Rule 76. 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 attributes. 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.

Your parents do the best they can. And that might not be good 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.