Our Parents Failed. Now What?
One of the biggest epiphanies of adulthood is the fact that, contrary to what we thought as kids, becoming a "grown-up" doesn't make us all-knowing or all-powerful and the feeling that we are still figuring out this life thing never quite goes away. Consequently, the grown-ups of our childhoods (our parents, caregivers, and teachers) were all just figuring stuff out too, even as they were tasked with nurturing and guiding us. So, of course, they all failed at some point.
All our parents and caregivers fumbled along the way, making choices we wish they hadn't —choices we wish we could undo. Some of those failures are huge earth-shattering things like abuse or neglect, while other failures are smaller, quieter missteps like choosing stern tough love in a moment when hand-holding and compassion were needed. Some failures were intentional wrongs designed to hurt us and some were innocent miscalculations made with our best interest at heart.
Regardless of the magnitude or the intention, we all live with the impact of our parents' failures (just as we live with the impact of their successes). They made the mistakes but we are left with the clean-up, which consists primarily of three main processes: acknowledgment, accountability, and restoration. Although I'm going to describe these like ordered steps toward a final goal, these processes are not necessarily linear or sequential. We cycle back and forth through them and sometimes we experience them simultaneously.
Acknowledgment
Much of what we've discussed above falls under acknowledgment. This is where we face the fact that our parents messed up and that we are carrying the pain of those mistakes. We name it and say it out loud. Furthermore, we give ourselves permission to feel whatever emotions we need to, whether that be hurt, regret, betrayal, sadness, or even anger.
Acknowledgment may sound straightforward, but it is by no means simple or easy. It requires overcoming both societal and internal messaging that we should get over it and always be looking and moving forward. This is the opposite of "getting over it;" it is recognizing that, although past events are behind us, our past selves and the emotional consequences of all our experiences live within us.
Accountability
After acknowledging that mistakes were made, we have to hold the responsible parties accountable. Simply put, in the acknowledgment process, we assigned blame and, in the accountability process, we decide on consequences. We get to choose whether we want to directly confront our parents about their mistakes or use a proxy like a therapist or a journal; whether we want to forgive them; what forgiveness will even look like; and whether we want to include our parents in our lives going forward.
There are so many decisions to make and it is easy to get overwhelmed or stuck here. Just remember that there is no deadline on this process and no right or wrong choices, only choices that do or do not work for us in the moment. Most importantly, we get to change our minds later.
Restoration
The restoration process could also be called re-parenting because it involves doing for ourselves what we wished our parents had done for us as children. We can't go back in time, but acknowledging that we carry our past selves with us, we can meet our childhood needs now. This might look like going to therapy, giving ourselves space to experience things we were denied as children, and teaching ourselves lessons (both emotional and practical) that our parents didn't or couldn't.
In short, this is the process of nurturing our inner child and healing past hurts so we can move forward in a more integrated way, rather than allowing parts of us to be stuck at earlier developmental stages. The good thing is that we don't have to do this re-parenting work alone. We can enlist the support of partners, friends, and therapists. Depending on the decisions we make in the accountability process and the response from our parents, we might even have our parents' support.
When did you realize that your parents/caregivers were fallible and didn't have a secret answer book about life? Have you been working through any of the ways they may have failed you?
