Have a Little Respect and
Forgiveness for Your Parents
This one may or may not affect you. Personally, as I am now
technically an orphan, it shouldn’t affect me. But it does. Big
time. I was brought up with two major dysfunctional attrib-
utes. A missing father and a difficult mother. I have siblings
with the same background. We have all handled it differently. I
found it easier to come to terms with my mother once I too
had children and could see what a difficult job it is. I could
then also see that some people are intuitively, naturally good
at it. And some people are, to be brutally frank, utterly useless
at it. My mother fell into the latter category. Was that her
fault? No. Should I blame her? No. Can I forgive her? There is
nothing to forgive. She embarked on a life path for which she
was ill equipped, received no help, was lacking in any skill,
and found extremely limiting and difficult. Result? She treated
her children appallingly, and we probably all need therapy. Or
forgiveness and respect. Why should she be blamed for doing
a difficult job badly? Hey, there are lots of areas in all our lives
where we aren’t very efficient or skilled or even enthusiastic.
Yo u r p a r e n t s d o t h e b e s t t h e y c a n. A n d t h a t m i g h t n o t b e g o o d
enough for you, but it is still the best they could do. They
can’t be blamed if they weren’t very good at it. We can’t all be
fabulous parents.
And the absent father? That’s OK, too. We all make choices
that others can judge as bad or unforgivable or just plain self-
ish and wrong. But we aren’t there. We don’t know what
weaknesses people have or what drives them. Or indeed what
is even going through their head. We can’t judge until we, too,
have to make the same choice. And even then if we choose a
different way, then that’s fine, but we still can’t judge or blame.