There may be many obstacles between us and our parents: unspoken reproaches, confrontation, bitterness of resentment … But we are able to overcome them, psychologist Ekaterina Mikhailova is sure.
We want to go back to childhood
Often our accusations are due to the fact that we continue to feel like children. We demand attention from parents, holding them responsible for their failures.
Allow yourself to blame them
Unhealed spiritual wounds give rise to sadness, frustration, a sense of humiliation. Having understood what exactly we reproach our parents for, we can begin to live differently.
To stop idealizing parents, to perceive them as ordinary people with their advantages and disadvantages – this helps us grow up and treat ourselves better.
Ekaterina Mikhailova – psychotherapist, professor at Moscow State Pedagogical University, author of more than 70 scientific and popular publications, several books, leading column in our journal.
Psychologies: “Accept your parents” – what does it mean?
Ekaterina Mikhailova: In general terms, to accept parents means to delve into the circumstances of their life, the peculiarities of their upbringing and relationships with each other, the details of work, their successes and failures outside the family circle – everything that makes up a person’s life. It is not so easy: after all, for us, parents are, first of all, mom and dad. To accept means to turn to face them, to see them in a variety of roles, and not just as a parent. Only by discovering in them a personality with interests, requests, aspirations that are not related to our life, we will be able to accept some of their features, even those that do not suit us or make us angry.
That is, to accept means to stop wanting them to be different?
EM: Absolutely right. It means accepting them for who they are. Letting go of the ideal image of the parent—the one we would like to have—allows us to come to terms with the real image of the parent. But this process is not always associated with reunification: sometimes it happens that a person can accept his parents only if he sees them extremely rarely or after their death, that is, when they can no longer “harm” him.
Is there a certain period in life when we are most ready to change our attitude towards them?
EM: There can be many such periods, because throughout life, both we and our parents change more than once. This cannot be done only in early childhood: the child does not care about those aspects of the life of mom or dad that are not directly related to him, they are simply not interesting to him. Most of us become more loyal to our parents after we ourselves face life’s difficulties. And then the understanding can come: “This is what my mother felt when she advised me this.” But this is not always the case. Often, adult children in relation to their even older parents have a feeling of irritation when they run the household in their own way – they go, for example, to a distant wholesale market to buy a kilogram of apples three rubles cheaper than in a store nearby. Children see this behavior as a reproach that they do not care enough for their parents, and consider it unfair. “The main thing for them is that I feel guilty!” they often say. Although, if you think about it, this behavior of the elders is most likely just a habit dictated by upbringing and time. It is important to ask yourself the question: why am I so angry? Is it because I feel sorry for my mother, who is running around the city, or because I feel that I really do not pay enough attention to her? Many of us reproach our parents for not being who we would like them to be, and stubbornly try to change them, reason with them, shame them, or “get even” with them. But we always demand more from our parents than they can give us: more love, more protection, more intelligence, more originality…
Why do we start blaming them?
EM: The blame period is often the first step on the road to acceptance. At this time, we think first of all about the grievances inflicted on us. Although some people do not seem to feel resentment, they are used to it, because in childhood they saw only abuse from adults. It is difficult for someone to show these feelings, because from an early age he was inspired by a respectful attitude towards his parents. To someone, dad and mom tried their best to give a happy childhood, and now it would be indecent to blame them for anything. But when we are offended by our parents, we have internal dialogues with them, and this means that things are not so bad: we were loved and accepted in many ways, and deceived expectations, unfair punishments, unpresented gifts – all that is still hurt us, were just the exception.
Should you blame your parents?
EM: When you feel the need to tell your parents about your grievances, you should ask yourself: why do I want to do this? I hope that I will be better understood; I want them to feel guilty or feel the same pain as I do … You need to answer yourself honestly: will this conversation improve our relationship? And then make a decision. Sometimes, instead of venting your anger at your parents, it’s better to put your feelings on paper or talk about them to a psychologist.
But very often we just want attention and turn our reproaches to the loving side of our parents, hoping that they will hear and take pity on us! We are offended by them largely because we refuse to recognize them as ordinary people and believe that they can be extraordinary (and that is why they should not behave like that, talk to us like that, demand something from us …). By accepting them, we give up the ideal. This feeling is similar to what we feel when we first understand that Santa Claus does not exist, that in another person (our partner, child, mother or father) there are features that are alien to us. When we no longer strive to re-educate our father and mother, we grow up.
And thus, as if we are separated from them?
EM: When we are young, we do a lot to not look like mom or dad (especially a same-sex parent). The realization that I am not only an “apple from an apple tree”, but an independent tree, albeit from the same garden, often comes to us when we realize how much we look like our parents … And when we can think about it without hostility, irritation , but at the same time and without pride, to understand that with all the similarities, both we and they are independent, separate individuals, this moment means that we are ready to accept them. But this becomes possible only when we act consciously, and not just try to maintain an artificial world. The blame period is followed by a reappraisal phase, during which we recognize the good and the bad, take into account the nuances, notice extenuating circumstances. Sometimes these processes overlap: we blame and forgive, and then we blame again. Our memory gradually “puts things in order” in our past: it softens painful memories, shading the brightest ones. This subtle work (which we do partly consciously, partly not) is directly related to our ability to rebuild.
Does distance help rethink our relationship with our parents?
EM: Having moved to another city, to another country, a person may suddenly find that he misses the grumblings of his father, with whom he used to constantly quarrel … Our feelings and attitude towards loved ones have been living in our souls for a very long time, and we can perceive them as something unchanged , monolithic, without paying special attention to them. Therefore, distance helps to understand them deeper. However, you don’t have to leave to do so.
How do we know that we have adopted our parents?
EM: Often we understand this in hindsight: one fine day we feel that it has become easier for us, we are no longer irritated, we feel liberated and self-confident. Suffering leaves, and we think of parents with tenderness.
Daughter and mother, father and son
It is harder for boys to accept their fathers than for girls to accept their mothers. “When a girl says that everything will be different for her than her mother, then this decision is half the desire to be a different mother than her own,” says Ekaterina Mikhailova. – Boys, as a rule, “compete” with their dad not at the home training ground, but in the outside world. But their rivalry can also be a reason for unity. It is more difficult for boys to talk with their fathers, but it is easier for them to do a lot of things together. The conversation between father and son while fishing, playing football, repairing a car or computer may consist of interjections, but at that moment they feel complete unity and mutual understanding. The amount of reproaches also depends on how communication develops between parents and children. As a rule, fathers and sons are less likely to talk about their feelings to each other, and mothers and daughters do it more often. Accordingly, girls have more reasons to think and articulate their grievances, and they are more likely to reproach their mothers. But the ability to express these reproaches and discuss the relationship can improve mutual understanding between them.
M. Shch.
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