I realized that by going beyond my own childhood demons, I had lost touch with being young, with being thirty, with the whole idea of evolving from child to adult to parenting and grandparenting and on, and on. Often people learn to resolve their childhood when they are raising their own children. At times, life can be so difficult that people have to stop and engage in therapy so that childhood issues can be put to rest and life can move forward.
However, this new fashion (and it may be old, just un-recognized) of blaming your parents for all of your adult life is just unrealistic. Yes, I inherited outgoing behavior from my mother and yes I inherited a short frustration fuse from my father, I get all of that. Isn’t it up to me to decide what I do with that? If I get angry with every supervisor I have because s/he reminds me of my father and I end up chronically unemployed, is that my father’s fault? If my mother spoiled me and I therefore expect my jobs to be easy and life to be without sacrifice, is that my mother’s fault?
We all experience great pain and great grief in our lives. Some of us have great challenges, such as disabilities and handicaps. Some of us have had great parents who taught us how to cope and how to be disciplined. Some of us had great parents who TRIED to teach us how to cope and have discipline and we did not listen or integrate those values into our lives. Our hair color is determined by DNA and possibly our attitude about life is determined by DNA. Who we are is a complex connection between our DNA, how we feel about ourselves and our intense and intimate relationships with ourselves and with others.
I believe to the bottom of my heart that we owe it to our best self to find out what we are capable of by applying our best effort and our best discipline to our own lives. In order to do that, we must own our lives. In order to own our own lives, sometimes, we must reclaim it from our parents. We must unequivocally state, my life, my responsibility, my results. This action requires bravery and ownership of some, perhaps, not so good decisions. I do believe that this action is one great way to happiness. If you are in another’s “clutches” you may never gain freedom for yourself and that is a sad way to live a life.