While I performed for an audience that couldn't see me—rehearsing conversations, curating achievements, desperately seeking the magic words that would finally unlock their approval—I was missing the chance to become who I was meant to be.
I spent decades waiting for my parents to become the people I needed them to be.
Last month, while helping my mom sort through old photo albums, I found myself staring at a picture of us from my college graduation. She was beaming with pride, and I remembered that day so clearly. Not because of the achievement, but because I thought that finally, finally, I'd done something that would make them see me for who I really was.
But here's what I've learned after four decades of waiting: that version of my parents, the one who would suddenly understand me, validate my choices, and see beyond their own expectations? They were never going to show up. And the cost of waiting for them has been steeper than I ever imagined.
The fantasy parents in our heads
We all carry around these idealized versions of our parents, don't we? The ones who would finally say "I'm proud of you" without adding conditions. The ones who would ask about our dreams instead of our retirement plans. The ones who would see our actual accomplishments instead of the ones they'd planned for us.
I was labeled "gifted" in elementary school, and from that moment on, the pressure to be perfect became my constant companion. Every achievement was expected, every failure was devastating. I thought if I just worked hard enough, achieved enough, succeeded enough, my parents would finally see me as complete.
But watching them age has taught me something profound: they're not going to change. Not because they don't want to, but because they can't see past their own unmet needs, their own fears, their own limited perspectives shaped by decades of different experiences.
My mother still introduces me as "my daughter who worked in finance" rather than "my daughter the writer." After years of building a career I love, creating work that matters to me, she defaults to the job I left behind because it fits her definition of success. At first, this stung. Now I understand it says more about her needs than mine.
The waiting game we play
How many family dinners have you sat through, hoping this would be the one where real conversation happened? How many phone calls have you answered, thinking maybe today they'd ask about your actual life instead of the version they've constructed?
I used to prepare for these interactions like they were performances. I'd rehearse what I'd say, how I'd finally explain my choices in a way that would make them understand. I'd anticipate their questions and practice my answers, hoping to find the magic combination of words that would unlock their approval.
The tragedy isn't just that it never worked. It's that while I was performing for an audience that couldn't see me, I was missing the chance to be authentic with people who could.
When protection becomes prison
Here's what I've come to understand about my need for control: it all stemmed from childhood anxiety about my parents' approval. Every decision I made, from my college major to my career choices, was filtered through the lens of "what would they think?"
Even my successes felt hollow because they were never quite the right ones. When I told them I was leaving finance to pursue writing, the silence on the other end of the phone was deafening. When I shared my first published article, the response was, "But can you make a living from this?"
I had to confront their disappointment and realize something that changed everything: I couldn't live for their approval. Not because I didn't love them, but because their approval was based on a version of me that I was never meant to be.
The clock we can't turn back
My father's health scare last year shifted everything into sharp focus. Sitting in that hospital waiting room, I realized I'd been having the same fight with him for twenty years. Not an actual fight with words and raised voices, but this quiet, persistent struggle where I kept trying to prove I'd made the right choices and he kept hoping I'd come to my senses and return to a "stable" career.
But in that moment, with the possibility of loss hanging in the sterile air, I understood that we were running out of time to have the relationship we actually could have, not the one I'd been hoping for.
The saddest part? All those years I spent trying to change them or waiting for them to change themselves were years I could have spent accepting them, and myself, as we actually were.
Finding peace in what is
Accepting your parents as they are doesn't mean condoning hurtful behavior or pretending everything is fine when it isn't. It means recognizing that they're human beings with their own limitations, their own unhealed wounds, their own stories that shaped them long before you came along.
My parents grew up in a different world with different rules. Their definition of success, love, and happiness was forged in circumstances I'll never fully understand. Expecting them to suddenly see the world through my eyes is like expecting them to speak a language they never learned.
This doesn't excuse the pain or make the longing go away. Some days, I still grieve for the parents I needed but didn't have. The ones who would have nurtured creativity over achievement. The ones who would have asked "are you happy?" before "are you successful?"
Moving forward without looking back
The real work isn't changing them. It's grieving the parents you needed and finding ways to give yourself what they couldn't. It's learning to validate your own choices without needing their stamp of approval. It's building a life that feels authentic to you, even if they never understand it.
I've stopped trying to explain my career change. I've stopped justifying my choices. Instead, I share what I can, accept their responses without taking them personally, and find my validation elsewhere.
Because here's what I know now: the version of my parents I needed might never have existed, but the version of me that I was meant to be? She was waiting all along. She just needed me to stop looking for permission to let her out.
Conclusion
If you're still waiting for your parents to become the people you need them to be, I want you to know something: it's okay to stop waiting. It's okay to grieve what you didn't get. It's okay to love them and still wish things were different.
The years you've spent waiting aren't wasted if they teach you this: your worth was never dependent on their recognition. Your choices don't need their validation to be right. And the relationship you can have with them now, imperfect as it is, might just be worth more than the fantasy you've been holding onto.
Because the saddest thing isn't that they couldn't be who we needed. It's that in waiting for them to change, we postponed becoming who we were meant to be.
