Many people carry childhood grievances against their parents throughout their lives because they were not loved, protected, or praised enough. Others, on the contrary, have a hypertrophied sense of duty toward their parents, which prevents them from living a full life.
The topic of parents and children is multifaceted and complex. Today, we propose to figure out whether parents should love their children, and children their parents, and what forms the basis of relationships with parents.
On “obligation” in love
Many people wonder whether they need to love their parents. Another common question is what to do to love them.
Parents need to be accepted as they are. You are not obligated to love them.
This point of view is a double-edged sword. If you accept this viewpoint (that parents are not obligated to love you), you agree that your children are also not obligated to love you.
The topic of love in the parent-child dyad is rife with myths and misconceptions.
According to them, you somehow have the right to count on a child’s love by default, meaning you deny the need to earn it.
Think about it: if your parents loved you by default, you would not have tried to earn their love since childhood. You would not have those multiple traumas and wounds from childhood that you carry with you through life.
If you love your parents and children, that is wonderful.
The questions (whether you need to love, how to do it) are usually asked by those who carry many traumas inside, who cannot forgive their parents and let go of grievances against them. This is how the wounded inner child manifests itself.
Such people judge and blame themselves for not loving their parents. After all, society dictates “honoring and loving one’s parent.”
But if you were not loved, if you did not receive what you wanted, why do you demand this of yourself?
When you first meet someone, you don’t pour love on them by default. First, you get to know them and build a relationship.
If a relative you’ve never seen before suddenly appears in your space, you are by definition neither able nor obligated to broadcast love to them.
A common situation is when a father removes himself from a young child’s life, and years later, when the child has become an adult and independent, he shows up and asserts his claim to their love. That love does not exist by default.
As much love as parents were able to invest in a child, that much they can potentially receive back in return.
But if claims are hidden behind this “love,” then over time, claims piled upon claims generate a big explosion, and what comes back is not love.
See also: Transformation of Hatred into Love. How to Heal This Destructive Feeling
Acceptance as the Foundation of Relationships with Parents
The key point in parent-child relationships is acceptance. This is a mandatory condition.
Acceptance means accepting people (parents, children) as they are. In other words – not trying to remake them.
You do not accept your parents if you try to teach them how to live, dream that something in your relationship will turn out differently, or hope for something else.
When you truly accept your parents, grievances, claims, and expectations fall away.
Expectations are the most terrible scourge. When you hope for something but don’t get it, you become irritated, offended, and upset — that is, in one way or another, you become emotional. Emotions begin to destroy you personally. This becomes your story.
Check your motivation, your desire. It should not sound like “I want my parents’ attitude toward me to improve.” Such a motive will lead you nowhere.
It is important to understand that to thrive in life overall (to live in goodness, to be happy), you need to learn to accept your father and mother and allow them to live their own lives.
Too many threads connect you to the past, to your parents. Therefore, you cannot do without acceptance and permission.
When the first step (acceptance) is taken, the situation begins to unfold differently, in ways you never even imagined. In this case, it is not impossible that your parents may change.
Here, an analogy can be drawn with the relationship between you and a person who plays the role of a catalyst in your life. When you work through your program/script, the catalyst person can turn into a “heavenly angel.”
In some cases, acceptance may mean that you relieve yourself of the extra responsibility you carry that is not for yourself.
In others, on the contrary, it means that you take responsibility for your own life, stop hoping, and begin to consciously manage your life.
Parents have every right to live as they wish. They have earned this by age and have fulfilled their obligations to you and society.
Your parents gave birth to you and let you go at 18, thus closing and fulfilling their part. Everything else is your internal doubts, turmoil, and traumas. Work on that.
As long as you keep comparing how your parents treat you versus your brother/sister, you remain in a disadvantaged position.
If you want to live in joy and be happy, stop wasting time on nonsense. Respect your parents’ choice to be who they are.
Your task is not to allow their choice to destroy your life. Your emotions and suffering only destroy yourself.
See also Separation from adult children. In which case it is necessary
There is no acceptance where there is hope that the parent will change
If your parent suffers from an addiction, accept it. Give up the idea of saving a loved one. It is their choice. Accept them. Refer to specialized literature (Russian-speaking authors) on the topic of addictions and working with them.
It unequivocally states that any addiction is a mutual process, involving both the person suffering from the addiction and their immediate circle, relatives.
For relatives, the lesson is the need to accept the loved one’s addiction as a fact, to stop hoping for a magical outcome of the situation.
If you truly accept a loved one’s addiction, you let go of the state of hope. Hope indicates that you have not accepted the situation as it is.
The same principle can be applied to parents or any other person.
As long as you hope that a parent can change, you do not accept them as they are.
Therefore, the first step that unties your hands and frees you from shackles, no matter what kind of relationship you have with your parents, is acceptance and allowing them to be as they are.
See also Hope, are you my earthly compass? How to stop hoping and start living
Is it worth helping mom solve her problems
It is not worth solving anyone’s problems (including a loved one) for them, especially if it is an adult.
If you are being drawn – through blackmail or manipulation – into solving other people’s problems, you need to work on yourself and heal your own traumas.
You always start with acceptance (of the person, of the situation). A sign that you have accepted a person is the absence of any grievances toward them.
There are people who simply cannot live without manipulation, vampirism, or whining. This is their way of surviving. Therefore, such people endlessly provoke others (especially those close to them) in order to drain their energy.
If there are such people in your environment, you need to accept them so that you can build your own happy life.
Without acceptance, the situation cannot unfold differently. If you truly accept the manipulator, they may fall away on their own, or you will easily be able to limit contact with them.
The Envious Mother
If you have an envious mother, accept this.
What is envy? Someone sets goals and achieves results; someone else sits and envies that another person was able to achieve the same goal (that they themselves had).
It is easier for a young person to adapt. For an older person, it is harder – opportunities have been missed. Hence, envy arises, which ultimately consumes the one who envies.
You will never be an authority for your close ones. No matter how great a master you consider yourself to be or actually are, you are not an authority – not for your husband, nor for your parents.
You can try to earn their authority.
If your opinion is highly valued by other people, it does not automatically mean that your close ones will perceive you the same way or listen to your advice.
Many people simply do not know how to rejoice. In our geo-space, a culture of joy is not developed. To be happy for another, you need to be open, able to empathize, sympathize, and trust the world.
You do not owe anything to another person/parent. You can make a choice – to help another.
When you do NOT want to be like your parents, or to have things the way they do, two main scenarios play out:
- you either completely copy your parents and their lifestyle;
- or you do everything exactly the opposite.
How much harmony and mutual understanding is present in your relationship with your parents? What helps you accept your parents as they are? And if you cannot accept them, what gets in the way?