When Parents Are Human

As another Mother’s Day passes, I have been thinking a lot about the reality of parenthood. Not the stuff of Hallmark cards or unconditional love that is glorified and projected onto mere mortals. I’m talking about the reality that parents are human; there is no such thing as a perfect parent.

When we're kids, we tend to idolize our parents. They are the superheroes of our lives. It’s not until we're becoming adults that we begin to see their shortcomings. While they may have done their best at raising us from day-to-day, they also were people who had their own issues to work through. They couldn’t wait until their deepest wounds were healed before they became parents. (If that were the case, humans would have become extinct long ago.)

I know that some parents are absolute monsters to their children. But even parents who devote themselves to creating a loving environment for their kids to thrive mess up from time to time. Sometimes it’s so obvious that they may ask for forgiveness as soon as they realize what they’ve done. “I’m so sorry I yelled at you. I shouldn’t have done that. I love you.”

Those times when our parents have no awareness of how they have chipped away at our souls may be the most difficult to forgive: a word spoken in anger, treating our pleas for attention as an annoyance, a harsh punishment. What is long forgotten as a parent may remain seared on the brain of a child for a lifetime. Our parents may never see the ways they have passed their own brokenness onto us.

We can blame our parents for the ways they have harmed us and remain children, or we can forgive them for being human and grow up. Accepting this has been one of the most difficult tasks of my life and I’m thankful that I’ve been able to work my way through it.

Now, in the later part of my life, I’m experiencing a variation on this theme. I can’t stop thinking about my own parenting while my kids were young. I have so many regrets, so many things I wish I had done differently. I know I was not a monster, but I made enough mistakes that I’m sure my two adult children have plenty to discuss with a therapist.

I struggle a lot with my negative bias when I look back on my life. It’s much easier for me to focus on the ugly parts of my past than it is the beautiful ones. I need to give myself the same grace I grew to extend to my own parents. While I was figuring out how to be a parent, I never stopped being a human being, and I had more than a few issues to work through. I can beat myself up over the mistakes I made, or I can forgive myself for being human. Of course, that's easier said that done. But I’m working on it. This growing up stuff never ends, does it?