It starts quietly. You don’t even realize it’s happening. One day, you are rinsing out a steel milk vessel exactly the way your mother used to, shaking off the last few drops with that familiar flick of the wrist. Or you are wiping your spectacles with the edge of your cotton T-shirt, just like your father used to—absentmindedly, without pausing the conversation. You smile at the absurdity of it, shake your head, and go back to your day. But the next time it happens, it isn’t funny anymore. It’s… unsettling. Why am I becoming them?
When we were younger, there was a certain vow we made, somewhere between anger and idealism. That we wouldn’t turn out like them. That we wouldn’t repeat the rigid silences, the heavy expectations, the frugal ways, the way they dismissed things we cared about. We promised ourselves we would parent differently, love more openly, be less anxious about what the neighbours thought. We swore we would not obsess over folded bedsheets or lecture our kids on the correct way to peel a mango.
But life is sneaky. And strangely poetic. Because even as we run in the opposite direction, we find ourselves drawn into the very habits we swore off. Not just the habits, but the emotions. The quiet panic when a child has a fever. The stubbornness about saving the last piece of mithai for someone who might still want it. The love that never says “I love you” but cuts fruit and keeps it in the fridge, just in case.
Across time zones and traditions, this question—of becoming our parents—has quietly echoed through households and hearts. In India, epics like the Ramayana show sons torn between duty and selfhood, only to return to the very dharma they once questioned. In Tamil homes, elders still say, “You will understand when you have children of your own”—as a prophecy. In Japan, oyakōkō, the devotion to one’s parents, is a virtue lived out in silence, in gestures. In African proverbs, it is said, “A child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth”—a reminder that family patterns repeat unless held with care. In Jewish tradition, memory is sacred—l’dor v’dor, from generation to generation, where blessings and burdens alike are passed on. Even in the West, literature is full of these returns: in Jane Austen’s daughters who resent their mothers’ rules but slowly recreate them; in American memoirs that trace the arc from rebellion to reluctant resemblance.
But somewhere along the way, as societies grew more prosperous, as cities got taller and lives busier, something else began to fade. The bonds that once held us close—shared meals, shared silences, the quiet comfort of routines—started to loosen. In homes where three generations once coexisted, now even phone calls need calendars. Love just became harder to hear beneath the noise of achievement. And perhaps that is why, in moments of stillness, when we catch ourselves sounding like our parents, or doing what they once did without thinking, it feels so jarring—because it reminds us of a slower, closer kind of life. One we may not have chosen, but might quietly be longing to return to.
If you grew up in an Indian home in the '80s or '90s, you probably lived this double life of affection and awkwardness. Your mother made your favourite dish when you were sad, but she never asked why you were crying. Your father worried about your board exam marks without ever asking if you were sleeping enough. There was love, there was sacrifice, but there were few words. And we all thought—we will be different. We will say the words. We will be more expressive. We will raise our children with freedom, not fear.
But now, when your daughter talks back to you in a tone too sharp, or your son says he wants to quit his stable job to become a wildlife photographer, you feel that tug in your chest. That same tug your parents must have felt when you said you wanted to study English instead of engineering. And suddenly, you understand.
You really understand.
Not agree—but understand.
Across India, you will find these moments echoing in quiet corners of homes. There are countless fathers who still fold the newspaper just so before handing it to their teenage child, who looks unimpressed. Yet 20 years from now, that same child might do it for his child. There are many mothers who still save the plastic covers from new clothes, tucked neatly into the kitchen drawer, “just in case”—and their daughters, who rolled their eyes at the habit, now have a little collection of their own, without even realizing it.
And of course, there’s the WhatsApp forwards. You mocked them. You swore you’d never become that parent who sends “Good Morning” messages with sparkly roses. And yet, here you are—Googling vitamin D supplements, forwarding videos about bone health, and telling your niece to take an umbrella “just in case.”
There’s humour in it, yes. But there’s also something tender. Something that softens the sharp edges of memory. It is not just behaviours we inherit. It’s also phrases. Language. Caution. Reassurance. You find yourself saying “Adjust a little” in a moment of awkwardness. “Don’t waste food,” even when the food isn’t great. You find yourself explaining things with a “Because I said so” even when you swore you’d always give your children a choice. The same way your parents did.
But perhaps the most startling inheritance is not the one you see in the mirror, but the one you feel in your bones. The instinct to protect. The fear of things going wrong. The guilt that comes with small joys when others are struggling. The overthinking, the over-caring, the over-saving. The need to do more for your family than you will ever say out loud.
And in the middle of it all, you begin to notice time slipping by.
Your parents’ hands, once steady and strong, now tremble slightly when they button their shirt. Their walking pace slows. They ask you to repeat what you just said. Their photo sits in a frame at home or on your phone lock screen—smiling, distant, loved. And suddenly, the moments when you felt irritated at them, impatient, ungrateful—they pinch. Because now you know what it meant to hold things together.
You begin to understand the joy they felt in small rituals—cutting fruits precisely, cleaning out cupboards before festivals, saving money in envelopes. What once felt like control now feels like love shaped through repetition. What once felt suffocating now feels like survival.
You return, without knowing it, to their values. You begin to want the same things they wanted for you. A roof, a family, peace. A child’s smile. A fridge stocked with leftovers. No drama. No debt.
You see them not as the people who raised you, but as the people you have now become.
And if you are reading this on a quiet weekend, maybe with your parents in the next room or their photograph on the wall, maybe you have felt it too. That strange mix of exasperation and empathy. That ache of missing them while being them. That slow surrender to the truth that becoming like them is not a failure. After all, life is a full circle.
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