly like you or never have a mind of their
own I have a big surprise for you. Your kid doesn't exist to please you, to fulfill your emotional
needs, nor exist to give you a purpose in life. Your child will not complete you and you need to have
other interests besides your child because if you don't your child will consume you and you will not
be able to handle the fact that they are going to leave you eventually just like how Marion
reacts by pretending that Lady Bird is dead when she tells her that she's going to the east coast.
A lot of parents don't realize this and we get relationships like we see in Lady Bird where both
parties think badly of the other because of these false expectations society gives us of motherhood
or parenthood in general. By the end of the film Marion regrets her actions and does try to make
things right, but she's too late. And in the end it's a Lady Bird that has to go make the call
and do the work and that's not right. Marion never apologizes for being so controlling,
for belittling her daughter's intelligence, for criticizing her friends, nothing. I personally really dislike the ending of the movie, but it is realistic and I get why it ended that
way. To suggest another movie I prefer, Bad Moms 2 because in that movie the mom actually has to apologize and realize that she's messed up and I think that's something that's really rare that
we don't see a lot in these kind of parent-child movies. Most movies do end with this message of
filial piety. Respect your parents, forgive them, when the message should really be you know
parents should grow and evolve with their children rather than staying set in their ways and being
stubborn and you know being like this is my house so sit down and shut up. So part three
shared themes. So now let's put the films in conversation with one another. The first theme I want to bring up is one that I already talked about when talking about Fences and that
is intergenerational trauma. In Lady Bird we learn that Marion's mother was an abusive
alcoholic. "My mother was an abusive alcoholic." That's the only time she talks about her mother, but we can probably guess that she wasn't an easy person to live with. We see that Marion was
able to break the cycle that her mother started. She's not physically abusive at least, though she's
emotionally abusive, but she is a responsible adult. She takes care of the household. She's the only
working parent since her husband has depression and got fired, and she even opens their home to
a girl who was kicked out of her home which is Lady Bird's brother's girlfriend, so we can see that
she's actually a decent person. "She has a big heart your mom." But Marion, like most parents, isn't very self-reflective. She doesn't understand how her overbearingness
is affecting her child, about how her controlling nature is affecting her child, and she doesn't really see things that she's doing wrong or things that she could be doing better. In the end Marion is totally inflexible. For example Lady Bird uses two towels for her shower and because
it's laundry day and Marion didn't know that she used two towels she says that Lady Bird just ruined her whole laundry schedule, and it's something so benign but it drives Marion up the wall. She doesn't even let Lady Bird make her own breakfast because she's just going to
f it up anyway. And there's a scene where Marion wants to want Ladybird to clean her room this
instant when doing it tomorrow morning would be just as fine. And Troy's the same type of
way with Cory. His chores must be done now. It's like always now or never with these types
of parents when 30 minutes or even a few hours won't make much of a difference, but parents who do
have these sorts of time ticks of things needing to be done now or never usually have something
that they're going through that they should be working out in therapy but instead they take it
out on their child, either because like Marion and troy they don't want their children to
turn into delinquents like their parents were, or because they want to exert their parental
control and sometimes both. Making your kid do something now is literally just a show of parental
power unless it's something that like you know needs to be done actually now, um but if it can be
done like 30 minutes from now or an hour from now and you just tell your kid once they'll probably
be sure to do it and remember to do it you just need to trust them. But by constantly enforcing
that you have to do this now or I'm going to lose my [ __ ] and rage about it for days, will only
give your child anxiety anxiety about chores and doing chores, and also about you. They're going to
end up like Cory, being afraid to talk to you about things or bringing things up because they know that
you explode at the littlest thing. Kids shouldn't have to fear their parents. They shouldn't seize up
inside when they hear your footsteps but so many kids do feel this way because their parents walk
around like ticking time bombs. Rather than parents being reflective and maybe realizing that the
chore can wait or maybe that they're traumatizing their child by being so needlessly demanding
most parents will chalk their kids unwillingness to do chores to laziness or stupidity which is
extremely toxic. I cannot stress this enough, if your kid feels uncomfortable around you it's your
fault! Parents mess up that's fine, that's normal, that's natural. Parents aren't perfect. There's not one single parent in the world that is perfect, but because parents are not perfect you need
