33. BLAMING THE PARENTS

​Having children brings responsibility. That responsibility is to provide for their needs until they are capable of taking care of themselves. If your parents did this for you, they did their job. If they did not and you are now an adult, then what does it matter?
 
But no, therapists' offices are filled not only with young adults, but people in their 50's and beyond moaning about how they were potty trained too early, once got a spanking, lived through a divorce, or weren't loved as much as siblings. Rodney Dangerfield lamented, "When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them."
 
We need to get over it, get a life, take control and responsibility. A salesman stuck in an elevator for a day can complain, get angry, blame everyone and everything, and call his psychotherapist on the cell phone—or determine to sell the elevator operator a new Cadillac before the door opens.
 
Parents are not the cause of our failures, we are. We are free moral entities who must make the choice to have a good life and then get at it. There are people who rise up out of far more miserable and oppressed circumstances than ours, no matter what they were. Many successful adults never had active parents in their lives at all. Some people were forced into factories when they were tiny children to help the family survive. Starving, diseased, abused, and crippled children have found a way to earn a PhD, head successful companies, contribute to society, rear their own children, and have a fulfilling marriage. Parents don't make or destroy us.

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​We can also look at it this way. Without adversity, pain, and suffering it is very difficult to grow. If sympathy is to be extended, it should go to those who have been excessively sheltered and pampered by parents. Having a mommy wiping our nose into adulthood sets us up for failure in the real world, not success. Life is tough. Getting eased into it as children girds us for the heavy licks we all experience as adults.
 
If we don't like the way our parents treated us, then we should be thankful for the lessons learned about what not to do. Their failure can be our success if we set about forgiving them and taking responsibility for building our own happy life and family.

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