ARE YOU PUSHING YOUR CHILD INTO THE SAME TRAPS THAT YOU ARE SUFFERING?

An honest look at generational hypocrisy disguised as parenting

The essay exposes how modern parents, despite knowing the pain of their own trapped lives, continue to push their children into the same emotional, social, and occupational cages under the guise of love, safety, and success. It argues that instead of raising free, self-aware individuals, parents often replicate their own unhealed fears, control mechanisms, and regrets—disguised as guidance. They don't raise children; they reproduce their own compromises, anxieties, and suppressed dreams. Without awareness, they become gatekeepers of the very cycles they once hoped to break.

1. YOU KNOW IT’S A TRAP. AND YET, YOU’RE DRAGGING THEM IN

You hate waking up to go to work.

You dread your boss.

You scroll at night with hollow eyes and call it “unwinding.”

You’re in debt, in doubt, in a body you don’t love,

in a life you never really chose.

And what do you say to your child?

“Work hard. Be like me.”

Be like you?

The exhausted, over-controlled, over-scheduled shell

of a person who talks about happiness

but hasn’t touched it in a decade?

You know it’s a trap.

And yet, you’re handing them the key to the same cage.

2. YOU CALL IT “ADVICE.” IT’S JUST REPACKAGED FEAR

You tell them:

“Choose a safe career.”

“Don’t take risks.”

“Make sure you’re settled.”

But what you mean is:

“Please don’t scare me by becoming someone I don’t understand.”

You don’t want them to be free.

You want them to be familiar.

Familiar means predictable.

And predictable means controllable.

So you control in the name of “care.”

You parent from your fear,

and then ask why your child is anxious.

3. YOU TEACH THEM TO REPEAT THE CYCLE, BUT SMILE WHILE DOING IT

You suffered in silence.

Now you tell them:

“Be grateful.”

You hated your body.

Now you obsess over their appearance.

You swallowed your pain.

Now you say:

“Don’t be dramatic.”

You tell them to be “resilient”—

but you mean:

“Be as numb as I am, but don’t complain about it.”

What you never healed

has become their syllabus.

4. YOU ARE NOT RAISING A CHILD. YOU ARE RAISING YOUR DEFENSE MECHANISMS IN A SMALLER BODY

Your child is not yours.

They are not your second chance.

They are not your apology to your own parents.

They are not your emotional do-over.

But look at what you’ve done:

You shame them when they feel

You correct them when they question

You panic when they pause

You guilt them when they dream

You’re not raising a person.

You’re engineering compliance.

So you don’t have to confront how little freedom you allowed yourself.

5. YOU HATE YOUR LIFE, BUT YOU SELL IT TO THEM AS “SECURITY”

You talk about job security

while fearing every call from your manager.

You talk about marriage

while sleeping in separate rooms.

You talk about balance

while burning out by Wednesday.

And then you sit your child down and say:

“Follow this path. It’s safe.”

It’s not safe.

It’s just familiar.

It’s just broken in ways you’ve accepted.

And now you want them to accept it too—

so you don’t feel alone in your suffering.

6. YOU SAY “I JUST WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY”—THAT’S A LIE

If they were truly happy

doing something you don’t approve of,

would you still support them?

If they chose a path that made you uncomfortable—

not dangerous, just unfamiliar—

would you let them go?

You don’t want their happiness.

You want your comfort.

Your validation.

Your proof that your sacrifices were worth it.

You don’t want them to suffer.

Unless their suffering looks just like yours.

Then it becomes tradition.

7. YOU AREN’T EVEN AWARE OF HOW DEEPLY YOU’RE PROGRAMMING THEM

You don’t have to lecture.

They’re watching.

They watch how you hate your job and still show up.

How you talk about dreams you never chased.

How you gossip, lie, shrink, obey, pretend.

You say “be strong”—

but they see how scared you are.

You say “be free”—

but they see how trapped you feel.

They will forget your words.

But they will live your choices.

Your dysfunction becomes their design.

8. YOU CAN’T EVEN PRETEND YOU’RE UNAWARE ANYMORE

You’ve read the articles.

You’ve seen the signs.

You know your child is shrinking.

You see their fear, their withdrawal, their sadness.

And still you say:

“It’s just a phase.”

“Kids these days are soft.”

“We never had these problems.”

Yes.

You didn’t have the freedom to name them.

Now your child does—

and you’re trying to steal that from them too.

Because if they heal,

they will expose what you never faced.

9. YOU ARE THE REASON THEY WILL NEED TO HEAL

And the irony?

You’ll later complain about therapy.

About how your child “blames you for everything.”

About how they’re “still not settled.”

But they’re not blaming you.

They’re undoing you.

Unwiring what you downloaded into them

without consent,

without awareness,

without remorse.

You call it disrespect.

It’s resistance.

And it’s necessary.

10. CONCLUSION: YOU CAN STOP NOW. OR DOUBLE DOWN.

The mirror is here.

You’re staring into it.

You know what you’ve done.

What you’re still doing.

The trap is open.

And your child is standing at the edge.

Do you push them in—

so they can make your suffering feel noble?

Or do you step back—

and finally say:

“Not this time.”

“Not through them.”

“Not anymore.”

If you don’t,

don’t call it parenting.

