Why I laugh when people say that my parents didn't raise me well

I often get this, "If your mother raised you well, you won't be such a bitch, questioning our culture and religion" from lentils on the page.

Okay buster, you throw an interesting tantrum. But let me shred your reasoning apart. We are not meant to be carbon copies of our parents. If that's what you are going at, then our world would never progress because we are just gonna copy what our parents do. There will be no new ways of doing things and there will be no developments.

Yes, as children we imprint on our parents. My parents are readers. My earliest memories of my parents reading Tamil dailies made me a voracious reader myself. I devoured the knowledge in Britannica encyclopedias that were gathering dust at my house and took them with me as I moved houses.

But then, I grew up and developed my own sense of justice, a lot of which, I acquired through reading, yes, taking after my parents and opposing them at the same time - an oxymoron of sorts.

My late father was a casteist. He used to chastise all the so called 'low caste' people, including my own aunt's husband. I am not a casteist. I don't believe that some people are born more superior and inferior than others. My mother is mildly casteist - she talks about this 'caste induced behaviour' that low caste people have. I oppose that notion of hers strongly. My mother is against organ donation as she believes that if your kidneys, retina, muscle, bone, skin and whatever can be harvested are donated, you'll be born handicapped/with medical conditions in your next life. I am a registered organ donor.

My father never prayed in his prime - he was an arrogant and contumelious man. But as old age, sickness and weakness gnawed at him, he spent a lot of time praying. I saw a hypocrite and I vowed to never be like that. That steadily took me to the path of agnosticism and atheism. I don't pray when shit doesn't work out or beg for forgiveness from god when I do something wrong. I work shit out and I go about setting the wrong I did right.

So, as you can see, upbringing of parents only takes us half the way through - we gotta figure the rest of the way ourselves. You can't have new outcomes when you do things the same way your parents did. We are meant to add new value to the world, not just live our lives like our parents did and live the life our parents want us to live. You feel suffocated right, when your parents say that you only have 3 career options, doctor/engineer/lawyer, become anything else, you're a disgrace to the family. Then why do you harp on me going back to my parents for reference?

My parents raised me, yes. But my teachers, friends, people I meet and talk to, the books I read, movies I watch, songs I listen, the environment I live in, the experiences I had, the adversities I been through, the success and failures I had, the satisfaction and disappointments I had and the life I lived so far also raised me.

So, yeah. My momma taught me good. She taught me prudence, industriousness, tenacity, resilience, honesty and other good values. I taught myself better in accordance with all that I've got the privilege to put myself through and been through.

Carpe diem.