Regarding Parent(s), Part 2

"Parents are not interested in justice, they're interested in peace and quiet." --Bill Cosby

 

Funny quote from a person with a funny perspective on children and parenting.  Just for the record, parents I believe have a huge influence on their children both for good and not so good.  It isn't because parents are evil or anything, they are human and therefore are not at all perfect, have their issues but they have great qualities too.  Either way, for good or for bad, what our parents have said, done, not said, not done has it's effect on us.  Someone once said, "more is caught than taught" in the sense of learning from our parents.  I believe it is critical to understand our flavoring from the person or person we call our parents.  

 

Part 2 of Regarding Parent(s) is about the minimizer's and people in denial over how they were raised.  To minimize is to treat reality/truth/feeling as less than important.  To say "I am my own person, my parents are who they are/were my childhood has no effect on my adult life" is to minimize the impact of parenting.  Denial is to say "sure my dad was an alcoholic but it had no effect on me, then or now".  Not being willing to make a connection with the past says a lot.  Treating our childhood experience as "no big deal", "typical", or "uneventful" is to deny or minimize the experience.  A lot of stuff happened.  Whether your parents were "good" or "bad" or in between, events, values, affirmations(both positive & negative) occurred that flavor you today. 

 

Why do we need to know our flavorings?  Because linking some of our experiences from childhood helps us to understand some of the relational patterns, feelings, and our perspective on ourselves that we carry.  And we carry these flavors right into relationships of all kinds.  But since I am only concerned with the type of relationship that is long term(marriage), that is why it takes on importance.  Not wanting to understand yourself and how you operate, is like driving a car blindfolded.  You don't know what's wrong until you hit something.  And when you hit something, you do damage to yourself and others.  Also, if you are considering someone for the long term and they are not interested in understanding themselves and how they operate, well then, how are you then going to relate to them on a deep level?   What if they struggle with confidence?  Or fear?  Or Pride?  Those feelings when they control a person, controls their relationships too.  It is good to know where those feelings come from.

 

To deny that "nothing happened" or "it was not that bad", or even "that was then, this is now" is to not be real, honest, and choosing to blind yourself to the facts of much of who you are.  In denying/minimizing you are not evaluating your life.  Childhood is part of life, to separate it, compartmentalize it, is like not telling your whole story.  I would want to know the whole story and it's implications.  I would want someone to know my whole story with what I thought was the implications.  If I am seeking a life partner, I need to know them.  All of them.  From the beginning.  Who starts a story from the middle?  Context in relationships is everything. 

 

Shawn