YOUR CHILD IS ALWAYS WATCHING YOU, EVEN WHEN IT IS NOT LOOKING AT YOU
- Madhukar Dama
- 2 days ago
- 10 min read
Not your face. Your life.
1. INTRODUCTION: CHILDREN DON’T LEARN FROM LESSONS. THEY ABSORB FROM LIVING.
You think your child learns when you teach.
When you give lectures.
When you say, “Say sorry.”
When you buy books with morals at the end.
When you forward them videos about kindness.
But the truth is:
Your child is not listening.
They’re watching.
All the time.
And not just watching.
Copying.
Without permission.
Without understanding.
Without filters.
Because children are not students.
They’re recording machines.
Every word.
Every reaction.
Every contradiction.
Stored and stitched into their nervous system
as “this is how life works.”
2. THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF PARENTING HAPPENS WHEN YOU’RE NOT PARENTING
It’s not the “we need to talk” moments.
It’s not the birthday speeches or discipline chats.
It’s when you're running late and how you react to traffic.
It’s how you treat the waiter.
It’s the look on your face when your spouse interrupts you.
It’s how you deal with boredom.
How you curse under your breath.
How you look at your phone during dinner.
These unplanned, unconscious, unperformed moments—
that’s your child’s syllabus.
3. THE GAP BETWEEN WHAT YOU SAY AND WHAT YOU DO IS WHERE YOUR CHILD LIVES
You say, “Be honest.”
Then you say, “Tell them I’m not home.”
You say, “Be kind.”
Then you mock your own relatives behind closed doors.
You say, “Don’t waste food.”
Then you throw away vegetables because you don’t like the taste.
You say, “Health is important.”
Then you eat chips in bed while telling them to go play outside.
The child is not confused.
They’re clear:
“What my parents do is what matters.
What they say is decoration.”
4. CHILDREN STUDY YOUR ANGER, FEAR, AND SILENCE MORE THAN YOUR WORDS
Children are not evaluating you.
They are becoming you.
If your anger is explosive—
they learn that loudness equals power.
If your silence is manipulative—
they learn that withholding affection gets results.
If your fear controls decisions—
they learn that life is about avoiding risks, not living freely.
Children don’t separate your emotional tone from their reality.
They become it.
5. THE CHILD’S EYE SEES WHAT YOU TRY TO HIDE
You think you’ve hidden your shame.
They can feel it in your posture.
You think you’ve covered your disappointment.
They read it in your sigh.
You think they didn’t hear the fight in the other room.
They didn’t just hear it—
they filed it under “this is love.”
Children don’t need facts.
They pick up mood, tone, breath, speed, and tension.
They’re emotional sponges long before they’re verbal beings.
They know more than you admit.
They feel more than you explain.
And they remember more than you think.
6. THEY ARE COPYING HOW YOU TREAT YOUR OWN BODY AND MIND
If you hate your body,
they’ll grow up treating theirs like a burden.
If you never rest,
they’ll feel guilty for slowing down.
If you eat while scrolling,
they’ll associate food with distraction.
If you lie to yourself to feel better,
they’ll learn that reality is optional.
You don’t have to say anything.
They are watching how you live.
And they’re downloading it as truth.
7. YOUR CHILD IS LEARNING FROM YOUR RELATIONSHIP, NOT YOUR ADVICE ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS
You say, “Choose someone who respects you.”
But your spouse doesn’t respect you.
You say, “Talk about your feelings.”
But you haven’t had a vulnerable moment in years.
You say, “Never settle for abuse.”
But your children see how you tolerate emotional neglect
for the sake of “keeping the peace.”
You are teaching them
what love looks like,
what tolerance looks like,
what sacrifice means—
even when you don’t open your mouth.
8. YOU ARE TEACHING YOUR CHILD HOW TO TREAT THEMSELVES
If you constantly blame yourself,
they will grow up thinking guilt is moral.
If you put everyone else’s needs first,
they’ll learn that self-respect is selfish.
If you never say no,
they’ll believe boundaries ruin relationships.
If you live in denial,
they’ll live in confusion.
If you never cry in front of them,
they’ll believe emotions are shameful.
If you only show strength,
they’ll become actors—
not humans.
9. YOU CAN’T “FAKE IT TILL THEY’RE GROWN” — THEY’LL REMEMBER WHAT YOU HID
Some parents think:
“They’re young. They’ll forget. They don’t understand yet.”
But trauma doesn’t need language.
Confusion doesn’t need age.
Loneliness doesn’t ask for vocabulary.
They will grow.
And their nervous system will grow with them.
Carrying your moods.
Your contradictions.
Your betrayals of your own needs.
