Why do we increasingly blame our parents for our troubles and what to do about it?

04/19/20215 minutes read 2451

Hatred towards parents. Lately, these phrases have been heard more and more often: I hate my parents, I don’t want to communicate with my parents, I’m very offended by my mom or dad.

At the first appointments, the psychologist always starts with childhood and is asked to talk about him, about his parents. It is with this information that the analysis and elaboration of problems begins. It is exactly how a person lived his childhood, how happy and carefree it was, what kind of relationship he had with his mother and father, the atmosphere in the family; the whole life of an adult, the quality of this life, and his attitude towards it depend on these main points.

It often turns out that not everyone has only good and vivid memories of their young age. Very often, a child and a teenager have to go through different moments and not always positive ones. A huge number of people enter adulthood with their own feelings and grievances, which can later even develop into a feeling of hatred towards their parents. These negative feelings and emotions simply poison the mind and interfere with a full, happy and fulfilling life.

The topic of the psychology of hostility towards parents is very complex and serious. It is best to work through it with a psychologist; it will take less time and give more results. A psychologist will help you get rid of childhood traumas, and there can be a lot of them, forgive your parents, calm your inner child, recognize and realize your feelings, improve relationships with your parents and with yourself. The process is long, labor-intensive and complex.

Important Therapy can take from several months to several years, depending on the severity of your injuries and grievances, because very often a person carries them throughout his life.

Start working with a psychologist right now

Start a consultation

Resentment: psychology and reasons

Resentment is an extremely negative emotion, a whole group of feelings: anger, disappointment, fear, self-doubt. There can be many reasons why a child may develop hatred towards his parents.

Lack of love. An overwhelming number of people come with resentment that their parents did not love them in childhood, that they did not have enough maternal or paternal love, which rightfully belonged to them, affectionate words, kisses and hugs, instead they felt emotional coldness and detachment.
Violence of any nature: physical punishment, beatings or moral bullying: humiliation, insults.
Indifference, indifference in upbringing, lack of interest in the child, his problems, life and feelings.
Uneven love between brothers and sisters, a feeling of being loved more than another family member.
“Everything is for strangers, nothing for relatives.” A special category of parents, with their own psychological problems, having which people try only for strangers, friends, acquaintances, children of acquaintances, etc.
Parents wearing rose-colored glasses. Parents who deny the child’s problems, experiences that deny the child’s existence. “Hey son, are you okay? How wonderful! And today I went to the store and saw a wonderful coffee machine...”
Conversations with such relatives are more reminiscent of a dialogue with a nightstand, or simply with a deaf person, an absolute reluctance to delve into life, feelings and emotions. With their entire appearance and behavior they convey to the child: “Don’t touch me, leave me alone.”
Overprotection, manipulation. The other extreme, but no less dangerous and toxic. Mother or father, or maybe both, do not allow you to take a step on your own. Total control, complete submission.
Comparison with other children, devaluation, disrespect.
Living in poverty.
High expectations, endless criticism.
Wrong and unhealthy lifestyle of parents.
Unfulfilled promises.

There can be a lot of variations on the theme of grievances, but most of them are connected with an unsatisfied need for love; the child did not feel loved, important and significant in the family, or did not feel stability and security.

When we feel good, we don't hate

It even happens that the parents are no longer alive, but the person is still offended by them, he believes that he was abandoned, left alone in this complex world. Resentment is a whole complex of emotions, where the main component is suppressed aggression and suppressed feelings. That is, a child, due to his age and lack of experience, simply cannot answer an adult, speak out, or express his anger.

You can live your whole life with these feelings, but until the problem is solved, the person psychologically will remain that little offended child. Problems with self-realization, in relationships with the opposite sex, in a career - there can be gaps in every area of life.

The nature of your interaction with the whole world, with yourself and even with your children depends on your relationship with your parents.

Hatred can poison life. It is necessary to understand that this is anger that cannot break out, it is aggression, the desire to cause harm, pain, but the inability to realize this, most often due to fear.

Hatred means wanting evil, but not being able to commit it, that is, aggression remains inside and a person fights the hated more in his imagination, and not in real life.

You need to work with this feeling, work through it before it deprives you of your last strength.

Important Negativity takes away and consumes all free time that could be spent usefully and joyfully for your life. When we feel good, we do not feel hatred, we do not seek to cause pain or harm to someone. We feel good and we wish the same for everyone around us.

“Every mother lays out in front of her child the path he should follow.”

Mom is the first person in everyone's life. She doesn’t just bring you into the world, she tells you through herself, as if through a prism, about this world: is it good or bad, is it scary or safe, what kind of people live there, and how the whole story will end. Mom, with her behavior, words, mood, views and laughter, lays such a basis, such a foundation of our personality that many of its characteristics cannot be changed in any therapy.

