Parenting Blog

"Families are definitely the training ground for forgiveness. At some point you forgive the people in your family for being stuck together in all this weirdness, and when you can do that, you can learn to forgive anyone... Not forgiving someone is like drinking rat poison and expecting the rats to die.” -- Anne Lamott

This is Step Four from our series Ten Steps to Unconditional Love:  Forgive your parents for being human.

When your child pushes your buttons, you automatically move into "fight or flight."  It's hard to love unconditionally.  Of course, your child might need you to set a clear, kind limit, but you'll do that better if you aren't seeing him as the enemy while you're doing it.

Do you ever wonder when those buttons your child pushes were installed?  That's right -- during your own childhood.  If you want to liberate your heart, you have to heal your old wounds.

It's hard to love unconditionally when part of our heart is closed off behind the bars of anger or resentment.  So maybe the moment has come to acknowledge any resentments you're carrying toward your own parents -- or anyone else. 

Most of us didn't have perfect childhoods. Perhaps you got the message that you weren't good enough somehow.  Too needy, too angry, too selfish, too lazy, too careless...too childish?  Our parents, however well-intentioned, were products of their time, and most of us didn't get the message that we were wholly loved, human imperfections and all.

Now -- and this is the hard part -- It’s time to let that anger go.  The reason to forgive your parents actually has nothing to do with them.  As Anne Lamott says, drinking rat poison doesn't hurt the rats. Carrying around resentment poisons our hearts and keeps us from loving as we'd like to. That anger changes the way you relate to your child, even when you don’t know it.  It keeps you from being the parent your child deserves.

It’s easy to stay angry.  They deserve it, after all.  We’re right.  And even if we want to forgive, most of us find it so difficult.  The minute we begin, that wounded child inside us screams in pain. To fend off the pain, we stay angry.  But whose life is it, anyway? Letting your childhood determine your happiness level is like letting the waiter eat your dinner.

So how can you forgive and move on?  It isn’t about whoever wronged you. You don't have to say a word to them.  The secret is being willing to feel the pain of what you suffered.  To cry through it and comfort yourself.  Once you offer yourself that healing, you won’t need to hang onto the anger.  Or the rat poison.

Here's how:

1. Start by acknowledging your wounds.  "You weren't there for me. You didn't appreciate me.  You didn't  protect me. You abandoned me. You hurt me."  Whatever is true for you.  Allow yourself to feel that pain.  Breathe through it.  Once you feel the pain, you won't need to fend it off with your anger.

2. Now look for another small child.  The one who grew up to become your parent.  Acknowledge what happened to that child.  What wounded him?  What hardened her heart? 

Look at it from their perspective: were their childhoods perfect?  You have a perfect right to be angry.  But that doesn't mean you need to be. The children who became your parents may never have gotten the healing they needed.  The adults who were your parents almost certainly wanted to love you.  Even if they failed you in ways that most of us would consider unforgivable, they were doing the best they could with what they had at the time.

3. Express your intention to move toward forgiveness. Say, "What you did was not ok.  Every child deserves better.  I deserved better.  But you deserved better too.  I ask for the grace to forgive.  Please help us all to heal. Please help me to forgive now."

Do you need to phrase it as asking for help?  No, not at all.  You might just be able to find forgiveness in your heart.  But most of us need a little help from a deeper source of healing, whether you see that source as within you or without.  And when we ask for help, somehow we make room for grace.

Just too hard to forgive your parents, or someone else? That’s a defense against the pain of feeling unloved.  Your anger keeps that pain away -- by walling it up inside your heart.  Tomorrow, we'll talk about how to heal that pain so you can move on.