And they’ll wake up one day
not knowing why they feel unworthy—
until they remember
how often you dismissed your own worth
in front of them.
10. YOU ARE NOT RAISING THEM.
YOU ARE BEING WATCHED BY THEM.
You think parenting is about what you teach.
But parenting is about what you embody
when you think no one is watching.
Your child isn’t waiting for you to explain life.
They’re learning by watching
how you wake up,
how you cope,
how you love,
how you lie,
how you age,
how you exist.
11. THE CHILD WILL OUTGROW YOUR HOUSE, NOT YOUR PATTERNS
One day, they will leave.
But they’ll carry your voice in their head.
Your habits in their hands.
Your tone in their throat.
Your beliefs in their decisions.
They’ll cook like you.
Apologize like you.
Hate like you.
Trust like you.
Ignore themselves like you.
Or maybe—
heal from you.
But they’ll never be untouched by you.
12. CONCLUSION: YOUR CHILD DOESN’T NEED A PERFECT PARENT.
JUST AN HONEST ONE.
They don’t need you to be right all the time.
They need you to be real.
They don’t need you to preach strength.
They need you to show them how to rest.
They don’t need lectures on values.
They need to see values in motion.
In the kitchen. In the fights. In the quiet.
When you're tired.
When you're lost.
When you're alone.
Because your child is always looking at you.
Even when they’re not.
And what they see
is what they will become.
---
---
Below is a huge, emotionally layered, realistic, and brutally honest healing dialogue between a mid-aged couple and Madhukar, the natural living guide. They believed for decades that their children only listened and did not copy. Now their grown children are suffering in the same ways they once ignored in themselves.
HEALING DIALOGUE: “WE DIDN’T KNOW THEY WERE WATCHING”
A mid-aged couple breaks the chain before it travels further
Characters:
Madhukar (43): A former veterinary doctor turned natural lifestyle guide. Lives in a self-built off-grid home in the forest near Yelmadagi.
Ramesh (52): Retired central government employee. Quiet, proud, often emotionally closed.
Latha (49): Homemaker. Talks a lot, worries even more. Feels guilty but hides it under control.
Aditya (26): Their elder son, works in Hyderabad, emotionally distant, drinks alone.
Kavya (22): Their daughter, lives with them, constantly on phone, has hormonal issues and frequent outbursts.
Setting:
Madhukar’s mud verandah.
Morning sun cuts across the neem leaves.
The couple sit stiffly on the edge of the stone platform, eyes not meeting.
Adhya and Anju (Madhukar’s daughters) are in the background, watering plants barefoot.
Madhukar (pouring water into terracotta tumblers):
You’ve come far.
Let’s not waste time repeating what’s already broken.
Tell me what brings you here.
Latha:
We have… messed up.
We thought we were raising good children.
Disciplined.
Educated.
Respectful.
We thought if we told them what’s right, they’d grow up and follow it.
But now we see…
they followed us.
Not what we said.
But what we were.
Ramesh:
Aditya…
he has a job, but no peace.
He doesn’t speak unless we call him.
He drinks.
Not with friends. Alone.
Like how I used to when they were small.
I used to think they never noticed.
Now he’s doing it like it’s normal.
Madhukar:
So now you see?
The child is not a listener.
The child is a mirror.
And a mirror never lies.
Latha (holding back tears):
We told them to speak up.
To be open.
To tell us everything.
But I never told anyone anything.
Not even Ramesh.
I lived like that for decades—
bottling pain, pleasing people, pretending everything was okay.
Now Kavya explodes.
Cries one moment, screams the next.
And then shuts down for hours.
Just like I used to, alone in the kitchen.
Madhukar (gently):
She inherited your silence.
And your sorrow.
Not through blood,
but through observation.
You didn’t teach her this.
You lived it in front of her.
Ramesh:
So what now?
Are we too late?
Madhukar:
You’re not late.
But you’re not early either.
You have two choices:
Repeat. Or Repair.
You cannot control who they are now.
But you can show them, for the first time,
who you can be.
Latha:
They don’t even listen now.
They call us judgmental.
Old-fashioned.
Fake.
Madhukar:
Because for 25 years
you told them what to do
but never showed them how to be.
Now they’re hurt.
And when people are hurt, they speak in fire.
That doesn’t mean they’ve stopped watching.
Your child never stops watching.
Ramesh (softly):
I want to…
undo things.
But I don’t know how to show what I never learned.
Madhukar:
Then you must become a student now.
You must let them see you stumble.
Change.
Apologize without defending.
Cry without drama.
Speak without instruction.
You must let them see your unfinished truth—
not your polished wisdom.
