Mother Knows Best!

When someone tells you
They ” know ” what is ” good “
For you more than you do,
Know they are demonstrating
Their ignorance,
Simply observe their confusion
And listen to the truth / wisdom
Of your feelings, then take action
      – Orkie

Mother always knows best! When I hear this phrase I see a nagging mother shaking her finger at me and indirectly telling me I’m stupid and should listen to my elders because they know better then I do. When we get out into the real world we don’t realize how much this phrase and this way of thinking hurts us because we tend to look for answers to our problems from other people. People who are raised in this manner sometimes never learn to fully trust themselves. Only when we become older do we realize that our elders are as ignorant about solutions to our problems as we are.

The truth is that no one knows what is best for you but yourself. Everyone’s experience in life is different and no two problems have the same outcome because we all came here to learn very different things for our individual soul development.

Let’s take for example a very common issue that parents and their children face in making decisions. Young people today are strongly encouraged to go to college sometimes without knowing what career they want to pursue. Parents may say things like, “We know what is best for you and this is it,” or, “We’ve been there too and know you’ll be alright.” Some students are fed empty promises of a long lasting fulfilling career after graduation and are pumped through the college system like a factory assembled product only to end up with a mountain of debt and later seeing the vast amount of competitors that are after the same job. Most of the time parents pressure their children into taking out large sums of money on loan to go to school and sometimes even promise them that they will help pay half or more of the due amount. Sometimes this verbal contract between the parents and the child is null and void by the time the student graduates and the student is left fully responsible for the whole amount if the loan had no co-signer.

Let us assume that a student in this case graduates but is very unhappy with the skills he learned in school and no longer wants to pursue their major as a career. Because of economic and financial problems many people in this case stay with a job they dread because they have no money to go back to school or have a family to support.

In this case the student trusted their parents because they promoted the idea that they knew what was best for the child. Their child may have disagreed with their opinion but from the way he was brought up he gave in his parents’ idea. Think of a time when your parents or an older person you trusted advised you to take a certain path only later to find out that you should have trusted your feelings.

By embedding this dependent behavior in our children we produce citizens of society that cannot think for themselves and depend on other people to fix their problems.

Most of us appreciate our parents for bringing us into this world, nursing us, and sending us to school. Our parents put so much effort into our upbringing that they begin to believe they know what is best for us even when we are of age to make our own decisions.

One theory might be that mothers tend to cultivate this taught pattern in their children because of their fear of being alone. Subconsciously mothers know there is a fifty percent chance their spouse will leave and therefore they indirectly manipulate their children to think that they know what is best for them thus making the child afraid of making decisions and becoming dependent upon their mother and later their elders. Another theory is that parents view a child as an investment and whatever they put into the child financially they expect to get back in later years to benefit their needs. This is a sense of ownership over a child and controlling the decision making ensures the parent that their offspring will become dependent on their “wisdom.” Of course these are only two explanations and they do not apply to all cases. The point is we must teach our children to think on their own so they are able to make solid decisions based on how they feel and not tolerate the idea that surrendering their power is the answer to difficult situations.

As a society we can begin to change our ways by first becoming more attuned to our feelings. This does not mean one has to be emotional. All one must do to master this art is ask how a situation at hand makes one feel then having them acknowledge the feeling and finally make a decision upon that feeling. For example, your friend asks to borrow a large sum of money from you. You feel uneasy about the loan knowing from previous experiences that the friend spent the money on useless items and paid you very late. You finally decide not to lend your friend the money purely on your feeling of the matter and on some logical explanation. This is what it means to be in touch with ones feelings and this is the start to higher understanding of oneself; it is the first step in honoring yourself.

When we begin to honor our feelings we become more in tune to our inner truth and inner wisdom; we being to reach our higher selves, our souls, and are able to tap into that energy for guidance. Remember, just because we came into this world in a small fragile body does not mean we are inferior beings or lower in class and status. We were all born with the experiences and growth from our past lives and the more we condition ourselves to acknowledge how we feel the more we can tap into this higher wisdom and become our own teachers.

So the next time someone says to you they know what is best for you, simply listen to their ignorance and then listen to your feeling on the matter, your inner truth, and inner wisdom, then make a decision.