Underneath
What's going on underneath #
Three things that tend to sit under the words.
An unspoken promise can still feel broken.
For some people the picture came from watching: a best friend's mother who packed two tiffins, a neighbour's father who walked his children to the bus, the families on television who always seemed to be home by six.
Underneath, a rule can sit: “Parents who care show up for the small things,” or “Being there means being in the room.”
Reactions
What people often do #
- Turn up for everything for others, to make sure nobody else waits
- Say “it was fine, they were busy” before anybody has asked
- Feel a flash of something when parents now ask to spend time together
- Compare childhoods with friends, then go quiet when the talk turns
- Push the whole subject away as old news that shouldn't matter now
The deck
The story in 6 cards #
Six short cards, from the moment to letting go.
A colleague leaving for the final
Tuesday afternoon in an office in Kuala Lumpur. A colleague packs up early to get to her son's football final, smiling as she waves goodbye. You watch her go and keep typing. On the train home, an old memory surfaces: a school sports day, scanning the crowd. You look out of the window, and a heavy, familiar feeling settles quietly in your chest.
They should have been around more
Underneath sits a rule: 'My parents should have been around more when I was young.' It sounds fair. Children need their people. But look at what it does now: it keeps you standing in a past that can't be changed, waiting for an apology or an explanation for years that are already gone, while today quietly passes by outside the window.
Why we wish to be watched over
We hold it because the wish to be watched over is one of the oldest wishes there is. Maybe you remember long evenings waiting for a key in the door. Maybe you saw friends with parents at every match. Either way, wanting them there wasn't too much. It came from a child wanting their people close. That child deserves kindness, not blame.
The old feeling stirred again
Each reminder stirs the old feeling. You notice every parent at every school gate. You find yourself replaying certain years. Some days carry an unspoken weight, a question with nowhere to go. Sometimes you feel the old waiting come back in new places: waiting for someone to call, to notice, to turn up. The past ends up shaping evenings it no longer belongs to.
Is the old wish worth carrying?
Ask yourself honestly: has holding on to how it should have been ever brought those years back? Or has it mostly kept the old waiting alive? Nobody can fully know the reasons behind a family's past. Either way, the empty spaces then aren't the measure of who you can be now. Is holding this rule so tightly worth what it takes from today?
Showing up for yourself now
Letting go doesn't mean saying it didn't matter. It did. It means the past no longer gets to run your present evenings. You can give yourself now some of the attention you wanted then: turning up for your own small moments, noticing your own good days. That's where some peace comes back: the waiting can finally end, and today becomes a place you live in.
If what you remember was being left unsafe, hurt or frightened as a child, that is not a hope to set down; it is worth taking seriously, and leaving it unspoken can be the safe choice.
The flip
The old rule, and a new one to try #
The old ruleThey should have been around more.
A new rule to tryIt mattered. I can show up for myself now.
Three small days
Try it for 3 days #
- Day 1
Spend ten minutes today on something you enjoy
- Day 2
When the old feeling comes back, be kind to yourself
- Day 3
Do one small thing the younger you would have loved
Want to talk it through?
“Which grown-up from those years do you remember kindly, and what did they do?”
Free and private. No sign-up to start. The chat opens with this question.
Everything this deck knows
Go deeper #
What it sounds like, where it comes from, what it costs, and other ways to see it. Every question opens a chat on it.
How it lands
What was said
A thought that arrives years after the fact #
A colleague leaves early for her son's football final, and you find yourself watching her go. Later, on the way home, an old sentence turns up: “My parents should have been around more when I was young.”
It is about absence: long hours, a parent working in another city or country. If a parent was away because of illness, a death or a separation, go gently, or set this one aside. If those years held something frightening or hurtful, that deserves more care than a deck can give.
When did this thought about your parents and your growing-up years last come to mind, and what were you looking at when it came?Talk about this ›
The first few seconds
The pang that comes before the memory #
Some people notice it as a small catch in the chest at a school concert they are only visiting, or a strange quiet when a friend says “my mum was always at the gate”, before any memory has properly arrived.
What we carry from earlier years can colour how a present moment feels while it is happening. A father lifting a child onto his shoulders at a fair in Kochi can land as something about you, years before that child was born.
The last time you watched a parent turn up for their child, what did you feel before any thought about your own family came?Talk about this ›
Why it lands
Wanting them there is an ordinary wish #
Wanting your parents around while you grew up is about as ordinary a wish as there is. A child cannot arrange it, ask for it in the right words, or go and find it somewhere else, so the wish tends to stay as it was, long after childhood ends.
An unspoken promise can still feel broken. Other children seemed to have parents at the gate, at the table, at the match, and that can make an absence feel like an agreement that wasn't kept.
If being around more had to be pictured as one ordinary evening from your growing-up years, who would be in the house, and what would they be doing?Talk about this ›
The voice inside
The voice that keeps the old list #
“They were never there for the things that counted.” “Everyone else's parents came.” “I learned not to need them.” The voice tends to speak at other people's milestones, or when a parent now says how close the family always was.
Some people find the count of missed days points to what they were missing underneath: not the events themselves, but being looked at, asked about, noticed on an ordinary day.
When the voice lists what your parents missed, which single day does it come back to most, and what were you hoping for on that day?Talk about this ›
Where it comes from
Where it can come from
Where the picture of a present parent began #
For some people the picture came from watching: a best friend's mother who packed two tiffins, a neighbour's father who walked his children to the bus, the families on television who always seemed to be home by six.
For others it came from waiting: a key on a string, a grandmother doing the school run, a phone call from abroad once a week, a parents' evening attended by an aunt. Some people trace a picture like this back to early years; some don't.