to do the work and you need to be able to be self-aware enough to realize that you might
have a lot of mental work to do and you need to be conscious as to why that is. Doing self-work
and opening yourself up and being vulnerable and you know realizing that you can make mistakes
and that you need to own up to those mistakes will only better your relationship with your child. The worst thing you can do is blame them, blame their friends, say your brother doesn't feel
that way, because news flash kids are not a monolith! I'm not saying that kids know everything
or that kids are perfect angels all the time they obviously are not and they need to be guided and
educated properly, but if you're just going to berate them until they do something now because
you don't think that they're capable enough to do it later or you don't trust them enough to
do it later and you just think that they're you know incapable of doing things that you tell
them to then you are setting yourself up for failure. So the next theme I want to talk about is
age and guilt. Marion and Troy both dismiss their children because they're younger, and as you know
older people they know better. Firstly being older doesn't mean you have more life experience nor
that you know better or are more mature because as we see in both Fences and Lady Bird the parents in
the movies are very socially inept and emotionally inept and emotionally stunted. They don't know
how to communicate properly because of their abusive upbringings, but they don't really try to
work on that either or are self-reflective enough or self-aware enough or self-conscious enough
to realize that they're doing the same thing to their kids or that they're hurting their
kids because of this. And of course it's not all on them. They have really tough jobs Troy's
a sanitation worker and Marion is a nurse so it's really hard for them to find the time to you
know be self-reflective and be better parents but if they really wanted to be better parents they
should have made the time to listen to their kids. But of course they don't because that would mean admitting that they've made mistakes and they're definitely not going to do that, so instead they
chalk it up to age as to why they don't get along. So many times you hear parents say oh you'll get
it when you're older or I can't wait till you're older and it's like? And of course parents say this
because they think that with age time will harden their child and they will be just like them, but in reality we see that with time Cory actually diverges a lot from his father and
becomes you know a better person than his father could ever be because he's conscious and aware
of the abuse he faced and is sure not to repeat the cycle. So now let's talk about guilt. Both Troy
and Marion make their children feel guilty about pursuing their life outside of their
family and also by bettering themselves through education. And Rose from Fences of course
makes Cory feel guilty about not wanting to attend his father's funeral, when again that's not
her choice to make. Parents should never make their kids feel guilty for existing or for wanting
their independence, but so many parents can't handle the fact that their child is growing up
and instead they decide to smother them. They do it under the guise of I know better because I'm older, and also make you feel guilty by saying why do you hate me, why do you hate your family, why
do you want to leave me, when you just want to have your own life because you're growing up and you're
a human being and that's fine. I think one of the biggest reasons why parents and children don't
have good relationships is because parents usually you know just don't respect younger people. They see younger people as immature, lazy, stupid, and if you have that view of young people
you probably shouldn't be a parent. You need to be able to grow and change and evolve with your
child in the stages that they're at, and if you're not able to see young people as capable human
beings then you will just be a bad parent. And you definitely shouldn't expect your child to
just automatically respect you because you're older than them and you say that you know more
because they probably will not go along with that and you also need to be doing more than the bare
minimum. Just because you go above and beyond on certain days of the year doesn't mean that you
know the other 360 days of the year don't matter. If you're still disrespecting your child, not giving them the space they need, or you know giving them your trust, it's all for naught. Because
the other 360 days of the year is what they're going to remember. They're not going to remember
the big public displays of affection that you did for them but rather how you reacted when you
told them you wanted to go to school on the other side of the country, or when you told them that you
wanted to start learning how to drive, or when you had to call them to pick you up from a friend's
house. That's what they're going to remember and you need to be able to react accordingly and
be sure not to lash out on those you know other days of the year when it's not their birthday or
it's not Christmas because that's what matters. Did you yell at them did you try to make them feel guilty, did you try to dissuade them, did you tell them that they didn't know any better because