Call it projection.

Call it fear.

Call it the ritual of repetition.

But don’t call it love.

---

---

HEALING DIALOGUE:

"I WALKED YOU INTO MY PRISON THINKING IT WAS A SAFE PLACE"

Characters:

Aniruddh (54) – School teacher. Respected in society, tired in soul. Believed doing his best was enough.

Malini (51) – Homemaker. Silent martyr. Thought sacrifice was motherhood.

Meera (27) – Their daughter. Works in IT, struggling with anxiety and burnout.

Tarun (22) – Their son. Dropped out of MBA. Distant, angry, sarcastic.

Madhukar (43) – Natural living guide. Lives simply in the forest near Yelmadagi. Offers no advice, only mirrors.

Scene:

Madhukar’s verandah. The sun filters through jackfruit leaves.

The parents arrive with their children—reluctant, defensive, cracked.

Tarun kicks at a stone.

Meera avoids eye contact.

Aniruddh folds his arms.

Malini grips her saree pallu like a wound.

Madhukar (offering water):

You came as four.

But you haven’t met each other in years.

Let’s begin there.

Meera (soft, resentful):

I’m tired.

Not just physically.

But of carrying everyone’s expectations like luggage

that I never packed.

Aniruddh:

We only wanted the best for you.

We worked hard so you’d have a better life.

Tarun (mocking):

So now your unhealed life becomes our syllabus?

Malini:

We gave everything.

You had tuition, internet, safety, clothes.

We didn’t even dream of such things.

Madhukar:

Yes. You gave them things.

But what did you teach them?

How to love?

How to rest?

How to say no?

How to face fear without becoming it?

Or did you teach them how to survive quietly,

just like you?

Meera:

I was never allowed to be confused.

I had to be strong.

Independent.

Polite.

Performing.

And now I don’t know who I am.

Only who I am for others.

Tarun (quietly):

Every time I said I didn’t want this path…

I saw your face, Appa.

That mix of disappointment and “you’ll thank me later.”

So I stayed.

And every day I stayed,

I became less alive.

Aniruddh (crumbling):

I didn’t know.

I swear to God.

I thought if you had stability,

you’d be safe.

And if you were safe,

you’d be happy.

I never realised

you watched me hate my job

and assumed that was normal.

Malini (tears):

I never spoke up to my in-laws.

To my own pain.

I thought endurance was love.

Now Meera does the same in her relationships.

And I can’t even tell her not to.

Because I was the example.

The wrong one.

Madhukar:

Children don’t learn from lectures.

They learn from your lifestyle.

You can’t tell them

“Follow your dreams”

while you walk with broken feet

and never ask why they hurt.

You can’t say

“Be honest”

while you lie to your spouse

with every silence at dinner.

Aniruddh:

What do we do now?

Madhukar:

Begin with one sentence.

Not a defence.

Not a justification.

Look at them,

and say:

“I pushed you into my pain thinking it was protection.”

Aniruddh (to Meera and Tarun):

I pushed you into my pain

thinking it was protection.

I made a prison

and painted it

as opportunity.

I didn’t know I was passing down

my chains as heirlooms.

Malini:

And I taught you silence.

Because I believed love meant vanishing.

Now I want to return.

And learn to stay visible.

Meera (softening):

Then stay.

As yourself.

Not as a parent.

Not as a provider.

Just...

as a person who’s finally willing to feel.

Tarun (quiet):

And let me fail.

Without feeling like I’m failing you.

Because that’s the heaviest part.

Madhukar:

That’s where healing begins.

Not in being right.

But in being real—

together.

You can’t delete what you did.

But you can break the chain

by not dragging the next generation into it.

Let your grandchildren grow up

with the scent of honesty,

not the stink of inherited silence.

---

---

THE TRAP YOU CALLED LOVE

A poem for parents who passed down their pain with pride

you told them

“study hard.”

but you never studied your own unhappiness.

you told them

“choose wisely.”

but your own life was a maze

of choices made from fear,

then framed as sacrifice.

you told them

“be better than us.”

but you didn’t mean it.

you meant

“be like us—

but pretend you’re not suffering.”

they saw you

in the early mornings,

in the burnt toast,

in the silent dinners,

in the tension buried in your “I’m fine.”

they saw you

age like wallpaper—

fading, peeling,

still trying to cover the cracks underneath.

and they took notes.

they didn’t want your success.

they wanted your freedom.

but you gave them

your fear,

your schedules,

your apologies-for-existing,

and called it love.

you thought love meant

giving them what you never had.

but what they needed

was for you to let go

of what you always clutched—

approval, image, control,

respectability.

your daughter is now

a polite storm,

breaking behind a screen,

smiling through hormonal collapse,

just like her mother.

your son walks

like he owes the world an explanation

for simply breathing.

just like his father.

you didn’t raise them.

you replicated yourself

in smaller, more confused versions—

then got angry

when they didn’t thank you for it.

and now they sit in rooms

far from you,

quiet, aching,

trying to learn what it means

to live without performance.

trying to forgive you

without becoming you.

if you’re lucky,

they will break the chain.

and you will see

the trap you called love

was just your own wounded childhood

rewrapped and handed down

like a family recipe

no one ever digested.

[end.]