Actually, You Should Blame Your Parents
You know me, I’m pretty opinionated. I’ll call it how I see it. “Stop blaming your parents” is a concept largely popularized by bad parents. As a parent myself, I understand that the last thing a parent will ever really do is admit that they truly were a bad parent. I think this is because that’s probably the most important role you could hold, and you failed, and you can’t really redo it. You absolutely should blame your parents for the trauma, lack of life skills, and other similar key equipment you’re supposed to get in childhood but didn’t get. You see, parents want the benevolent attribution when their child is successful, that same child loves them due to fair and honorable parenting, and there’s a good relationship. But when they’re held accountable for their actions and choices while raising you? Nah.
Here’s the thing: boomers pretty much messed up the whole parenting gig. I will give them one point in that psychology was not as popularized as it is in the days of millennial parenting, so they were a little less informed. BUT, they still added way too much baggage for their children to carry forever—that probably includes you. If you look back on it, your parents probably stuck you in front of that TV or video game for most of your life. (I’m not sayin that the parents doing that today are any better, but there’s a note-able amount of parents who are much more intentional.) They probably used religion as a crutch to force you into submission, but neglected to actually hold themselves accountable to that same religion. Parenting is a massive, intense responsibility that should be avoided until one truly understands what their actions, emotions, demeanor, and character will mean to their child.
Your parents are responsible for a lot more than you’ll actually ever realize. Until you do inner work to undo the bad, you will subconsciously repeat so much of your parents choices that it might actually disgust you. Your relationships will mimic your parents’, whether good or bad. Your financial choices will mirror theirs, and your health will eventually mirror theirs. The relationship you have with yourself is a direct descendant from the relationship your parents had with their selves. We learn everything from our parents, from the actual literal day we were born. To repeat who our parents are is what we are psychologically predisposed to do. My larger point is that there is a direct relationship between who you are, and every single thing your parents chose to be while raising you. And that’s no small thing. There is a cause and effect relationship between your trauma, and their choices. Some of you can’t relate, while others have been waiting to hear words like this.
Some of your earliest failures are directly caused by your parents. That’s true, and will probably continue to be true until you choose to break the curse. You have to do the inner work and push towards your Higher Self to heal your inner-child and bring yourself to a wholesome existence. You have to learn from others, speak to others, and cry with others to form an understanding of how life can be better if you heal from your past and family-induced traumas. You have to be around other parents to see how things really should be, and to recognize what was really wrong in your home. The problem is, really good parents are just so rare. Some claim to “do their best” but that energy just is not it. As a parent, you have to constantly be doing better at everything. That is the truth. You have to become superhuman for your little one. Is this stressful? Yes. But the alternative is that you condemn your child to a hard life, and potentially an estrangement between you and your child. Not to mention the sense of failure that will follow you to the grave. Being an amazing parent is probably the biggest success you could achieve, because it can actually be very hard if you are not intentional.
Daddy issues and mommy issues are very real. These are wounds, and you’ll probably really lose yourself in them before you stitch them up and heal them. They’ll always scar, but you don’t have to be condemned by them forever. You will look for that parent that wounded you in other people, and sometimes you’ll find them. The right people will actually recognize your need for that parenting, and some won’t. When people meet a very lacking male who is unaware of how to carry himself beyond the confines of a Fortnite match, people tend to gawk at him like he’s responsible. But what you don’t see is the weak parentage, and the little boy who never really had the help he needed. At some point he will be responsible for growing and healing those wounds, but his parents are to blame for not equipping him for growth.
You are a reflection of who your parents are. I will always remember a Pastor mentioning that in a sermon, and I could hear the egos searing in pain the front rows. I also openly condemn the parents who estranged their children due to them coming out as gay, non-binary, trans, etc. If you are of that mind, you are a Useless Human Being, and a bastard parent. (See my Narcissism article.) No matter how much those parents suck, that child will always have a massive hole from bastard parents.
Love your children, or don’t have them. Blame your parents for being flaming bags of dog poop. But please find the means to heal and grow from their failure. You can be the success you want, but you’re going to have to go to therapy. You’re going to have to read books about healing, talk to others who suffer and are trying to heal. You need to write about your experiences—make them tangible and very real. Do away with the cognitive dissonance and establish your truths. Find validity in your thoughts and feelings, and build the life you want to. Forget them.
