Editor’s Note: this is a guest post by Simone Seol of Freckled Brilliance.
Your parents have known you longer than anyone else. They have seen you develop through infancy, childhood and adolescence.
How do your parents feel about your multipotentiality? If they are good cheerleaders, raised you to nurture multiple talents and are totally on board with you, congratulations! You have some fantastic parents. Or, maybe the opposite is true: perhaps they have been impatient with you to “get your life together” and pick one path. Perhaps they accused you of flakiness and said other hurtful things.
My post today goes out to all of you who fall in the latter camp. It is very difficult to hold certain things very dear to your heart and not have your immediate family members appreciate them. And when family is involved, a history of complicated emotional tension can further block us from clearly seeing the patterns in people that we ought to be closest to. And I would like to present a radical hypothesis that may be helpful in unraveling this problem. I have a sneaking suspicion that most cases of multipotentiality is inherited.
Are your parents, who disapprove of your many pursuits, secretly also multipotentialites? Do they know it?
Our parents grew up in an even less multipotentialite-friendly cultural climate than ours. It may be that their once-many talents, hopes and dreams were squashed by a society that expected them to fit in a square box. As a response, they might have developed and held on to the idea that it is dangerous to pursue your multiple passions; they fear that you will be punished by society just as they were.
I don’t have to look very far for an example. My mother, even though she was a homemaker for most of her life and now is a small business owner, has always been a poet at heart. She was so talented, won numerous poetry competitions growing up and all her teachers thought she was going to study literature and become a famous poet or writer.
Tragically, my mom’s hopes of writing poetry were dashed by her father, who thought making a living as a creative artist was dangerous and foolish. He punished her when she came home with poetry awards. He instilled enough terror into her that she didn’t pick up the pen again until recently — now she is in her fifties.
This story makes me so sad for many reasons. First, I grieve for the poet in my mother. Secondly, I grieve for my grandfather; in retrospect, it is completely obvious that he, too, was a multipotentialite who grew up in world that was relentlessly cruel toward him as he fought for basic survival. Even though he worked as a civic employee for most of his life, I remember him giving me drawing lessons when I was little; he taught me perspective, the way things that are far away are drawn small and things that are close are drawn bigger. I recall he also knew a lot of random things about world history and linguistics that is not at all typical of Korean grandparents. Multipotentialite alert!
Instead of nurturing the gifts of his daughter, however, he felt he needed to punish them and beat her into a box because the world did the same to him. He didn’t know there was another way to survive, much less flourish as a multi-talented person.
Remembering this story reminds me to feel compassion toward many of those who are less than wonderfully receptive to your multiple passions. If you’re here on Puttylike, you’re probably more ‘awake’ to your own multipotentiality than most people out there who have no idea that resources now exist and that living a “straight” life isn’t the only option. Including our very own parents.
Instead of feeling angry or defeated by them, why not gently, lovingly and compassionately invite them to open up and explore their own hidden interests?
What could you do to help them feel safer in doing this? Perhaps you don’t have to think very hard before realizing, “Oh, yes, my mom has a secret interest in indigenous languages and watercolor painting that she’s not telling anyone about.” Why not invite them to talk to you about it?
Remember that they may have had a lifetime of repressing certain patterns and may not be able to grant themselves them the permission, spaciousness and curiosity that they were born capable of, at least not immediately. Why not be there for them and cultivate that place of safety and exploration together?
Start with a conversation. It may be one of the loveliest things you could do for them. And, who knows, this may be the opportunity for them to realize how much indeed they have in common with you.
Your Turn
Have your own story of dealing with disapproving parents or helping a multipotentialite come out of the closet? You’re invited to share them in the comments.
Simone Seol lives in NYC and dreams way too big for her own good. When she’s not practicing hypnosis and change work, she can be found writing, theologizing, yoga-ing, conducting public health research, singing classical music and planning compassionate world domination. Find her online at Freckled Brilliance.
Does this ever make me thankful that my parents trust my instincts and whatever I set out to do! It makes such a huge difference.
Yay for excellent parents! May we be the same for our progeny. Thanks for reading, Amy!
This was a wonderful read. Coming from multipotentialites and being one myself, I’m looking forward to what my own child will be able to come up with using the future versions of todays technology… my wife and I are expecting in April. The possibilities are mind blowing.
Wow, congratulations, Tom!
I love pondering possibility and it makes me very happy to know that there are multipotentialite parents who will be so ‘awake’…
I second that sentiment. You’re a true role model, Tom. :)
This is super beautiful Simone.
Life has a really cool way of taking older generations and having them learn powerfully from the upcoming one.
Applying this concept to multi-potentialites is brilliant, and most of the one’s I’ve met have had quite strong feelings regarding their parents.