Which other family, real or on a screen, first showed you what having a parent around could look like, and what were they doing?Talk about this ›
The belief under it
The quiet rule about being there #
Underneath, a rule can sit: “Parents who care show up for the small things,” or “Being there means being in the room.” The first sentence is the one people hear; the rule underneath decides how each old memory and each visit home gets read.
This one hardly sounds like a rule; it sounds like how childhood is meant to go, and there is real sense in it. That is what makes it worth looking at, beside your parents as they are today.
Some people trace a rule like this back to early years; some don't. Either way, it can be looked at.
Which parts of your life with your parents today does the rule about being there still fit, and which not?Talk about this ›
What it costs
What it costs
What the old gap can cost now #
It can mean a visit home spent noticing every time a parent is on the phone, a mother's question about your week answered in two words, a father's late interest in your job met with a stiffness you can't quite explain to yourself.
The distance between the picture you had and what actually happened can sit under how parents are seen today, quietly, even when what they do now is different.
An old wish can carry real weight.
In the last year, which ordinary moment with your parents was coloured most by the years when they weren't around?Talk about this ›
If it stays as it is
Five more years of the old gap #
Picture one ordinary Tuesday on a day when “they should have been around more” is loud. What is in it: the calls home, the school runs you pass, the things left unsaid? It's only a picture to look at, nothing to fix.
Perhaps a school gate at three o'clock, a parent waving at a small child, and a feeling you can't name as you walk on; a call from your mother answered briefly; an evening on the sofa with a film.
None of this is a forecast, and the picture can be set aside whenever you like. Looking at that Tuesday, what, if anything, do you notice?
What fills that day, and what waits?Talk about this ›
Another way to see it
Another way to see it
Around, in which way? #
“Around” can cover a lot: a seat at the annual day, an hour after school, someone noticing a bad mood, someone asking about a friend by name. Some of those were missing; some may have arrived in another shape, and some may not have arrived at all.
Both can be true at once. A parent can have been away for most of the week and still have left something behind, and the missing evenings can stay missing in memory. This view doesn't decide why they were away, or whether it was right.
Of everything packed into the word “around”, which piece did you miss most as a child, and which piece, if any, did reach you?Talk about this ›
What is already there
What did reach you, from anyone #
Beside the absence, it can be worth looking at what did come, from a parent or from anyone who filled a gap: a grandmother's songs, a recipe learned by watching, a neighbour aunty who kept an eye out, a voice note that still arrives on Sundays.
This settles no account and cancels no wish; an old hurt and these small things can both be true. What arrived without being asked for, from those years or from now, can be easy to overlook beside what didn't.
Some memories come easily and some don't come at all, and either is fine.
What small thing from those years, or from your parents now, would you like to keep a little closer?Talk about this ›
Making peace
Peace with an old wish #
Making peace with this expectation doesn't mean deciding it asked too much, or deciding who was to blame. It means the gap between the childhood you needed and the one you had stops colouring every visit home and every call.
What is fair in it can stay: a child wanting their parents near is a fair wish, and remembering who came and who didn't is allowed. What can ease is how much of today it decides, so a parent's question today can be answered as today's question.
Basic respect and safety are never “expecting too much”, then or now, for you and for them. How much contact there is stays yours to decide. If raising the past at home has ever brought anger that frightened you, that is worth taking seriously, and leaving it unspoken can be the safe choice.
Picture an evening at peace with this old wish: where would you be, and what would you be enjoying?Talk about this ›
A truer sentence
A truer line to keep beside the old one #
Instead of arguing with “My parents should have been around more”, some people keep a line like this ready: “I needed them around more than they were, and I can say that without settling all of it.” It only has to sit next to the old one.
It may feel strange at first, as if it takes a side. Some people find a line of their own makes a little room beside the old thought over time; others find it doesn't, and either is fine.
What would a truer sentence about your growing-up years be in your own words, one that is honest about what was missing and still leaves room for today?Talk about this ›
What to let be
Some of it can stay in the old house #
Not every question about those years needs settling now. Some of it can be noticed, felt for a moment, and set down, like an old school report kept in a tin in Thrissur or a box of drawings in a loft in Bristol.
Those years don't have to be talked about with anyone. If raising the past at home has ever brought anger that frightened you, that is worth taking seriously, and leaving it unspoken can be the safe choice. The wish stays yours either way.
Putting the thought down for the evening doesn't mean it was fine, or that it's settled. It only means those years don't have to come along to every family dinner today.
If it loosened
And if the old gap quietened a notch #
Imagine, only as a picture, the expectation a notch quieter. The wish is still there, but an old memory is a memory, not the whole story of the family. What is the first thing that feels different, even slightly?
Small things can be enough, such as passing the school gate and quietly naming the feeling to yourself, a parent's call taken as today's call, or an evening with a friend who knows the story. What would your first small thing be?
Nothing here needs to be said to anyone. Whatever comes up is yours, and worth noticing. Next, a look at what making peace with this could mean, and what is already there.
Small things to try
Something to try
A few small things people try #
- When a parent rings now, notice whether the answer is to today's call or an old one
- At someone else's milestone, notice which feeling arrives first
- Notice one small thing you wanted today, however small
- Notice which part of this is about then, and which about now
- Ask yourself quietly: what did reach me back then, even a little?
Small, private and all optional. Try whichever feels doable.
Pick a question
Talk it through #
Tap one. A chat with Dr. Thoughts opens on that question: free, private, no sign-up to start.
- Which grown-up from those years do you remember kindly, and what did they do?
- Which ordinary after-school hour from those years do you remember most, and who was in the house?
- What did you learn to do for yourself early that you still do today?
- If this wish about your growing-up years eased a little, what would you notice first?
- What small thing from those years, or from now, would you like to keep close?