An Open Letter to Parents
copyright © 1992 Louise L. Hagedorn
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Dearest Mom and Dad,

    I've been thinking for the last couple of weeks what to give you for Christmas. But I found that nothing in this world is good enough to give to you, so I decided to write this letter:
    I don't know how to explain myself, afraid that you will not understand. I can't talk to you about this, because you never believed me when I tried to tell you. I think I should start at the beginning so that you will understand.
    For the last seventeen years, you have loved, clothed, fed and taken care of me. You have supplied for my every want and need. You devoted your lives to me that I would grow and love you. You took care of me through my asthma attacks, my tantrums and depressed feelings of loneliness. I'm thankful that you took the time and effort to bring my up in this world, no matter how hard and difficult it oftentimes got.
    This is going to be painful for me to write to you about just as much as reading it will be. But I feel that I have to do so. As your only child, I am your baby. But the sad truth is, I'm not a baby anymore. Not in the sense that I need you there every minute of the day or night, to take care of me. Not in the sense that I don't understand what is happening. I'm not a baby that way. But I am your child who will always need your love. I will always be the child who, from time to time, will ask advise on how to go on with life. And I will always be your child that loves you.
It's not that I'm being ungrateful but, because you over-protected me over the last seventeen years, I don't know how to do many of the things I see my classmates doing. Before you jump to conclusions, hear me out.
    I'm going to college soon, and well, even though we made the choice together, I'm not so sure that is what I want. NOt that I am belittling your ambitions for me, but I would like a choice to explore other options. Not because I feel I don't need you anymore, but because I want to learn this for myself. I don't want to be dependent on you all my life for helping me make decisions. because there will come a time when I will have to make important decisions alone. I don't want to feel lost when I make those decisions alone.
    I continually remember both of you saying that you hand a painful experience in this and that. I see how those things affected you. I see you both as people who have learned the most important lessons of Life through those pains and trials. You see happiness in so many things. I know you're scared for me, scared that the pain I will have to go through will be too great for me, so you protect me from them by not allowing me to do the very things that made you learn how to become better persons. Things like choosing my own friends, discovering that they're not always there, that they also change your outlook and perspective of life; the wrong decisions because of lack of experience and through this learning, finding out which ones are the right ones next time; learning to explore other options and weigh them out; learning better judgment. Please, I ask and beg of you, don't deprive me of those things that made you a better person.
    Even more painful thatn telling you that I'm not a baby anymore is telling you that I don't want to be dependent on you forever. It's easy to say that I do want to be dependent, because then, I won't learn to stand for myself, I'll be perenially leaning on you for help. But I'll become a parasite. I don't want to become something like a parasite, because somewhere along the way, you'll get fed up--and you won't be able to let me grow, bacause by then, it will be too late.
    It is even harder for me if you die, and never teach me these things about life. You can't promise that you will always be there for me, since NO ONE can promise forever. NO human being can decide when he or she is going to die. I don't want that to happen that I will not know what to do when you are gone, because you didn't want to hurt me.
    Please remember that I love you, I always have, even when I'm throwing tantrums and shouting out that I hate you. And I'm doing this for all of us.
    I love you Dad and Mom. Merry Christmas.
                                                                                                 Your daughter


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