We learn all theoretical knowledge about the world, about people and about relationships through our mother. Precisely “through”: she may not say “don’t trust anyone, they will betray you,” but she will behave in such a way that you will internalize this reality, and perhaps you will never be able to doubt it.

The role of the mother cannot be overestimated, since even her absence affects us. It has been proven that deprived children grow up sick, anxious, have difficulties in learning, establishing contacts and are prone to addiction.

The episode where the mother is beaten with a belt until she bleeds is told as an ordinary biographical fact.

Mom is not just the body that carried us and gave birth to us, it is a guide not just to the physical world, but also to the world of relationships, feelings, rules, creativity, freedom. Every mother lays out a road for her child to follow, the bricks of which she herself is. For every child on earth, a mother is a sacred figure, a semi-deity, although just a person, with her own fears, traumas, pains, sorrows, inability and ignorance.

It happens that you are lucky with your mother, and your mother has nothing to do with it. It happens the other way around, and then the mother is really to blame.

What problems arise?

Suppressed emotions, aggression, anger and despair, stored in the soul for months and even years, do not pass without a trace for a person. A lot of health problems arise. The so-called psychosomatics works in full.

sore throat and all kinds of throat problems,
tonsillitis,
chronic runny nose,
interruptions in the functioning of the thyroid gland,
nervous system disorder,
panic attacks,
depression,
chronic pain,

and this is not the entire list of possible diseases.

Containing anger, the inability to express one’s feelings, isolation, “a lump in the throat” literally prevents you from living to the fullest, prevents you from speaking, communicating with people and being happy.

Live by forgiving

Contrary to what is commonly believed, the very fact of forgiveness does not immediately fill us with jubilation. Often, on the contrary, a feeling of emptiness comes, because anger, hatred, bitterness are strong feelings that take a lot of strength and attention; they could give our lives meaning and purpose.

So their disappearance can leave us confused, with a sense of loss. Then there is nothing left but to overcome this stage, which in itself is a form of recovery. Then we can invest the newfound life energy in something new, for example, in work or relationships.

Finally, we must always remember that forgiveness given too hastily can be taken back in the future, just as we may eventually decide to give forgiveness that we have long denied to our parents. This way we can maintain contact with our feelings and desires.

Adult problems as a source of negative feelings

In addition to health problems, childhood grievances affect the quality of life in all its aspects.

First of all, the personal sphere. In his own family, a grown “offended child” faces a huge number of problems. Thus, unloved girls who do not have enough maternal love, for example, the mother worked all the time or arranged her personal life, not paying attention to the child, not being interested in him, or with a dad who is stingy with emotions, such girls grow into women who do not know how to love and appreciate themselves .
Very often they find “cold”, without emotional husbands, from whom they again receive neither love nor affection. This happens on an unconscious level, a person looks for those emotions that he already knows and is already familiar with.
Boys who grew up with a very authoritarian mother and a weak-willed father will look for a powerful woman, even if they feel unhappy with her, they will stay, since this model is familiar to them.
A child who has been beaten or physically mutilated grows up aggressive, insecure, embittered at himself and at the whole world. There is a huge probability that he will beat his children in the same way.

We recommend reading the interesting article “Is it possible to hit a child?”

A child who is constantly compared with other children, or with his own brother or sister, will have extremely low self-esteem and absolute self-doubt. As an adult, he will be guided only by the opinions of others; he will not have his own position in life as such. Constant competition with someone or even with yourself, trying to be better for someone or than someone, endless self-improvement for the sake of general recognition.
But children, in whose families there were constant quarrels, scandals, maybe even fights, will look for precisely these emotions in future relationships. The girl will look for a companion similar to her alcoholic father, perhaps he will not even drink, but most often he will suffer from other types of addiction and she will experience the same feelings with him.
Career, studies, and achievements also suffer. Children who were not supported in all their endeavors, but, on the contrary, stopped, saying that nothing would work out, grew up in constant fear that it would not work out, that they were unworthy. Many great scientists, artists, actors and other great people have disappeared, just because mom, or dad, didn’t believe in him. Nobody told them: “You will succeed, I believe, I know.” Try again. Don't be upset. I love you"
Children who grow up under the overprotection of their parents become absolutely dependent, unable to make decisions and take responsibility for their lives. They blame anyone for their failed life: circumstances, people, politics, time, etc. It is very difficult for them to get along in a team, build a career, and personal life.

“I'm excited about the future! What does my childhood have to do with it?”

