Dear caroline:

What we need our parents to be, as children, is strong, capable, honest, loving people. When who they are is too different from what we need them to be, there is a gap. In that gap we make believe they are who we need them to be. We make believe we can make them be who we need them to be.

In that gap, having no one else to turn to, we turn to them, again and again. We hold on hopefully to any sign, any little thing that looks like the strength, honesty and love that we need.

Think of it, a young child, once realizing her parents are aggressive, not loving; dishonest not honest, what is a child to do? Leave the home and look out there for other parents? They are all we have. And so we are stuck, as children.

Not figuring out what is going on, consumed with self doubt, we can’t really see ourselves and other people until we see our parents for who they are.

How fortunate must be the people whose parents are who the child needs them to be. Still fortunate are those whose parents are not that different from who they need them to be, the gap being not that big.

But when the gap is huge, the child, and adult child is in trouble. Serious healing has to take place so that one can see what-is. And take it from there.

anita