The strange feeling of seeing yourself in your child.

When I was a kid, when guests come home, I would be so painfully shy, to go and just lock myself in the other room. I couldn't understand why my parents were angry and upset with my behaviour, i just liked to be by myself.

My son does the same thing what I was as a child, when guests come, he runs away of recedes into his own - like my parents did years ago, I intervene requesting him to interact, not letting him be.I find it strange that I know exactly what he is going through, yet I now side with my parents reaction.

This makes me wonder if seeing ourselves in our child may not always be a source of pride or nostalgia, there may also be discomfort, eager to correct the traits we struggled with.

I think parenting sometimes is not to the child, but is to our old selves - it is not objective as we think it to be. We carry ourselves into every interaction we have with our child, pushing them to our successes and steering away from our failures. They move from being our children to our projects. I must realize my son must live his own life and learn from his own mistakes.

When I see my son standing before the same pit I fell (or judged to have fallen) long time ago, I think my duty should not be to pull him away, I think my duty is to dispassionately share my experience and learnings while being beside him, wherever he decides to put his next step.