Why I Rate My Parents

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It's Respect Your Parents Day, and in honour of that, Writers Club winner Elise shares why her parents mean so much to her, and what she’s learnt from them...

Tangled, Moulin Rouge, Romeo + Juliet - what do they all have in common? That defining cosmic moment when the main character realises they truly love the person in front of them. We’ve all seen it; the music swells, the setting is perfect, and you can’t help but think ‘wow!’ It’s usually at the romantic climax of the film, but it can be platonic or familial as well. Growing up with these scenes, I thought you didn’t really love someone unless you had that moment, but as I got older it became clear that often the strongest forms of affection are less cinematic, more subtle and altogether more ordinary. 

In our incredibly busy reality, we often don’t get time to reflect on our relationships with people. With seemingly endless deadlines and places to be, our minds are so clogged up with the everyday, that sometimes we don’t realise how much they mean to us until we stop to properly think about it. I’ve always been close to my parents but I hadn’t really thought about how amazing they are until a conversation with some of my friends made me appreciate everything they do for me and my brother.  

My mum has been incredibly supportive throughout my life; she’s there 24/7 to proofread my writing, offer advice about school, or just give me somewhere to vent. She’s been at every primary school assembly, watched each performance on stage (for dance shows and school plays) and organised countless family days out to keep us all entertained and experienced. In fact, when I was younger, nothing set me more at ease than hearing her distinctive cough in the frightening abyss of the audience – it was practically echolocation! Knowing there’s someone there to help if anything goes wrong has given me so much confidence and self-belief. 

By placing huge importance on being able to talk about anything, she creates a reassuring atmosphere that feels like the life jacket keeping me from struggling in the deep end. We can easily while away hour-long car journeys with chats about the past, the future, the world’s problems, the great things we’ve done as a family, and whatever else crosses our minds. A pair of strong-willed feminists, we have the same values and mindsets, but we’re not afraid to challenge each other about matters we disagree on. To me, she represents a space where I can fall, learn, grow and importantly belong.

My dad was an environmentalist before it was trendy – he spends ages fixing things instead of throwing them away, he makes use of scrap materials that don’t seem worth it to an untrained eye like mine, and he wears perfectly good shoes from 20 years ago so he doesn’t have to buy new ones. Earlier this summer, instead of enjoying the sun in the garden like everyone else, we rescued a pile of wood from being thrown away and turned it into a new floor for our trailer. He once told me he thinks of himself as a farmer, with our garden as his very small farm, using the principles of ‘make-do and mend’ that he associates with working the land. 

We have a near-identical sense of humour and delight in Harry Hill’s extensive catalogue of ridiculous jokes. We can communicate solely in quotes from our favourite films (Rango’, UHF and The Cat In The Hat to name a few) and we frequently baffle Mum with nonsensical conversations about different types of rot, the lanes on the motorway, and obscure varieties of fish. Aside from all the fun we have together, I also love that he’s so understanding. Like Mum, he’s constantly there to find solutions to my problems and encourage me to be the best I can be. Taking a real interest in issues I think are important, he recognises and appreciates my opinions while helping me see things from different angles and perspectives. 

They’ve both played an enormous role in shaping me into the person I am today and the one I’ll become in the future. Like all families, we have our arguments, and we’ve had some truly awful times but we’ve gotten through them together and we’ll continue to do so. They challenge me and sometimes in the moment I resent them for it, but I would never have experienced or achieved half the things I’ve done if it wasn’t for their unwavering enthusiasm and commitment. 

Respect Your Parents Day is on 1 August every year. It was created in 1994 by Marilyn Dalrymple, a photographer in California who wanted everyone to “pause on August 1st (if not every day) and consider the value parents have in our society”. It provides the perfect opportunity to let the people who care for you know how much you appreciate them and all the wonderful things they do. It doesn’t have to be as marvellously well-written as a Disney film – just tell them!