Reply to It’s hard to be the best parent I can be when I wasn’t always treated well

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[quote=Anonymous]I totally feel you right now OP. I had one absent/neglectful parent and one who (I only figured out years later) has borderline personality disorder. I moved out at 17 and have lived across the country since then. Now I have had to assume the care for the borderline parent (the other parent is alive and well, but divorce...) and its brought up a ton of feelings for me. Definitely some resentment (mostly: my parent never was a good, present, caring parent to me and certainly never took care of their parents either and never worked while doing either, much less both and now they continue to demand attention, their anxiety is out of control, etc). But the other thing is that its shed light on my own childhood, which Ive repressed. There is some grief there, and some sadness. But I also think that I am a much, much better parent than my parents were. Not perfect--no one is--but I am conscious of trying to be present, loving, not overly controlling and invasive, and most of all I do not make my children responsible for my feelings. It is hard, sometimes, to break these patterns. I am not the best parent I could be--I work too much, sometimes I yell, I am not the PTA mom--but I think/hope my kids know they can count on me and hopefully feel like i am a source of support for them, rather than an emotional vampire. Most of all, I try to demonstrate and express unconditional love--that no matter what they do or who they are or turn out to be or what mistakes they make, my love for them is unconditional. They do not have to be anything other than who they are.

Good enough parenting is just that--good enough. I mean, you and I both turned out probably okay, despite bad parents. You're doing much, mucb better than that. [/quote]

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