you're older and therefore wiser, or did you let them feel heard? Did you put on that brave face that
parents have to put on? Did you make your kid feel valued? And that's what really matters. We know what bad parents look like, just look at Troy and Marion, but what does good parenting look
like? When I think of a movie that actually has good child and parent lessons in it I think of
the Freaky Friday remake from the early 2000s because in that movie they show that
it takes two to tango. The child needs to learn, but also the parent needs to learn,
and they're able to reconcile because they learn to both respect each other as human
beings rather than as mother and daughter. Now let's talk about gratitude and privacy. Your kid will not be grateful for everything you do and you need to be okay with that. There's one scene in Lady Bird where she throws away her her lunch that her mom made for her in favor of a
lunch that her friend's boyfriend makes and it's assumed that she throws away the lunch that her
mom makes for her every single day and you know I think that that's a bad thing. Like I don't think
that kids should be throwing away their lunch, but she's also not comfortable enough to tell her
mom that she doesn't want to eat the food that she makes her because she knows that her mom will
probably explode at her, so instead Lady Bird just doesn't tell her, throws the lunch away every day,
and eats another lunch instead because she knows that that's the path of least resistance. And in the end you have to kind of understand that. Also kids did not ask to be brought into this world. We exist simply because you willed it into existence. And we're here now so you need to
be able to deal with that. And it's more again than just doing the bare minimum, more than
just feeding, clothing, and housing your child but it's also about giving them respect seeing them as
people every single day. And it's important to note that treating your kid with respect doesn't mean that they're going to suddenly tell you everything or that you're going to be best friends, but
rather that they should still get privacy and that you also need to be okay with that and
you shouldn't be nice and respectful to your child just because you think that they're going to
tell you everything because then you're still not actually respecting them! Kids deserve privacy.
Everyone deserves privacy and your kid is no different. If you're a type of parent that tries to
hack into your child's phone or read their diary you're doing it wrong! Let your kid have space. It's not easy you know. I'm not here to say that it's easy and these are really hard words to live
by but you need to give your kids space. You need to give them privacy otherwise they for sure
will never come to you with anything. And being selfless and unconditionally loving and trusting
of your child is not easy, but parenting is not easy and you need to put on that brave face and
get through it because if you don't your kid will be the one to suffer. So the next theme
I want to talk about is wrapping yourself up too much in your child that you lose yourself. In both films we can see that the parents have very little outside of their family and outside of their
children. Both of these parents have no outlet to release the anger they feel at life or at you
know individuals, and that's a problem. And it's really sad for Troy because the one thing that he was good at he's not good at anymore! Marion on the other hand has nothing outside of her job,
which is of course really hard and time-consuming, and you know she has a good relationship with
her husband but that's still not you know what she really focuses her time in. She really just puts everything into this one child and it kind of destroys her. I understand that as parents you need to wrap yourself up in your kids life, but as they get older, especially as both of
their children are 18, they need to not be as involved and they need to learn to
step away. I promise you the kids are all right! You need to get your own hobby outside of your
kid. I don't know what it is, or what it's going to be, but you need to think bigger. Your child will not be with you forever and you need to be able to invest in other interests so when your
child does eventually leave you don't break down. And it's not easy again, especially you know
with all the dangers in the world of course it's you know normal to have a healthy feeling
of anxiety around your child when they leave, even just to go to a friend's house,
that's normal you know, to worry about them, but if it becomes unhealthy, if it becomes all you
think about, if it becomes an obsessive thought, then you need to seek help. So yeah if you don't
take anything else away from this video it is to get a hobby outside of your children because they
will not be with you forever and you know you need something to release stress, release anger, something
that brings you joy, something that makes you feel independent, because it's so easy to lose yourself
in the life of your child, that you know having that hobby there will really help when coping
with parenting as a whole. So let's move on to the next theme, you don't need to forgive your parents!
So there was a viral tweet that went around last year that was like "I don't know who needs to
hear this, but forgive your parents." And it's like? If you can't forgive your parents that's okay.
If you need to cut them off from your life for whatever reason that's valid, and that's fine.