Most people choose to go with the flow. They say: “The future does not depend on me,” and silently accept that “the waves will wash you to the shore.” If you are not one of those people, take the future into your own hands! Yes, it will take strength, all available will and faith in yourself. Keep in mind: this is where you will rest your forehead on complaints against your parents. It happens something like this:

Mikhail and Vladimir worked in the same design bureau for five years. They were paid regularly, but they both wanted more for their families. One day, Mikhail finally decided: he wrote a business plan, took out a bank loan and opened his own company. He called Vladimir with him. But he still hesitated to answer.

Vladimir watched his determined friend and kept thinking: “Why did my father insist that I study to become an engineer? After all, I could have gone to economics! Now these business plans would crack like nuts! And I would have opened my own business a long time ago..."

At the moment, Vladimir’s energy is directed towards the past. He does not openly blame his parents and, it seems to him, is not even offended. But his internal resources are aimed at claims against his father. Vladimir simply does not have enough energy for a decisive step, for a better life or a big goal.

Although being constantly planning the future is also a wrong strategy. Our main task is to get maximum pleasure, maximum buzz and happiness from what we have right now. Be aware of what you are doing and feeling, and be grateful for every pleasant moment.

Most of us definitely have a lot to be grateful for. Answer the following questions and you will agree with this statement.

—Are you healthy and active? Yes, most people after thirty have chronic diseases. Well, ARVI and flu are also in season. Maybe myopia or flat feet. But you walk, you think and you are able to change something in the end. This is a good reason to say thank you to the Universe.

— Do you earn your own food and clothing? Do you have a profession? Obviously yes. Otherwise, you would not be reading this text from a computer monitor or gadget right now. Another reason to say thank you. And by the way, you are quite wealthy, since you have money for the Internet and gadgets, so you are not very there with complaints!

— At the end of the day, do you have somewhere to go back to? Take a shower, lie down on the couch, or go to the kitchen looking for a quick snack? So you have everything you need! Isn't that a reason to rejoice? Another reason to whine?

I don’t want to be banal, but all of the above is not available to every inhabitant of the earth. Your present moment is quite prosperous. So why are you willing to waste time and mental energy on regrets and complaints? To think about what you didn’t have, what you didn’t get, how you didn’t like it, why didn’t you straighten your brains out?

Focus these resources on the future, and not even an armored train can stop you!

Parents do not treat them as equals

Parents do not treat their already adult children seriously, as equals. For them, a child will remain a child even at 30 or 40 years old. Therefore, claims made against them most often remain unanswered.

Most of the older generation is confident that they are right; it is almost impossible to prove otherwise. They often do not know who their offspring have become, do not respect boundaries, do not allow them to live life to the fullest or believe that they can still manage it, they listen but do not hear.

We recommend reading the articles:

“How to understand that you have low self-esteem”

"How to increase self-esteem"

The shelf life of a grudge

We humans are created in such an amazing way that there is absolutely nothing superfluous in us. Including, there is not a single “bad” feeling. Even emotions that we are used to calling negative, at a certain point in life we need for something. They always point to where you need to pay attention and draw the right conclusion. They are always lessons for a person.

But the fact is that every emotion has its own expiration date. And if we have not promptly freed ourselves from experiences that have already fulfilled their mission and should have gone away long ago, then they, once useful, turn into poison and poison us from the inside. This is exactly what we do to ourselves, keeping old anger and resentment in our souls.

Very often they become old because they were suppressed at one time. For example, driven by the fear of angering or offending parents, the fear of violating dubious rules of decency (“good children don’t get angry!”, “You can’t be offended!”, “Boys don’t cry!”), the child simply “stifles” his feelings within himself. And not only are they not leaving, but they are also being supplemented with new members. That is why it is so important for parents to learn and teach their children to express any emotions competently and in an acceptable form.

Is it possible to improve the relationship?

Ilya is 43 years old.
“Mom calls 3 times a day, monitoring my breakfast, lunch and dinner, hygiene, and whether I checked everything, turned it off when leaving. This has been going on for 40 years. In response to my requests not to do this, she laughs and replies that I am careless and frivolous, and if it weren’t for her, I would not have survived at all. I hate myself because I can’t fight back against my own mother, I hate her because she tells the truth... I’m a careless, clumsy, slack loser.”
Read also: Why do we freeze in fear?
Maria is 58 years old.
“I have 3 children, I’m divorced, I haven’t been in a relationship for many years. She lived her whole life with her mother until her death. She hated all husbands, considered them unworthy of me, provoked me to divorce, said that my mother knew better who I needed. Mom generally knew everything better: where to study, work, who to work with, who to be friends with.
Even at the age of 35, I was not given speech and freedom of action, I am already over 50, my mother has been dead for more than 10 years, but I have never learned to live on my own. I'm still waiting for advice, solutions, help. And I also hate my mother because my life is broken..."