Latha:
How do I begin?
Madhukar:
Stop correcting.
Start confessing.
Tell Kavya what you never told her:
That you were afraid all your life.
That you were not okay.
That you tried to be perfect and lost yourself.
Don’t advise her.
Show her your rawness.
Let her feel safe to be messy, too.
Ramesh:
And Aditya?
Madhukar:
Write to him.
Not with instructions.
With regret.
Not with solutions.
With humility.
Say,
“I drank in silence.
I hid pain.
You saw it.
And I never told you that was not strength.”
Say,
“I’m still learning.
And I hope you do better than me.
But if you don’t,
I’ll still walk beside you.”
Latha:
Will they forgive us?
Madhukar:
Maybe.
Maybe not.
But this isn’t about being forgiven.
This is about ending the inheritance of dysfunction.
You received a broken mirror.
You polished it and passed it on.
Now break it.
Show them that love
doesn’t have to mean pretending anymore.
Ramesh:
It feels unbearable.
Madhukar:
Because it’s real.
Not rehearsed.
Not moral.
Just real.
You thought your children needed role models.
They didn’t.
They needed witnesses.
Someone who could say:
“I went wrong here.
And I’m still standing.”
✤ TWO MONTHS LATER
They return.
Latha has stopped talking like a syllabus.
She now listens to Kavya’s breakdowns without trying to solve them.
Ramesh has taken up slow walks.
He sent a handwritten letter to Aditya.
No sermon.
Just memory and softness.
Aditya called.
Said it made him cry.
Said he didn’t know his father had feelings.
They talk now. Once a week.
But honestly.
Kavya?
She still has her moods.
But she hugs her mother now.
And once, she whispered:
“I see you trying.”
Madhukar (to them):
You thought children only listened.
But now you see.
They remember who you are
long after they forget what you said.
---
---
YOUR CHILD IS ALWAYS LOOKING AT YOU
A slow-burning Charles Bukowski-styled lament, layered with the truth parents bury and children inherit
you thought they were listening.
to your rules,
to your rewards,
to your fake bedtime morals.
you thought your words would mold them.
but they were never listening.
they were watching.
and your silence
taught them more than your voice ever did.
you said “say sorry.”
but they saw you never did.
you said “speak up.”
but your throat was a tombstone.
you said “don’t lie.”
but they saw you curve every sentence
to keep the peace.
to keep the mask.
to keep your marriage from smelling like truth.
you called them disrespectful.
but you raised them on sarcasm.
you called them ungrateful.
but you sighed every time they wanted you.
you called them confused.
but confusion was the wallpaper of their childhood.
and you were the architect.
you gave them everything.
except your real self.
and they copied that too.
they learned to give
and never be seen.
to love
and never be whole.
to smile
like duct tape over a broken ribcage.
they are you
with less permission.
they are your denied rage
with headphones.
your suppressed grief
with eyeliner.
your invisible burnout
with memes.
you thought you were raising someone new.
you were just replicating the unfinished business of your own life.
then one day,
your son drinks like you used to—
but without the guilt.
your daughter breaks things
without saying sorry,
just like your heart used to.
and you call it rebellion.
but it’s repetition.
the kind that wears new clothes
but carries the same smell.
you ask:
"why is he so closed?"
but you never let him watch you cry.
you ask:
"why is she so angry?"
but you swallowed your fire
for decades
and passed the ember
to her.
you ask:
"why are they so lost?"
but you never showed them
how to live
only how to perform
and apologize for wanting.
you thought parenting was teaching.
it was surveillance.
they watched you
from the corner
of every dinner,
every silence,
every fake laugh.
they saw the way your eyes dimmed
when your name was called too softly.
and they took notes.
so now
you sit with Madhukar
a man in the woods
who doesn’t pretend.
and he doesn’t say,
“it’s okay.”
he says,
“they became what you practiced,
not what you preached.”
and you nod.
because you know.
you always knew.
you break.
finally.
you write your son
a letter without pride.
you tell your daughter
your sorrow without needing her to fix it.
you stop correcting.
you begin confessing.
and they don’t clap.
they don’t hug.
they just look at you differently.
not like you're right.
but like you're finally
human.
you don’t get redemption.
you get recognition.
and that is enough.
because one day,
if they raise children,
maybe they will choose to be real
instead of right.
maybe they’ll show weakness
instead of perfection.
maybe they’ll say:
“my parents taught me what not to be—
by finally becoming
who they were.”
you thought they were listening.
they weren’t.
they were watching.
and now they see you.
for the first time.
not as a story.
not as a sermon.
but as a
slow
burning
truth
they can carry
without fear.
[end.]
