On the RX3 Podcast, Salma Kanu shares honest, fresh, and straightforward perspectives on life, love, health, wealth, success, relationships, religion, faith, and the world we live in. She discusses these subjects as she sees them, drawing from her experiences, observations, and feelings at the time. God and spirituality are often a major part of these reflections. The podcast does not present any one perspective as the only answer or tell listeners what to think. Its purpose is simply to offer a different perspective and give listeners something to think about.
Some parents want the Parent of the Year trophy for feeding the children they brought into the world, then act shocked when those same children remember the favoritism, comparisons, blame, abandonment, and emotional damage.
In this episode, Salma asks why parents expect equal love and care in old age after spending childhood treating their children unequally. Yes, ungrateful children exist. But not every estranged child is ungrateful, forgiveness does not guarantee access, and children do not reset to factory settings at eighteen.
Before asking why your adult child stopped calling, check the family history. Your kids kept the receipts.
Welcome back to the RX3 podcast. I am your host, Sama Canu. Today I want to talk about parenting because some parents really believe children don't remember how they were treated. Let me tell you something. They remember when people talk about being a good parent, everybody wants to say, I love all my children exactly the same. Okay, maybe you love all of them, but let's be honest, I don't believe every parent feels exactly the same about every child. Everybody has a favorite, even if they don't say it out loud. There is usually one whose personality is easier for you, one you understand better, or one you naturally gravitate toward. The problem isn't having a closer connection with one child. The problem is every child in the house knowing exactly who your favorite is. A good parent tries not to create division among their children. You don't constantly compare them. You don't say, why can't you be more like your sister? Why aren't you as smart as your brother? Look at your cousin. Why can't you act like that? Nobody wants to spend their life auditioning for their own parents' love. And then for whatever reason, some of those same parents think they should receive an award for parent of the year. For what? Because you fed the children you brought into the world? Because you gave them somewhere to sleep? Congratulations! You completed the minimum requirements. Where would you like us to mail the trophy? Your child may not hate you. Your child may even love you deeply, but love and resentment can live in the same house. That child can love you and still remember every time you made them feel less important than somebody else. And please stop saying they're young, they'll forget. No, they won't. Children are not phones. You don't get to reset them to factory settings when they turn 18. I still remember something that happened to me when I was about 10 years old. Somebody did something, lied about it, and I was blamed for it. I remember it, and honestly, I think that may be part of why I cannot stand for somebody to lie on me now. If I did something, fine. Say I did it, I will say I did it, but don't invent something and put it on me. That triggers something in me because I remember what it felt like to be innocent and still be treated like I was guilty. Kids remember who believed them. They remember who protected them. They remember who embarrassed them, blamed them, compared them, ignored them, and made them feel like they were the problem. Something may have lasted five minutes for you and stayed with that child for 50 years. So, no, they didn't forget. They just stopped talking to you about it. Children also have a much sharper radar than adults like to admit. You tell your child, go say hello to Auntie So and so or go give granny a hug, and the child clearly doesn't want to go near that person. Instead of asking why, some parents start forcing the child. Why? You don't want anybody pushing you towards somebody who makes you uncomfortable. Why are you doing it to your child? Maybe the child is shy, maybe they're tired, but maybe that adult isn't nice to them when you're not looking. Maybe that person said something or did something that made them uncomfortable. Ask. Stop teaching children that an adult's feelings are more important than their own boundaries. Then there is the child everybody calls the strong one. One child gets babied because the parent has decided that child is more sensitive, the other child gets less attention, more responsibility, and no room to fall apart because, oh, that one is strong. How do you know? Sometimes the strong child is only strong because you never gave them another option. Then the parent gets older and expects every child to show up in exactly the same way. Give me a break. Why do you expect equal treatment in your old age when you spent their childhood proving that equal treatment was never a family value? If you put one child on a pedestal and treated the others like supporting characters, you had better hope the star of the show answers the phone when you need somebody. And comparing your child with somebody else doesn't motivate them the way you think it does. A lot of the time, it just makes them resent you and the person you're comparing them to. If somebody else's child is so perfect, go ask that child to come live with you. Why did you have your own child just to spend years wishing they were somebody else? Then you have parents who tell a child, You ruined my life. No, they didn't. You ruined your own life. That child didn't tell you to sleep with anybody, that child didn't create themselves, that child didn't choose when they were conceived or when they were born. You made adult decisions and then you dealt with the consequences of those decisions. Don't hand your child the bill for choices they didn't make. And this happens a lot when a relationship falls apart. The father leaves or the relationship ends, and now the mother looks at the child and says, You're just like your daddy. What does that child have to do with your quarrel with that man? The child didn't choose him. You did. I actually asked my mama once what made