Great stuff, stay freckled, stay brilliant ;)
Thank you so much , Jason! I don’t think staying freckled will be a challenge for me. Brilliant, I’ll have to work at ;)
I am giddy when I think about subsequent generations of children being raised with more awareness and compassion than their parents.. think how awesome humanity will be in 100 years!
Ah, parenting and being parented. Such wacky adventures!
I finally found compassion for my parents’ strictness with me and my siblings when I realized that they were trying to protect me (subconsciously?)from the criticism they had to endure as children. Kinda twisted, but I saw myself doing the same to my own children to protect them from . . . yes! the tapes of my parents’ criticism running in my own head.
Here’s to spaciousness for all of us.
Exactly, exactly.
Here’s to spaciousness and forgiveness that comes from understanding and co-feeling…
Great post! I’m grateful to have a mum who understands every step I take and every (dumb) decision I have made in the past. She supports my multi-potentiality to the fullest, and I love her so much for it. I know I am lucky, and I wish so many more people would have the opportunity and support from their family to do everything that makes them, them. A reason why Puttylike is so needed in this limiting world of ours. Thanks!
Agreed, and agreed! May Puttylike fill in where parents have failed to say “yes” to their children’s multipotentiality!
Aw… You’re both amazing. I love this community so much.
<3
My parents nurtured my multipotentiality early on, but as soon as I graduated high school, I was expected to specialise in a lucrative field that I wasn’t interested in. Talk about confusion! My parents are immigrants and placed huge emphasis on me being able to support myself financially. I went through years studying something I hated, but when I finally branched out to do my own thing, I was happier and eventually my parents came around too.
It was a learning experience for us all. I gained confidence for sticking up for what *I* wanted out of *my* life, and they learned to trust me while redefining what ‘success’ means to them. Win-win all around, I think!
Yes, as a child of immigrants myself, I can absolutely relate. Parents do come around and they do grow… my mom often thanks me for expanding her view of what is possible, that I have inspired her with my flippant, ADD ways ;)
When parents are secure enough in themselves, I think love always wins. They just want us to be happy.
I also grew up in an Asian family that simply desired the typical professions deemed by what society believes to be “respectful”.
Growing up was tough, trying to do what I wanted to do, but then understanding if what I loved to do would have any “future”.
But thankfully, my parents have moved beyond what many generations have put into their minds and like you mentioned, dialogue and conversation helped a lot.
Thanks for this post!
Thank you for reading, Harrison! I think there needs to be a support group that’s a sub-section of the greater multipotentialite community… “survivors of Asian parenting”
haha!
Haha, um no joke! :)
But the one thing I do give thanks to my parents is for instilling the “never give-up and be persistent with my goals” attitude. This has helped me go after my dreams … even, if at times, that did not agree or understand them.
When I meant “that”, I meant “they” my parents … yea my grammar sucks when it gets so late at night. ;)
I just wanted to say that this is one of the most beautiful posts I’ve ever had the privilege of reading. It was an absolute honour to publish it, Simone.
It’s also a post I couldn’t have written myself, and I’m very thankful for that… However, I’m glad that someone did write it. Incredibly wise and thoughtful. Thank you!
At the risk of sounding like Mutual Admiration Society, thank YOU so much for providing this space, one of my favorites online. I am so indebted to you for this wonderful community that you’ve created. Even if for some bizarre reason all of Puttylike disappears tomorrow, my life will be forever different because I now know that there are so many like-minded people out there who are silently going against the grain every day, proclaiming our refusal to choose. :)
While I am late in reading and commenting on this one, I thank both of you for making it reach my screen!
Seriously, as a parent myself, I want to help foster a space where my kids grow up to confidently try or pursue any sort of path. Sadly, I didn’t have that with both parents. My artistic Mother helped to some extent.
Simone, thank you for pointing out the power of perspective shifts between generations too. I truly believe that most Parents and Grandparents have done they best they could.
I have parents with multiple interests, but they aren’t really scanners either. They haven’t wavered from their interests, which is/was music. They don’t fit into either role really, but I sure never “fit” into my family. They were very much find a “real” job and keep your interests hobbies. Especially since in their eyes at least, music wasn’t one of them. While I love both my parents, and Mom finally started to “get” me before her death…I had to forgive them for a lot. Like the last 23 years (ish) spent believing I was tone deaf…because I was 5 years old and apparently wasn’t a “natural” singer. Yeah, same parents also laughed at a song I performed for them, at about the same age, that I wrote…cause I guess they thought I was kidding? Who knows. I just learned to be silent and do my thing my way…so I guess that’s a good thing lmao.
Luckily, my dad is an MP, so I learned from the best.
With my parents, they’ve always been supportive of whatever I wanted to do. It’s just when I would start things and don’t finish them that they got annoyed. I know that is classically multipotentialite.. So I learned how to actually stay focused on a few projects and *gasp* finish one or two and they seem to stay very supportive!