There are a million of these and similar stories. The main thesis: “I hate my parents, my mother, my father...”

Find out how much your self-esteem depends on the opinions of others, go through:

Test "Motivation for approval"

Start working with a psychologist right now

Start a consultation

What to do with old grudges

Your task is to restore the interrupted cycle “emotion – desire – action”. To do this, you need to figure out what exactly interrupted him.

For example, you love your mother so much that it is impossible to express your feelings to her. It seems that if you honestly tell her about how hurt and offended you are, your mother will immediately treat you differently and begin to love you less.

I think your fears may be partly correct and adequate. Mom, especially if she is old and has always been hot-tempered and touchy, can easily take offense at your claims. But any complaints can always be formulated in an inoffensive manner.

Compare: “Mom, I want to tell you honestly: you ruined my whole life and I hate you!” and “Mom, I have heavy feelings in my soul. Will you listen to what I say? When you told me that you didn’t want me, I felt completely unnecessary to you. I was very hurt. It would help me a lot if you said that you really don’t think so and that you are important.”

Of course, not every mother will be affected by such words. Some mothers may even say something even more offensive in response. If it seems to you that this will be the case with your mother, then I completely trust your feeling. There is another way in this case.

Resentment towards parents of adult children

A colossal number of people, growing up, experience such strong hostility towards their parents that they stop calling and seeing them, deny their existence, try to go as far as possible, ignore them. Your silence and reluctance to get in touch, or moving, will not solve the problem. An offended child becomes an offended adult.

These situations should be understood from the very beginning. That is, if you were beaten as a child and you grew up as an insecure, complex adult with pronounced aggression towards people and the world, do not rush to blame your mom or dad for all the sins.

It is quite possible, and most likely it was, that your parents were also beaten by their parents. They had no other experience, and in Russia and the Soviet Union it was customary to equate physical punishment with education and justify it with it.

This is a widespread phenomenon and your case is not at all unique. You should understand and accept that for them this was the norm declared by society and time. Then no one thought or knew that a belt and rods could forever destroy not only mental balance, but also future life.

If fifty years ago your father had been told that hitting you on the butt and sending you to the corner for breaking dishes would deprive you of self-confidence, deprive you of a sense of security, traumatize you for the rest of your life and make you hate yourself, he would never have done it. I didn’t believe it, but would have twirled my finger at my temple.

All grievances of adult children can be divided into 2 parts: resentment against the mother and resentment against the father,

depending on which parent behaved more destructively.

Resentment towards mother

Resentment towards the mother leads to distrust of all people; in the future, a man or woman will be sure that everyone wants to offend him or her, deceive him or even betray him.

Resentment towards the mother leads to devastating changes in the girl’s life. Daughters grow up masculine, taking upon themselves everything that is necessary and not necessary, and will deny any similarities, external or internal, with their mother.

An interesting fact is that when they are offended by their mother, both men and women do not want or are afraid that they will have a girl, and in general, those who are offended by their parents do not seek to have children.

A man who is offended by his mother usually has several options for the development of events:

The first is that a man will choose a powerful, cold life partner, and his aggression and hatred will be more hidden and suppressed.
The second option is that a man will treat all women consumeristly, without considering them as an individual, a person, for him they are a lower class, a servant or something like that.

Resentment towards father

Daughters who are offended by their fathers clearly suffer in their personal lives. A woman is looking for a partner in a relationship who will solve all her problems, replace her father and everything that her own father could not give. Or, on the contrary, she turns into an imperious “snow queen” who is not at all interested in relationships.
Sons more often suffer from careers, self-realization and everything related to work and income. In family life they are weaker, gentle and sensitive, touchy and vulnerable. The other extreme is also possible, in the form of authoritarianism, cruelty, and imperiousness.

My recommendations

You are not obliged to forgive or accept your parents, to justify them. But to be freed, you must find an explanation for their actions. It probably seems to you that your mother or father had a choice: to hit you or not to hit you, to hug you or not to notice you, to be kind or demanding, to drink or not to drink, etc. But in fact, at that moment there was no such choice. Such parents live unconsciously. Their every action is dictated by their traumas, grievances, fears, mental disorders, addictions, etc. (depends on the individual case).

You need to accept the fact that your parents could not satisfy your need for security, love, respect, attention, etc. They are not capable of this. They don’t know how, they don’t know how to do it. Accordingly, you should not expect from them such behavior that is atypical for them, which is unknown to them. This is the secret of getting rid of resentment towards parents.

