Stop Hating Your Parents
Parents often guilt-trip their children by exaggerating their sacrifices. Instead of acknowledging that raising a child was their choice and responsibility—that they wanted children and caring for them was the obvious consequence—they frame it as an act of martyrdom. Presenting responsibility as a sacrifice or a lifelong favour is manipulative behaviour.
However, if you are above twenty-five, it is time to stop blaming your parents. It is also time to stop placing them on pedestals. Whatever they did—or failed to do—must be put behind us. Some children inherit money. Some inherit generational trauma: guilt-tripping, emotional obligation, and the burden of caring for siblings or parents. Some inherit insecurities about their appearance, their worth, their imperfections. We must forgive our parents for all of it.
We grow up believing our parents are invincible. When we develop a deeper understanding of the world, we realise they are not. This realisation creates a quiet heartbreak within us. When we discover that they are not as loving, as warm, or as benevolent as we believed, something fractures inside. We begin to hate ourselves for trusting everything they told us—about their struggles and about our supposed shortcomings. Somewhere deep down, we resent them for teaching us to turn against ourselves.
But we must also understand that they are human. We placed them on pedestals. We turned them into heroes out of our own ignorance. They are simply people who are worried—people who are insecure, frightened of the future, conscious of ageing, aware that their strength is fading. They feel they have not achieved enough. They feel insignificant. And so they begin to behave childishly, except their behaviour carries more weight and causes more damage.
At their core, they are simply scared people. We need to recognise this. We need to forgive them and move on—from their version of the world—and begin experiencing life through our own lens. We must discard the beliefs that kept us small, learn from diverse sources, and acknowledge that what we feel about ourselves may not be true. What happened in the past must remain in the past.
From today, begin with the belief that you know nothing about yourself. Build a new self-image. Talk to people and form opinions only when you have enough data. Read books on various topics to understand the world around you. Learn by doing, not merely by listening. Let go of the traumatic beliefs you carry—beliefs you mistake for inheritance from your parents.
Only when you cultivate your own beliefs, when you are clear about who you are and where you want to go, will you understand why people behave the way they do. Your parents may be good people struggling with their own insecurities. Or they may be manipulative, using guilt to bind you to them. Either way, you must see them simply as your parents—without the burden of perfection.