Our childhood and the parents who raised us indeed have a significant influence on the adults we become, and it can be easy to place blame or hold onto resentment towards our parents for their faults or shortcomings. It is especially true if we feel our parent’s past shortcomings have caused us unnecessary pain, hardship, or consequences as adults. Every child has their own unique needs that parents should aim to attune to and meet. However, parents often cannot do this, which could be for various reasons, including their childhoods, personalities, or personal struggles. As adults, our inner child may become triggered when we are reminded of an unmet childhood need.
An example of this might be if you had parents who shamed or criticized you when you made a mistake as a kid. As an adult, you automatically overreact and feel ashamed after making even a minor mistake. Another example might be if emotions were not discussed or validated in your family as a child, and now, as an adult, you have trouble regulating difficult emotions. There are endless examples of how, as an adult, your inner child may become triggered due to past unmet needs. Some of the primary needs we have as children include safety, touch, guidance, listening, acceptance, accomplishment, fun, and freedom, and some of the core issues that can result from unmet childhood needs include needing control, difficulty trusting, difficulty identifying and expressing feelings, neglecting your own needs and putting others first, fear of abandonment, having a high tolerance for inappropriate behavior, difficulty with conflict, and difficulty giving and receiving love (Whitfield, 1987). You may notice one or two, or even many, core issues resulting from your unmet childhood needs. These core issues can cause difficulty in your life as an adult, and many people blame their parents for this. However, if you really think about it, how does it benefit you to hold on to blame or resentment towards your parents for the past? It does not change the past or make things better in the present. While it is still important to recognize your unmet childhood needs and how these affect you as an adult, a better goal might be to identify, heal, and let go of resentment and blame to move forward more healthily and avoid repeating these patterns in your own life. It can be easier said than done to let go of blame towards your parents however possible. It is also important to note that some of what I share in this blog may not apply in cases of severe childhood trauma or abuse.
So, How Can You Let Go of Blame?
Understanding Your Parent’s Childhood
In the process of letting go of blame, getting curious about your parent’s childhoods can be helpful. How were your parents raised? How did their parents parent them? What was the parenting style of your grandparents, and how did that influence the parenting style of your parents? Just as you had unmet childhood needs, your parents most likely did as well, influencing who they became as adults and their own way of parenting. Behaviors are often passed down through generations of families, and an example of this can be intergenerational trauma. Intergenerational trauma is a process in which trauma responses replicate throughout generations due to the parent-child attachment relationship (Isobel et al., 2017). Trauma creates brain and behavioral changes in those affected by it, and these trauma responses can be taught and repeated through generations.
An example of this could be that someone’s grandmother grew up with parents who were verbally, emotionally, and sometimes physically abusive. As a result, their grandmother never learned how to regulate her emotions properly and is very reactive and quick to anger. When the grandmother had her own children, she continued to be reactive and yelled often in response to her children’s difficult emotions. This behavior continued to be replicated in her own children, who were quick to anger their children, and the behavior continued on and on because no one within these generations was taught a healthier way to cope with challenging emotions. There are many examples of how similar behaviors can be replicated through generations. When you think about your parent’s childhoods and your family history, you may realize that they did not know how to behave differently or parent you better because they were never taught or modeled anything different in their own childhoods.
Understanding Your Parent’s Personalities
Although we understandably tend to hold our parents to the highest standard, the truth is that they are really just human, with their own unique strengths, weaknesses, and personalities. Personality is “the enduring characteristics and behavior that comprise a person’s unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns (American Psychological Association).” Consider thinking about each of your parents as a whole person rather than just your parent. What are their strengths? What are their flaws? What are their interests and skills? What are they like as overall people? What personal struggles or insecurities did they or do they face? What personal successes or achievements have they had in their lives? What were their dreams and fears? How do they react to stress or hardship? Looking at your parents as a whole person rather than viewing them solely in a parental role can help create empathy and allow you to let go of some of the blame you may be holding towards them.
Having Compassion
Considering your parent’s childhood and unique personalities can help foster a sense of compassion and empathy. Practicing compassion towards people who have hurt you can be challenging. However, it is often necessary to move forward positively. One way to help with this is to think about your family situation and childhood experiences from an outside, non-judgmental, objective perspective, considering each unique family member’s history. Practicing looking at things from an outside view helps you to understand your family history better and helps you to understand your parent’s actions and behaviors.
Radical Acceptance
Once you better understand your family’s history, a helpful next step is to practice radical acceptance. Radical acceptance means being willing to experience a situation or state without trying to change or escape it (McKay, M., Wood, J., & Brantley, J., 2007). When we experience difficult or painful situations or have difficult people in our lives, we often refuse to practice acceptance and aim to change these situations or people. This is especially true with parents, as it is one of the most meaningful and influential relationships we have in our lives. When our parents have qualities that we do not like or when they do things we disagree with, it is often very hard to accept. We may find ourselves repeatedly shocked by our parents’ actions because they do not align with our expectations of how we want or believe a parent should behave. However, trying to change people or the past usually ends up causing disappointment and pain. It is important to realize that the only person’s behavior you control is your own, and one thing you can control is your ability to practice radical acceptance. The process of radical acceptance includes recognizing when you are fighting reality or thinking things should be different, reminding yourself that this reality is unable to be changed, reminding yourself that there are reasons behind this reality (your parent’s past childhood or personality differences), practicing fully accepting the situation through various means (self-talk, relaxation strategies, spirituality), acting in a way that you would act if you genuinely did accept the situation (even if you are not a place of complete acceptance yet), and allowing yourself to feel and validate the feelings that arise from having to accept a difficult reality. It takes practice and can be difficult, but getting to a place of acceptance can be very freeing, as it allows you to stop fighting reality.
Forgiveness
Getting to a place of forgiveness towards your parents can be a huge step in letting go of blame and moving forward. Holding grudges keeps us in a place of anger and resentment and a place of those unmet needs and core issues resulting from them. Holding onto the bad parts of our parents can keep us feeling like that wounded inner child and is unhelpful in healing. Forgiveness is a process that involves recognizing how you have been hurt, the resulting emotions, and the consequences that your parent’s actions may have caused you. Recognizing how holding on to this all harms you rather than helping. Once you can do this, then you can choose to forgive to free yourself of the power that your parent’s actions had over you. Once you forgive, you can begin changing and healing from those situations.
Most of the time, parents just do their best under their unique circumstances. Every parent has their own unique story, past, and childhood that has made them into the person and parent they have become. Holding onto blame towards parents can cause a lot of pain and suffering that continues into adulthood, and being able to free yourself from this blame can be very freeing and healing. While it may not be easy, consider practicing compassion, acceptance, and forgiveness towards your parents to free yourself and move forward.