The only thing you can be angry and offended about is fate, the fact that you were born into this family. But again, this had nothing to do with you. It turns out that there is no one to be offended by and there is nothing to blame yourself for. What remains? Give yourself what you missed as a child. Nurture the healthy adult within you and speak to your inner child. Yes, probably, until you also do not know how to love, care, and defend personal boundaries. But all this can be learned. The main thing is to want it.

Important! If you had a difficult childhood, it is normal to be offended and angry at your parents, but it is not normal to feel guilty about it. Don't blame or scold yourself.

How to forgive grievances against parents

You can list many human destinies, stories where everything is due to resentment towards your main loved ones, resentment that grew into hatred and poisoned the soul, heart and life.

The choice is yours - to forgive or not, to take revenge and ignore, to disappear or to try to forget. The latter is unlikely to succeed, since it is impossible to forget your past, but it is possible to free yourself from childhood grievances and change your attitude towards them.

It may take more than one day or month to change your thinking, look at your childhood and parents from the other side, and let go of resentment towards those who brought you into this world.

Let's divide the actions into several points:

Acknowledge your feelings. Anger, hatred, resentment, whatever it is, admit to yourself that this is exactly what you feel towards mom or dad. Allow yourself to feel this. Accept your emotions, condition, feelings.
Try to understand the parents, explain their actions, why they did or said this, perhaps they had no other choice. Don’t judge them, they had no other experience, and they themselves didn’t know what to do, in the vast majority of cases, they came from the best intentions and wanted only the best for you, even if they used methods that we now consider toxic and destructive.
Don't try to change them and don't expect them to become different people. This is impossible. Parents are who they are, this must be accepted as a fact and come to terms with it. They most likely will not admit their guilt, but, on the contrary, will blame you - their children. This is a defensive reaction of the psyche, a mother may know that she is to blame for something, but cannot accept it - this destroys her picture of the world, in which she is a good person and a good mother, so she will turn her guilt against you.
Be direct. Talk to mom, dad. Directly and clearly explain what you don’t like or what offends or offends you. Be prepared in advance that you will be haunted by feelings of guilt (I offended my mother), let go of this guilt, separate yourself from mom or dad, you have the right to feel offended and talk about it. Do this for yourself to get rid of that “lump in the throat”, unexpressed feelings, chronic stress
Realize that you can have different feelings towards your parents, and love or hate is your choice. Awareness and articulation of these points is very important.
It is important to understand that your inner child is offended and you need to return to the position of an adult and take responsibility for your life and emotions.
Bring the relationship to a formally friendly note, set personal boundaries that must be respected. It is quite possible to improve relationships by turning them into friendly conversations or reducing communication to a minimum.

“Did a psychologist teach you to yell at your mother?”: why we are offended by our parents and what to do about it

You've probably seen memes about how, no matter what kind of parent you are, your kids will still have something to tell their therapist. The author and Mela expert, psychologist Vita Malygina, reflects on what has changed in the relationship between fathers and children with the advent of mass psychotherapy in our lives.

Useful Mela newsletter twice a week: Tuesday and Friday

What is the inner child and who traumatizes him?

Psychotherapy has burst forth into the masses and is attacking us with all its might. On the subway, every now and then someone whispers into their smartphone: “I have to leave this toxic relationship.” A young man at the entrance scolds a girl “for systematic gaslighting.” People now quit because of abusive managers, and get divorced because of destructive relationships.

Moreover, everyone knows exactly when and what is happening. Where is this gaslighting, where is simply passive aggression, where is hidden manipulation, and where is direct psychological violence. Because there are lists for everything. A client recently sent me a list: what in your adult life indicates that your inner child is traumatized. There are, it seems, fifty points. And in it, like in Jerome’s medical reference book, you will find everything except childbed fever. What next? Let’s say you got divorced for the first time or work didn’t work out. What to do?

We googled it and immediately found out: we need to go to a psychotherapist and do something with our inner child.

What this inner child is is not very clear, but they write that you need to love him. Well, OK. At about the third or fourth meeting, they contact mom and dad. Because, well, where else? Kindergarten and school come in second and third. But even if you are the first, you won’t catch up with them, where are they, the first educators and the first teachers? Look for fistulas! And parents, as a rule, are still nearby (and this, by the way, is a great happiness, but more on that later).

What about the moms and dads of adult clients? As soon as they hear that the child has gone to a psychotherapist, they immediately tense up: they are also scientists, they read books, watch TV series and are smart - the child will now have their eyes opened to how they were not loved in childhood, and goodbye, goodbye help at the dacha, grandchildren on weekends ...And anything else, goodbye for sure. Therefore, many clients hide from their parents that they are going to a psychotherapist, so as not to listen every second to “Did the psychologist teach you to yell at your mother?!” and everything like that.

