Giving Our Kids What We Never Had But Also What We DID Have

The more we research the more we see the wisdom of this. We meet a lot of people (and I used to be one of them ) who were gung-ho to give their kids what they DIDN’T have growing up and that is the almost-crazed focus of their parenthood. It’s a fear-based type of lifestyle and our hearts go out to those who feel the need to parent this way in order to feel safe and even to feel recovery from the trauma they felt as kids. It’s a rough lifestyle.

And we know several parents who, when asked, will say that their own parents gave them nothing positive that they could pass onto their children. We hear you. We are not here to invalidate your experience or say you are wrong about that. All we are saying is that we have found that the more digging we have done into our trauma recovery the more we found good things our parents did that we are happy to pass onto our children.

For some of us finding the good things from a tumultuous childhood takes a long time and a lot of therapy and a lot of journaling and a lot of feeling suffocating heaviness. But we believe in you. There has to be something good your parents gave you or YOU wouldn’t be so amazing. You came from them! And you’re doing great.