JetUNsetter

I come from two really bad parents, albeit, yes there is so much worse. It has been troubling me then what it takes to be a good one.

From what social media traffic indicates, this may be quite a common theme amongst millennials in fact.

I have been in a group of mothers recently, with children of different ages and some divorced, some unhappily married and some married (happily not clear). When asked what a good parent is they all gave me an answer with a common denominator: love. In the end, you cannot mess up too much if you love them. But then, did my lousy parents not love me? I tend to believe they were not loved. They did not know what love is to pass it on. Is there a way to fix that, I wonder? Can you love, can you be taught to love when you did not get love at the young age that you should have?

Now interestingly, you might be saved. By someone else in the extended family, by a friend, by a teacher, by a therapist if you are brave enough later to do the inner work.

And if we assume you got to parenthood with some glimpse of love, what do you do? What do we do with our children? This recent group gave me three little guides:

a. Love them unconditionally so that they might love themselves

b. Love their other parent no matter what. You chose that person for them, even you divorce them you need to respect that 50% of your child to be anywhere near claiming to love them

c. Make them strong enough to sustain the fact that not everyone will love them and not everyone deserves their love.

Sounds so simple and is the bit that millions of parents now and in so many generations before got sooo wrong. Please help me make sense of this one too.