What to do with all this? And to adult children who suddenly discovered that their inner child was terribly traumatized by their external parents. And these same parents, who for the most part do not understand what we are talking about, because they wanted the best. So what, what happened as always? This is exactly how it always turns out!

Why so hot

We live in an interesting moment: right before our eyes, human relationships are taking new forms and norms and rules are changing. What was normal and acceptable some twenty years ago now looks like dense savagery. This happens not only in our society: it happens all over the world.

On occasion, I watched the old Italian movie “The Taming of the Shrew” with the idols of the 70s and 80s in the leading roles: Ornella Muti and Adriano Celentano. I haven’t seen it for a hundred years, and then I came across a movie on the plane. So what would you think? From the point of view of today's 20-30 year olds, everything that happens there is game, abuse, sexism, ageism and enchanting gender chauvinism.

But even to us, far from twenty years old, this already seems wild. Although it was funny before

It turns out that it is not only our Soviet cinema that does not pass the test for psychological safety, as it might seem. They say that Americans, having watched their old Disney, lost their self-control and want to correct something there so that modern kids don’t learn bad things. God is their judge, of course, and it’s not for us to teach them with our constantly disappearing monuments and erasing objectionable names in the credits.

But whether or not to watch old films and cartoons is our choice. And, by the way, if young adults want to understand how their parents could do to them the way they did, it may be useful for them to watch together the movie that these same parents admired so much as children. Much will become clearer. But we don’t choose children, like parents.

So, cultural norms are changing - and what was considered natural and normal twenty years ago - for example, ruffling the hair of a preschooler walking by or scolding a fifth-grader dragging his briefcase down the steps (“Your mother probably didn’t buy this for you so you could carry them down the steps.” upholstered") - is now almost impossible to imagine in polite society. For two generations now, parents have been asking their children for their opinion on any matter and trying their best not to raise their voices, much less hit.

And if this does happen (and it happens, even with advanced parents), they honestly suffer and sort it out, including with the help of psychotherapy. Here, by the way, sometimes it becomes clear where such habits come from and why one’s own children evoke contradictory and difficult-to-bear feelings.

But why, why is it so acute right now

Women and children have remained the most powerless categories of the population throughout human history. Basic changes in relation to one category automatically entail changes in relation to the other.

The women's movement began in the 19th century and radically changed the world. Changes in attitudes towards children developed in parallel with changes in women's issues. The book “Psychohistory” by the American psychoanalyst Lloyd DeMause was published in the mid-1990s. This psychologist and historian of childhood offers a decisively revolutionary concept of the development of human society. He puts his attitude towards children at the forefront. The humanization of these relations, according to De Moz, entails the humanization and development of society. The scientist consistently examines five main educational styles, from infanticide to acceptance, deducing from them the personality types prevailing in society, the characteristics of relationships and group dynamics.

In the book there is a sign indicating which personal characteristics are associated with a particular educational style, and in this sign opposite the receiving style it is written like this: “Children raised in this style have not yet become adults.” It seems that they are growing up right now, and are being raised by the same adult children who were the first in the history of mankind to seriously make claims. And we're dealing with that right now.

Parents are angry, tormented, offended. To be fair, there are those who cannot be reached. To them, these screams and cries of grown children are like pellets to an elephant. They will just shrug their shoulders and simply decide that the grown-up child has gone crazy, or they will seriously refuse to give up the house: oh so? Are you going against your mother and father? Well, go away, ungrateful one. It's even better without you. In the end, the mother cat does not recognize her children at point-blank range. There are also people like that, so what? But we are not about these parents and not for these.

We are about those who, after the offensive words of an adult daughter or adult son about the systematic violation of boundaries, trampled children’s dignity, about the harmful Spock, for whom parents prayed, after words about exile with their grandmother to the dacha for the whole summer for the sake of fresh air, but against their will, and they also compared you with some Masha or Seryozha, for whom everything is always better than yours, after these words they don’t sleep at night, they get offended, suffer and remember their own. For example, how you had to sleep on the floor next to your child’s crib in a children’s hospital room. The kids were admitted to the hospital without their parents, and they could stay under the following conditions: you wash the floors in all the wards of the department and sleep next to the crib. They washed and slept for the sake of the peace and health of their child.

These are all sad, but quite vegetarian stories. But some children will remind their parents that it’s true - they beat them, punished them with rejection and “I’m not talking to you”, read diaries - as if in order to keep their finger on the pulse, and instructed how not to bring it to the hem... Yes, a lot all sorts of things.

Sit in a psychologist’s chair for 20 years and you’ll hear a lot of exotic stuff about your parents, and it’s all with the best intentions.

