Shoulda been a hero, the best, measured up - all false expectations We create standards that are unrealistic - and then we underestimate and/or underappreciate our parents. This creates the Unhappiness Gap that we could choose to keep or to eliminate. I recomment the latter.
My parents did the best they could at the time given their levels of awareness at the time. They could not have done better than that. They learned what they learned, and that's it. There is no "should've" done better.. They did what they did - and I get to take what I got and decide what is useful and what should be changed - for now it is all up to me.
I am now complete with my parents and hold no resentments, should haves, not good enoughs, etc., for they did the best they could for me and for their lives. I am simply grateful for there having done their job, to get me to where I am an adult, where I can operate on my own.
I liked the viewpoints of Mary Manin Morrissey in her book No Less Than Greatness:
"My parents did not or do not always behave the way I wanted or want but that hardly makes me unique. As Socrates said, “Parents are destined to disappoint their children.”
My parents did the best they knew how. I choose to focus on and be grateful for the gifts I did receive, not the least of which was being born. Thanks, Mom and Dad."
Often times we set up a "I was the victim of my parent" mode of living. Mary Manin Morrissey again lays it out clearly in that same book: "I can stand for hurt and being a martyr. Or I can stand for something greater.”
FOR THOSE WHO ARE INCOMPLETE, STILL STUCK
It is unacceptable, for your life, to continue to be incomplete about your parents.
It is unacceptable for you to hold onto any blame/resentment or I am the victim of my parents stories.
It does not work to keep looking back and using them as the explanation for why you aren't smarter or happier, for you have had the opportunity to correct any misbeliefs you formulated as a result of exposure to them. Your childhood is your childhood - it is finished, over, never to be dug up as a reason or justification. You simply are as you are - and you've had plenty of opportunities to learn more and to do more with your beliefs and philosophies - they simply gave you what they knew and did what they knew, but that is complete.
Each time you repeat "and I am this way because of my mother [or father or childhood]", you reinforce the untrue belief that you are the victim of the past and that you are a mere child, dependent on others for survival, demanding that things be your way - living in a harmful fairy tale, where you are still a child and still dependent and helpless (powerless).
Unless you're working with your psychologist in order to correct and complete on this, never say those things again, ever, ever, ever. And say them only once to your psychologist, as he/she "gets it" the first time and you don't need to keep reinforcing that idea.