her go out with my dad. She told me the story about him getting his ass beat because of her at some party and she felt sorry for him. But at the end of the day, that was an adult decision. A child is not a stand-in for the ex who hurt you. Stop using the child as a punching bag for a fight they were never part of. That man didn't make the child by himself. That is your flesh and blood, too. I watch a lot of East Asian dramas, so I see this storyline all the time. I know a television drama isn't a documentary, but they say art imitates life. And this particular storyline appears a lot. A mother falls on hard times. She meets another man, and either he doesn't want to raise somebody else's child or he doesn't even know she has a child. So she leaves the child with relatives or somebody else and moves on with her life. Sometimes the people raising the child are wonderful. Thank God there are still good people in the world. Sometimes the child is mistreated because everybody has decided that if the child's own parent didn't want them, why should anybody else? Then years later, the child is grown, doing well, and suddenly the parent remembers, oh yeah, I have a child. Really? You don't get to skip the struggle and show up for the success. You don't get to disappear during the raising and return for the rewards. DNA does not equal to a VIP pass into somebody's life. So I looked into the laws in China because I saw storylines where elderly parents took their adult children to court. Chinese law does place duties on adult children to support and assist their parents, and some local rules also require regular visits and contact. I'm asking a different question. What happens when the parent demanding care is the same parent who abandoned, neglected, or abused the child, and being physically present doesn't automatically make somebody a good parent either. You can live in the same house with a child and still make that house feel like hell. Then later in life, some parents want to come back and say, forgive me. Now, I'm a Christian, but I'm not the perfect turn the other cheek every time kind of Christian. I'm still working on some things, but people throw the word forgiveness around as if it erases consequences. It doesn't. Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing. Forgiving somebody doesn't mean giving them automatic access to your life. It doesn't mean pretending it never happened. It doesn't mean sitting down for a conversation you don't want just because the person who hurt you is finally ready to feel better. Sometimes a parent waits until they're sick, elderly, or on their deathbed to clear the air. An apology may be sincere. Ask for forgiveness if you need to. But don't turn your apology into one final act of emotional blackmail. Don't unload decades of guilt onto your child and then expect them to comfort you because you suddenly want a clean conscience. Your emergency to feel forgiven is not automatically their emergency to hear your explanation. If they want the conversation, have it honestly. If they don't, you may have to live with that. You did what you did, you can't undo it. And sometimes what happened wasn't an accident. It was deliberate. That's the part people don't want to admit. Now, are there ungrateful children in the world? Absolutely. I have seen them. Some parents did everything they could, loved their children, supported them, sacrificed for them, and still ended up with an adult child who treats them terribly. That happens. But not every estranged child is ungrateful. Sometimes that child spend their entire childhood waiting to become old enough to leave. So before you ask, why doesn't my child call me? Ask yourself a harder question. What happens to them emotionally when you call? Do they feel loved or do they feel drained? Do they feel safe or do they immediately prepare for criticism, comparison, guilt, and chaos? If your child sees you as the Loch Ness monster, maybe everybody else didn't poison that child against you. Maybe you were the monster in their story. That may be hard to hear, but hard to hear doesn't mean untrue. Some children carry that anger for years. Some may even want revenge. I'm not saying revenge is right or healthy. I'm saying parents need to stop acting as though all that anger appeared out of thin air. Some parents don't want accountability, they want access, they want the child to forget everything, show up, smile, provide money, provide care, and never mention what happened. That isn't reconciliation. That is another demand. If you genuinely want to repair the relationship, start with an apology that doesn't contain an excuse. I hurt you, I was wrong, you didn't deserve it. I understand if you don't trust me, you don't owe me immediate forgiveness or access. If you ever want to talk, I'm here. That is an apology. But I did my best. I don't know what I ever did to you to make you treat me this way. You know how hard my life was, and after everything I did for you are not apologies. That is a defense speech with an apology hiding somewhere in the middle. Parents, your children remember. They remember the favoritism, they remember the comparisons, they remember being blamed for adult choices. They remember being treated like a burden. They remember who showed up and who didn't. You cannot spend their childhood depositing pain and then expect to make unlimited withdrawals of love, money, time, and care when you get older. That account may be closed. So when your adult child doesn't answer the phone before you call them selfish or ungrateful, check the history. Your children kept the receipts. Be careful how you treat them when they're young, because one day they will be old enough to decide how much access you have to them, and you may have to come face to face with everything you thought they forgot. So keep this in mind. Children remember everything. If this message resonates with you, please feel free to share it with someone who may need to hear it. If you want to support the RX3 podcast, your support is greatly appreciated. You can support the show by subscribing, sharing, or reposting this episode, or clicking the support the show button or link in the description. Thank you for listening, sharing, and supporting the RX3 Podcast. Again, I am your host, Salma Canoe. Until next time, bye for now.
