你可能相貌平平，胆小羞涩，你也可能口齿不清，思绪混乱，在公众场合你总是个挨着墙边走的人。但是回到家里，为什么你就成了另外一个样子？你变得那样理直气壮，说一不二，你变得有了脾气，不愿服从。你都不知道到底是为什么。

不用管为什么，事情从来就是这样。

当你刚刚来到的这个世界，你就会用你的嚎哭惩罚他们的忽视。当你懂了一点点事，你会用拒绝好好吃饭来报复他们不让你整天看电视。当你第一次有了选择的机会，你坚持选择外地的大学，你不想再继续看那两张你看了18年的面孔。 当你大学毕业还买不起房子，你对他们说亲情比什么都重要，于是他们激动地欢迎你搬来和他们同住，很快又为你提供了买房首付款。当你迎来了人生最美好的时光，你最害怕的却是甜蜜充实的二人世界被他们进来打搅。你的孩子出生了， 你向他们表达了一个微小的请求，于是轻而易举地把孩子对你的惩罚转给了他们。在外人面前，你的思路不是很清晰，然而在他们面前，你的脑子却很灵很自信。当然，不是对解数学物理题的开窍， 而是对如何与他们打交道的考量和分析：没关系，不管做什么，都没关系，有他们在，事情总可以解决。

他们一直嗡嗡嗡地在你身边转来转去，到底像苍蝇还是像蜜蜂，你搞不清，也不想搞清。

他们对你的懒惰，欺骗，愚昧也是粗暴无礼的。但那样的粗暴无礼和对其他人的完全不一样，其中没有那种摧毁的力量和精细的考量，就像一只胀鼓鼓的气球，你任何一点善意都可以把它戳破。

和他们在一起你可以观察到这个世界上难以见到的现象：骂了人，打了人，会比被别人骂了，打了还难受。所以，有时你居然愿意做点什么来让他们骂你打你，来让他们受惩罚。

你不是坏人，一点也不坏。你可能只是无能，懦弱，在翻云覆雨的世界里，在狡诈强悍的人面前，你可能永远是个弱者。但只要有他们在，你就不是个终极的弱者。

他们也自私，他们也好虚荣，他们有一切令人厌恶的缺点，但那些缺点都不会针对你而来，有些倒是为了你而存在，真是个奇迹。在你眼里，他们的缺点只有两个，烦，讨厌。

你也知道，他们并不是有求于你。他们有自己的房产，存款，养老金。他们也知道你能为他们所做的确实有限，但他们为什么在你面前总是那样小心翼翼？不信试试，你随时可以使他们像小孩那样天真，那样赤纯。

你以为他们不会老，但他们确实老了。在阴霾的早晨，他（她）独坐在窗前，无光的眼睛似乎在望着遥远的过去。你知道，只要你上前和他（她）谈几句，他们会把自己的苦恼，欢乐，往事，和盘托出， 他们的人生就会因此少了一些遗憾。但你从来没有这样做过。他们那些或有趣的，或乏味的，或清晰的，或模糊的经历，那些陪伴他们十几年，几十年的故事，深藏在那从挺拔到佝偻的身影中，从清澈到浑浊的眼神里。 你好像并不遗憾从来没有去试图探索一下。你看着他们把它们带走，就像世界上从来没有过一样。

他们一生最大的兴趣就是你。然而你却真心希望他们有一点可以强烈吸引他们自己的其他的兴趣和爱好，特别是当他们进入了老年。但是你看不到。到底是他们生来如此，还是你把它们毁了？

他们一生最大的遗憾，是没有把你造就成为一流的人物，他们也从来没有认真怀疑过其可能性。他们难道不会像那些育儿书教授的那样，巧妙一点狡猾一点来改变你吗？大多数情况下他们不会。他们辛辛苦苦地学了些条条款款， 却总是武装了嘴巴，实行起来真是那样难。他们为此责备自己，有时你都为他们焦心。到底是你的原因还是他们的原因，谁说得清？当他们有一天终于弄明白时，你已经是现在这个样子的成年人了。

他们也知道，只有当你的人生拥有了足够的坷坎经历，你才有可能和他们处在一个相同的交流平台上。但是他们总是一厢情愿地希望坷坎不要发生在你的身上，他们乞求上苍保佑你一生平安顺利。 于是他们从一开始就放弃了和你有深度沟通的奢望。

直到你也当了父母 ，你才知道什么是儿女手中的武器，什么是父母身上的软肋。那种世界上独一无二的，只有儿女才能在他们身上催化出来的，高純度的，经久不衰的爱，它真的会使人强，使人弱，使人清晰，使人糊涂， 使人易于受伤，使人刀枪不入。

我知道你要说什么。不是有母亲杀了她的儿女？不是有父亲抛弃了他的家庭？不是有美国总统说过，他“宁愿缩短自己的寿命，也要扣掉和母亲在一起的那段悲伤日子”？我想你可能也知道，毛毛虫和蝴蝶，虽然它们还是同一个东西， 但它们的生物结构已经完全不一样了。自然界里，像这样变异的生物还是极少数吧。

（2023年6月）


English Version ---------------------------


Parents, the ones you are most likely to hurt
——Think on Mother's Day, write on Father's Day

You may be plain-looking, timid and shy, or you may slur your speech, your thoughts may be confused, and you are always a person who walks next to the wall in public. But when you get home, why do you look different? You have become so righteous and confident, and you have become tempered and unwilling to obey. You don't even know why.