Adult children, for their part, also suffer. It’s not at all healthy at the age of 60 to find that again and again you are eager to love people who don’t see you at all, reject you, sometimes humiliate you, although they claim that this is love. And you still can’t understand what’s wrong here. Even as a child, you were used to the fact that your loved ones did this to you precisely because they loved you. For example, mom. Mom most likely had her own reasons for being cold, distant, disconnected, or simply very busy, exhausted. But you copied this way of love down to the last line, and in order to rewrite it, you have to understand what exactly was written in the original.

How to respond to complaints from adult children

Listen without bias and acknowledge. Let the Queen of England be your example. Most recently, an English prince and his princess wife, who fled to America, gave a two-hour interview in which they exposed the terrible and abusive practices in Buckingham Palace. Who would doubt that! The royal family is an ancient institution, with its ancient rules, like any large and influential family, living according to its own laws, far from perfection and new views on relationships. And what did the queen answer to all these terrible accusations, remember? With all her royal dignity she said something like this:

“I am infinitely sorry that you suffered so much in our palace. We will try to change and fix something.” That's all. Disarming and dignified.

What's stopping you?

Just listening and acknowledging is very difficult. At this moment, almost everyone feels acute pain: everything is already over, nothing can be fixed - once. You have done/have done a lot to forget how you screamed at your child, how you beat him for bad marks, how you abandoned your grandmother for the sake of a new love, how you left him for the sake of a new family. And you almost made it through. And then - bam! - it turns out that this bastard remembers everything! Pain is an unpleasant feeling, and many of us, in a split second, switch our internal toggle switches from the “hurt” button to other, also unpleasant, but still a little easier, buttons. Someone immediately feels a sharp attack of resentment (the classic “I didn’t sleep at night because of you, and you’re on the train”). Someone immediately falls into aggression - “How dare you criticize your father,” “I’ll see how you sing when your people show up.” Someone defends himself with denial: “You only remember the bad things. She hit me in the butt once, she screamed once, and you...” Take courage, breathe in, exhale, face the pain - and admit it: “I’m very sorry that this happened,” “It was unfair, I understand.”

Focus.

The phrase: “I’m very sorry that this happened, but you were an obnoxious child” is not considered a confession, but is considered an attempt to preserve one’s parental integrity and integrity. Admit it, but without the “but”. You will have to trust that everything was as your adult child remembered it.

Our ancient cultural tradition is not to trust children's feelings, and even more so not to believe childhood memories. Often, when you try to remind your parents how everything was, they answer:

-You remember incorrectly

- You have misunderstood it

- You're making it all up

- Well, you have a fantasy

-You only remember the bad

If there are other suitable options, add to the list yourself.

To clear your mind, play a little game with yourself: imagine that someone hits you on the head with a heavy object. You become indignant and shout: “Don’t do that again! It hurts me! And someone looks at you in amazement and answers: “You’re making it all up.”

You can continue: a blow to the head caused you problems, and you had to undergo treatment for a long time. At some point, you still decide to ask the person who hit you on the head with a shovel: why did he do it? You want to clarify something for yourself. And someone looks at you angrily: “You remember everything wrong. You hit yourself." Looks absurd, doesn't it?

But everything changes when adults remember their sins to their parents. It is humanly understandable: no one wants to take off their white coat, few are ready to admit exactly how they harmed their child.

And here it all depends on your individual task. If you want development, love and understanding in relationships with children, love and understanding in the family in general, try to trust your children. For them, everything was exactly as they say.

But, of course, not everyone cares about love and mutual understanding. There are people for whom it is vitally important to preserve their integrity and infallibility.

Focus.

Take a risk and show your feelings openly. Talk about your pain. About your inability to believe that once, 20 or 25 years ago, you were so stupid that you did this and that. It's hard, unpleasant. But it will greatly benefit your relationship with your adult children.

If that offended adult child is you

Usually, an active stage of re-evaluating the actions and strategies of their parents is experienced by people who turn to a psychotherapist or psychological consultant for help. This is a normal phase of therapeutic work. Normal and unpleasant. It is bitter and painful to relive difficult childhood feelings. It is not always possible to process them all, down to the bottom, in a specialist’s office. Part of the raised material goes to loved ones. If your parents are nearby - you live together, go to the dacha together, live nearby - then, of course, it will not be easy for you and different feelings will wander.

During this stage, the person experiences a lot of anger and pain. Who should carry them if not their parents?

