I came across a tweet today that reads « Be the parent you wanted as a child » and it made me think. Firstly I thought, huh, maybe that’s what some women mean to day when they come from abused childhood and go right on having a lot of kids without going through therapy first. I always judged them, because as a former psychology student and someone who was big on personal development, I know non-healed trauma cannot be healed just by the sheer power of wishful thinking. Like everybody has heard « hurt people hurt people » enough to be better, I thought. I just never could understand why people still did not know better? Like I understand their logic, but experience has proven them wrong again and again, so why can’t they just accept that despite having the best of intentions, it just does not work like that?

But this morning, that tweet made me go ohhhh I can see. Sure some parent doing that is just naive wishful thinking (inadaptive behavior or trauma induced), maybe some of them are onto something? The best route in my mind is still getting therapy and making sure you’re at least 50%healthy mentally, that you’re aware of all of your psychological issues an of the fact that there is possibly some that you are not even aware of. Basically, you have to realize you know some but in the grand skeme of things, you know nothing. You should be humble enough to question your own behavior, beliefs at every given moment. Psychological issues show up all the time in our behaviors, thought process and reactions without us being aware. You can never just be 100% healed, but you can become more aware of yourself. And that is what’s needed to be a better person and better parent. But that only happens after years of therapy. So, as our societes do not care about people’s well-being, mental health is not affordable. People can not go to therapy because they cannot afford it. Plus they are told it’s useless and shameful to seek help, so most won’t even ask for help.

Therefore, I think one possibility is to reparent yourself by having kids. I would say that’s cheaper that paying years of therapy, but honestly we all know it’s not. But when people make that decision I think to them it is. They get to have kids (which you have to have anyways if you subscribe to the social norms), give them a better life than the one they had (their ultimate goal!), and also get to heal from their own childhood (the free therapy!). By giving your kids every thing you wanted and needed as a child, on top of living vicariously through them (the toxic part of this ordeal), you also get to re-write your childhood by acting like the ideal parent you wish you had back them. You reparent your inner-child as a parent. And that is magic. Doing so help you identify all the things your parents did wrong and revisit how it made you feel. Then you practice the healing part by choosing to behave differently than your parents, you get to see your child happy and safe, which brings you joy and peace. Knowing that you are 50% your parents DNA wise, and that you child is also 50 % you DNA wise, it’s just full cercle, but a vertuous circle instead of the same old vicious cercle. You take generational curses down efficiently.

Although I would not try to reparent myself by having kids (too many unknown variables), I can take that concept an apply it to myself, as many have already theorized and done. I can reparent myself even as an adult because I am at the same time the inner-child in me, my parents, and the adult me. And what better time to do this than the 3rd decennial phase of my life?