You spend childhood and adolescence thinking that your parents are wrong in many things, you tell them that you do not think it is for your own good and that you will still not understand it when you are a father, you repeat that you will not be equal to them in the future and sure they could do it differently and when the time comes to show them and show you that you were right, you go and you raise your children the same way your parents raised you.
What I just explained could be signed, sure, by most current parents. The reason that this happens is that it is very different to see things from one side of the barrier to see them from the other, and that the passage of time, for better or worse, makes the old quarrels have been resolved or forgotten. By this I mean that many parents now do with their children the same as their parents did with them, simply, because they are not aware that at another time they promised not to be like that.
It is normal, and it is logical
Before getting into the subject, I want to clarify that this is not an entry dedicated to blaming anyone for how they are raising their children. It is normal, and perfectly logical, that at one time children we end up by become our parents, in what they were. It is normal because the only way we know to be with a child, to be parents, is through the model that we have suckled the most, which is none other than that of our mother and father. They had a mother and son relationship, or father and son, and we ended up copying the behaviors we saw as children, applying them now as parents.
Do we want to be our parents?
So, the question, the question to which we must answer is if it seems good to us to end up being like our parents and educate in the same way. The answer, of course, is not a yes or no, because surely our parents did many wonderful things with and for us. However, we must bear in mind that, if there were those situations that I have reported in the first paragraph, those in which we thought they were tremendously wrong and unfair to us, perhaps there were things they could have done better.
The important thing is to be aware of our way of educating
It may happen that now, seen from a more mature perspective of the facts, we realize that yes, that they were really right, although it may also happen that we think they were wrong, and that we wanted to choose to be ourselves and not our parents. The ideal then is to try to do it our way, the way we once thought we would be when we were parents and maybe the way that makes both our children and us happy.
We will be wrong many times, we will shout at them as our parents did, we may disrespect them or be excessively hard on trivial things, such as our parents were, we may not know how to control our nerves and we walk justly patiently, as also happened to our parents . The thing is, when it happens, the important thing is be aware that the behaviors of those who educated us are being reflected in our actions.
Being aware we can end up knowing the behaviors, working them, controlling them and, who knows, eliminating them. There are many parents who can explain that at the beginning they were very angry and shouting and that they have now learned to count to ten, to take things more calmly and to solve problems in a more diplomatic way. Many parents are sure that they can explain that they are doing things that their parents did not do, and more importantly, that they are being the parents who probably would have liked to have.
I repeat, our parents surely did the best they could or knew, and that is why we still love them. However, we, as parents, have a responsibility to be ourselves, and not them. We must free ourselves from the automatisms that leave us inadvertently in moments of stress to respond in a way according to the circumstances, with temper, patience and with constructive solutions. Only in this way will we grow as parents and people and only in this way will we help our children to grow and mature by having us as guides along the way, in case they ever get lost.
Try to remember your childhood, try to feel again what you felt when your parents did the same thing you do now with your children. Try to see your childhood again through that of your children and take advantage of all those feelings, especially those that hurt the most, to break with the past and build a new present, one in which we can love, hug and kiss our children as much as we want, one in which we are sincere with them and with ourselves, knowing ourselves imperfect and letting them know that we are, one in which, in addition, we are honest, and we know to apologize when we are wrong. Perhaps, with all this, our children will also learn to be honest, sincere and loving parents in the future, and parents who know how to take advantage of our imperfections to continue improving.