Especially if once upon a time for some reason I could not and did not dare to do this. Especially if you're still not old enough. Little children are angry with their mother, no matter what happens in their lives, and they are especially angry if their mother leaves them for a long time. Likewise, when we get into therapy, we quite quickly regress into a child’s position and become so desperately angry with our parents, because it is the childish part of our soul that still hopes that our mother will help and save, hide, shelter, caress and regret. As soon as this part of the work is done and the person accumulates a little maturity (and therefore stops dreaming of changing his parents so that they finally become what we needed), the intensity of passions subsides and the desire to tell parents exactly what they were wrong about and how offended, decreases.

There are those who are touched tangentially by this whole story: a person does not go to a therapist, and there are now a lot of popular books on psychology, among them there are good and bad, both of them often talk about how parents are toxic, immature, and various others. — they offend their children and how this then interferes with the children. And then even a person who is not in therapy discovers that there was a lot of injustice in his childhood. My urgent advice: if this is your case and you are, as they say, bombed by emotions and feelings, if you constantly get involved in discussions that are destructive for both you and your parents - drop everything and look for a psychotherapist. Otherwise, there is a risk of getting stuck in this phase of blaming and revising the past, and progress and the necessary development will not happen.

Focus.

This is the case here. In general, for your life it is no longer important what your parents think about upbringing, yours or your children’s. It doesn't even matter what they think about you. The sooner you stop wasting your soul energy on trying to prove to them how wrong they were, the sooner you will start spending it on what really matters to you. Including what is important to you in your relationship with your parents. Right now. And the trick is this: talk about what doesn’t suit you now, and offer your solutions. Don't expect your parents to do it for you.

A couple more notes

First. If you are already an adult, you are bombarded by every word your mother or father says - because behind every word there are five stories that, as you now know, influenced your life - and you are not able to remain silent about it, so almost every visit to your parents turns into a small-scale but bloody battle, but one or two days or even a week passes, and mom again asks on the phone if you are wearing a hat, and sends a saucepan of pies by courier, and dad drags his grandchildren to football on Sundays - it means they love you. Do you understand? How can they? You wish it were different. But it turned out like this. They love you, so they are ready to pull their pies over and over again, no matter what you say to each other. Yes, the consolation is weak, but it is there.

Second. About pies. If you want them to stop dragging you around (calling at 8 am on Sunday, advising you to get a divorce or get married, claiming that they know everything better) - just ask for it. In words. Polite but confident. And don't take the pies. Get a divorce or get married on your own, despite your parents' words. Remember the old but good psychological joke: we become adults when we act one way or another, even if this is exactly what our parents advise us to do.

Illustrations: Shutterstock / A Plus Vector

How to work through a grudge against parents

There are many techniques for working through your childhood grievances. Let's look at the most common ones.

Write a letter, or rather, letters.

The first thing is to tell my parents, from myself now, a story about all my experiences, all the pain and resentment, to tell them what tormented me for so long.
The second letter is to my little self, with words of support and understanding.
The third letter is the answer if your parents would answer you after reading it.

Re-read these letters, understand everything, and then burn them or tear them up and throw them away. There is no need to store them. This method perfectly helps to shed the heavy burden of old grievances, allow your “inner child” to speak out, forgive and understand.

Compensate yourself for what you didn’t have in childhood and adolescence. Become your own parent for a while: buy the same dress that you so wanted 25 years ago, but didn’t have the money, go to the circus, feel sorry for yourself, or, conversely, constantly praise for the work done, and just praise.
Shout out your pain. Going to a deserted place will help here. Go to a place where there is no one and just scream at the top of your lungs, let your hatred and anger come out, throw it out, cry, grieve. This is a big step forward for many people and helps a lot.

Important Give time to put everything in its place, don’t expect quick changes. Your grievances have accumulated over the years and now you cannot get rid of them so easily, but it is quite possible to change your attitude towards them. You won’t be able to forget, but you will be able to let go of the past, accept it and start living differently.

Help from a psychologist

It’s good when there is a loved one with whom you can share your experiences, who will understand and listen. More often than not, situations associated with childhood are so difficult, sometimes even catastrophic, that it is not possible to decide to tell or share with a friend.

Psychologists note that relationships with parents are one of the most frequent requests lately. Treatment of childhood injuries sometimes takes months or even years, depending on the severity of the situation.

Having worked through your grievances and hatred, you can get rid of negativity, from wrong attitudes, and find the answer to the question: “How to forgive your parents?” A specialist will help determine causes and consequences and choose the appropriate work method. Your life is in your hands.

The information presented in this material is for informational purposes only and does not replace professional advice from a physician. If you feel resentment and hatred towards your parents and it gnaws at you, consult a specialist!

Author: Anna Zabrovskaya

Start working with a psychologist right now

Start a consultation

Tags: psychological state psychologist online problems with self-esteem low self-esteem how to increase self-esteem how to become happy test locus of control test motivation approval