Never mind the why, it's always been that way.

When you first came into this world, you punished their neglect with your howls. When you know a little bit, you get back at them for not letting you watch TV all day by refusing to eat properly. When you had the chance to choose for the first time, you insisted on choosing a university in another place, and you didn't want to continue to look at those two faces you had been watching for 18 years. When you can't afford a house after graduating from college, you tell them that family affection is more important than anything else, so they excitedly welcome you to live with them, and soon provide you with a down payment for buying a house. When you ushered in the best time of your life, what you are most afraid of is that the sweet and fulfilling world of two people will be disturbed by them. Your child is born, you express a small request to them, and you easily transfer the punishment that the child has imposed on you to them. In front of outsiders, your thinking is not very clear, but in front of them, your mind is sharp and confident. Of course, it is not the enlightenment on solving math and physics problems, but the consideration and analysis on how to deal with them: it doesn’t matter, no matter what you do, it doesn’t matter, with them, things can always be solved.

They keep buzzing around you, like flies or bees, you don't know, and you don't want to.

They are also rude to your laziness, deceit, ignorance. But that kind of rudeness is completely different from what towards other people. There is no destructive power and delicate thinking in it. It is like a bulging balloon that can be punctured with any kindness of yours.

With them, you can observe phenomena that are hard to see in this world: scolding or hitting someone is more uncomfortable than being scolded or hit by others. So, sometimes you are willing to do something to let them scold you or hit you, so that they can be punished.

You are not a bad person, not at all. You may just be incompetent and cowardly, and in the fickle world, in front of cunning and powerful people, you may always be a weakling. But as long as they're around, you're not the ultimate underdog.

They're selfish too, they're vain too, they've got all the nasty flaws, but none of those flaws come for you, some of them exist for you, it's a miracle. In your eyes, their shortcomings are only two, bothering and annoying.

You also know that they don't want anything from you. They have their own real estate, savings, and pensions. They also know that what you can do for them is really limited, but why are they always so cautious in front of you? Try it if you don't believe it, you can make them as innocent and pure as a child at any time.

You thought they wouldn't get old, but they did. In the hazy morning, he (she) sat alone in front of the window, his (her) dull eyes seemed to be looking at the distant past. You know, as long as you talk to him (her) a few words, they will tell all their troubles, joys, past events, and their lives will have less regrets. But you never do that. Their interesting, boring, clear, or vague experiences, the stories that have accompanied them for more than ten years, decades, are deeply hidden in the straight to rickety figure, from the clear to the muddy eyesight. You don't seem to regret of never trying to explore it. You watch them take those away like never before in the world.

Their greatest interest in life is you, and yet you really want them to have some other interest or hobby that strongly appeals to them, especially as they enter old age. But you can't see it. Are they born that way, or have you ruined them?

Their greatest regret in life is that they did not make you first-class character, and they never seriously doubted its possibility. Aren't they going to change you with a little bit of cunning skills, like those parenting books teach? Most of the time they won't. They have learned some terms and clauses hard, but they always arm their mouths, it is so difficult to implement. They get frustrated and blame themselves for it, and sometimes you worry about them. In the end is your reason or their reasons, who can tell? When they finally figure it out one day, you'll be the adult you are now.

They also know that only when you have enough ups and downs in your life can you be on the same communication platform with them. But they always wishfully hope that the ups and downs will not happen to you, and they beg God to bless you with a safe and smooth life. So they gave up their extravagant hope of having in-depth communication with you from the very beginning.

Until you become a parent too, you don't know what the weapon in the hands of the children is and what the weakness of the parents is. That kind of high-purity, enduring love which is unique in the world and only children can catalyze in their parents, it really makes people strong, makes people weak, makes people clear, makes people confused, makes people easily injured, making people invulnerable.

I know what you're going to say. Didn't a mother kill her children? Wasn't there a father who abandoned his family? Didn't the president of the United States say that he "would rather shorten my own life, to deduct the sad days with my mother"? I think you probably also know that, a caterpillar and a butterfly, although they are still the same thing, their biological structure becomes completely different. In nature, there are very few creatures that mutate like this.

(June 2023)