[Bodymind] When parents fail

There I was, all set to write a Part 2 of my Mother’s Day column, when I realized that this Sunday will be Father’s Day. Ever the optimist believing a solution to be “just around the corner,” (and, more to the point, absolutely hating  to discard stuff I’ve already written) I convinced myself that writing a part 2 about mothers could also be a part 1 about fathers. 

After all, each is a parent to a once-defenseless child who depends on them for everything,..though research still suggests quite strongly that mothers have more impact on their children’s mental health and well-being than fathers do.

But I want to write about something important — the harm fathers, well, parents really, whether biological or not — can inflict on their children that can last their lifetime unless dealt with.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am as much for parenthood as the next person. However, I am also fully aware that parenting, though ideally paved with good intentions and actions, can sometimes be the exact opposite.

When children are aware of this, aware that painful though it is, their parents neither love or care for them, it can hurt like the dickens, but it is still a whole lot better than living in a fool’s paradise.   

Should the now-adult-child-who-grew-up-with-such parents need some therapy to get over this realization (and many do not), believe me, adults with the same kind of parents but who denied it (whether consciously or unconsciously) will need therapy a hundredfold more.

Not your fault

It is important to reassure a person unfortunate enough to grow up with parents (surrogate or otherwise) incapable of loving him selflessly that “it is not your fault.” It is not your fault that, instead of soothing you whenever your world went awry, your parents took this as yet another opportunity to talk about and present themselves in a better light.

And it is certainly not your fault that, try as they might, you unknowingly thwarted their attempts to live their lives through you. Surely you had no intention of disappointing, especially if you were not aware of their castles in the air that only you would have to break your back to build for them. Alas, some parents still make it possible for you to feel guilty about their not having the tenacity to make their own dreams come true.

Agreed, anyone with an iota of intelligence or perhaps more importantly, a smidgeon of understanding — can see that trying to live through your kids is an exercise in futility. And cruel beyond belief. Any parent self absorbed enough and yet too lazy to realize that expecting his or her children to make his or her life bliss can only end in frustration on the parent’s part, and tremendous guilt on the children’s part.

Count yourselves lucky if your parents had the temerity to complain out loud about your “failure.” Having things out in the open always helps. You may have been too young to disagree with them or too smart to even try and get them to change their minds, fully realizing that your parents would never own up to their own failings when they could pin the blame on you. But at least, you were forewarned that your parents had this unreasonable expectation and you could at least prepare somewhat, should waves of guilt threaten to overcome you.

Not good enough

The difficulty is when everything is said but not said,…meta messages, mixed messages,  body language, facial expressions, guilt trips and emotional blackmail. Thus, you have no way to confront the unreasonable expectation and tell yourself, a now-adult child of selfish parents, that with your experiences growing up, you feel lacking in some vague, unidentified but strongly-felt way.  

You never feel good enough, strong enough, and worth any happiness that may come your way.

Forgive me for making such a big deal out of this, especially on one of the few days that stores selling cards and restaurants advertising special lunches and events hope to make a killing.

But it is precisely these sort of days: Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas, and all other traditionally recognized “happy family” days that may be the very reason you may feel such a burden of guilt, and that sure as hell can’t be a barrel of laughs.

Asking the hard questions

I am so sorry that my writing occasionally makes Rappler readers sad (see mood meter for “Do Mothers Really Know Best?). But sometimes knowing what makes you sad and asking yourselves some hard questions about this sadness is the only way to move forward. Is this something you can rectify? And whether you can or can’t, is this something you can learn from? 

In fact, if looking at your own parents serves as a bad example, the kind of parent you don’t ever want to be, then your own parents taught you something invaluable, something that no amount of book reading or theorizing could.  

And the joy of it all — for your kids, at least, if not for that younger, vulnerable you of yesteryears — is that you will have broken the legacy of bad parenting, making it possible to rewrite your family history from one of guilt and furtiveness to one of joy and honesty. Happy Father’s Day, everyone! – Rappler.com