And if you still have a relationship with your parents but it's strained, but you come to the
decision that you still want them in your life, that's valid too. Everyone has different
relationships with their parents and you know no one should be telling anyone
that you need to forgive them. It's okay to have messy feelings about your parents, to love and hate
them simultaneously, I mean Cory does. We see that he's sad that his dad is dead because of course
he loves him but he also hates him for what he did to him and that's fine. We live in this world
where it's either or and sometimes it is either or, but sometimes it's somewhere in the middle and
we need to realize that and know that that's okay. So the second to last point I want to make
is about labels. The labels we put on you know family dynamics or family roles such as mom, dad,
daughter, son, you know they carry a lot of weight to them. Like in the speech that Troy gives to Cory, when he calls him you know, "You're my son." "You are my son." That just carries so much weight
with it and so much societal expectation that it's a really heavy term that a lot of people
tend to internalize. We see that with Rose, her being a wife is something that she's internalized
so much that she needs to be you know society's version of a perfect wife that she
doesn't even really know who she is anymore. "Wherever you was going I was gonna be
there with you because you was my husband! 'Cause that's the only way I was gonna survive
as your wife." And this kind of internalization obviously is dangerous because you start to see
people not as people, but as what their label dictates, which gives you false expectations of the other person and sometimes of yourself. Like Rose for example, or if you're a child you know this
kind of internalization of being a daughter or son either makes you revere your parents because
they're your parents and they have these very strong labels of mom and dad or it makes you not
want to be like them because they're not living up to your expectations and you can never live up to
theirs. The best thing we can do with these labels is to you know just see them as words rather than
all of these things that society puts on them you know. They're the people that take care of you yes, they're your mom and your dad, but you know that doesn't mean anything? It just means
that they are someone who's taking care of you who identifies either as a man or a woman and that's it really. And you're a child and that just means that you're being taken care
of or that you're you know legally under 18 or whatever. We just cannot put this much
weight into these labels because it really tears people apart. So the last thing I want to talk
about is kids not wanting to be like their parents. And kids not wanting to be like their parents usually stems from the fact that they have a bad relationship with them, simple as that. And usually kids that do want to be like their parents usually had a positive relationship with their parents and
this "good relationship" with your parents seems to depend on so much, but it really just depends on just a few things - kindness, respect, and love. I think the best praise for any parent is when their child says that they want to be like them because you know you cannot be doing be doing any
better than that if your kid says that you want to be like you. That's just it. But unfortunately so many kids do not want to end up like their parents. They usually go in the total opposite direction because they have bad relationships with them because those three little things are not there.
The respect isn't there, the kindness isn't there, the love isn't there, and those little
daily affirmations, those little things like like I'm here for you or it's okay, just you
know again they're not there they're absent and that matters. Every single day your
kids should know that you're there for them and a lot of kids don't get that. Instead kids
like Cory and Lady Bird are afraid to tell their parents things because they're unpredictable.
Because you know they've reacted so badly in the past to other little things how are they going
to react to this, so they keep things to themselves and in turn resentment grows secrets are
discovered and it all goes to [ __ ]. But that doesn't mean that they have a bad relationship you
know 100 percent bad, but you know it is something that makes them not want to be like their parents
and you know that's also not very good either, but again not saying that because you
want to be like your parents means that they're the best parents ever either, but it is
definitely a huge compliment. So my final thoughts. So if you haven't seen Fences or Lady Bird I highly suggest that you watch them and check them out. Fences is definitely a longer one to sit
through, but it is emotionally rewarding and there's some just great writing in the movie so
go check it out. Lady Bird is a lot shorter, it's only like 90 minutes, but it packs a punch, it
packs a punch. And yeah so go check them out. I hope you enjoyed this video about parent-child
relationships and how you know people can be better parents. I gave a lot of advice in
this video so hopefully you know take it to heart and yeah that's it. I just wanted to say that I'm not a parent, so I only know half the story, but you know I think that as kids
we should have a say in how our parents parent. So just throwing this out here. These are
just my observations, my opinions, my thoughts. Please subscribe and ring the bell to
be notified every time i post a new video and please please please if you like this
video give it a like, leave a comment, do both so the video gets boosted, so yeah thank you
so much and I'll see you all in the next one bye!
