kudzujean

I've heard that dozens of times since I got into ACOA recovery.

IME and IMO, it may be true most of the time but it's not true ALL of the time.

I have come to understand that my mother did the best she could, most of the time. I don't believe my father did.

A few days ago, it was in the news about a father who throw his toddler out in the street. How could anybody reasonably say that this man was doing the best he could?

cobra8

My mother has said this a few times about my dad.

I think it's a stupid cliche, but I guess for her it's easier than admitting that she married and procreated with a man who is probably a psychopath and at the very least was a drunken jerk.

chicory

I have been guilty of saying that about my parents. I feel that my mother was sick, before she ever started drinking. Perhaps she was capable of more, i dont know.
my father, was so much an alcoholic, and was so nice when he was not drinking. I guess i feel sorry that they wasted their lives, and did not care more about themselves.

It may not be nice to say, and I hope I am wrong, but I have always thought that all the alcoholics that I have known have one thing in common. Selfishness. They say it is a disease, and if so, maybe that selfishness is actually helplessness.

hps

Doesn't this have to do with letting go of one's anger towards one's parents, and having some sort of forgiveness? The point being, it's not healthy to have a heap of anger and resentment, even if it's deserved.

In the example you provided, my interpretation of the saying would be that maybe the father is doing the best he could, but if that is his best he should not be in any position of responsibility over the toddler. And he may want to expect jail time etc. So forgiveness doesn't mean there aren't consequences...

suki44883

The guy who did that was drunk, so yeah. While I don't believe ALL parents do the best they can, I do believe that most do the best they can within their limited abilities. No, it isn't fair to the children, but most generally, when people know better, they do better.

mikefreak

I do not. Parents who are using/drinking are NOT doing the "best they can." They are selfish/self centered, and basically don't give a damm. It's a convinent excuse to rationialize bad /sick behavior. Don't mean to be disagreeable, but that expression always has gotten under my skin BIG time.

DesertEyes

Yeah I've heard that expression too. I really don't think it has anything to do with _me_.

Other peoples' parents are irrelevant to my childhood or recovery. And what other people think of _their_ parents means even less. So when I hear other people say that, I just walk away cuz the conversation does not involve me.

I don't know if _my_ parents did the best they could. Whether they did or not is something they have to work out with their sponsors and their Higher Power and their inventory, etc. etc. It has no effect on my past, or my recovery.

My recovery involves only _me_, and whether or not _I_ am doing the best I can _today_ in order to become a better person. I can't change the past, and I no longer try to somehow change people today as if that could reach back in time and change the past.

I have forgiven my parents for what they did, the same way a bank forgive a bad loan cuz it's just too much trouble to chase it down. I have not absolved them, they are responsible for what they did and have to deal with the consequences. But that's where it ends. My life is all about _today_ and what I can do to make it better.

Mike

mikefreak

Well GEE that settles that, doesn't it?

Iwanttoheal

I get sooooooooooo angry when I read this expression because I believe that my parent's best wasn't good enough, not by any stretch of the imagination. I truly believe that with a little effort thay could have done so much better (they were intelligent, educated people) but for whatever reason they chose not to.

As an adult, I have learnt that laws exist to protect children from the type of abuse and neglect I experienced as a child and yet my parents have not experienced any consequences from their actions - that sucks.

My mother has said to me that she did the best she could and it makes me feel sick to my stomach to watch her congratulating herself for enduring what she went through as the wife of an alcoholic.

So this expression is an enormous trigger to me.

This isn't a challenge but I am really interested in your response to this Mike. I may be wrong but I am guessing that you have put in many, many years of hard work to get this point where you appear to be able to detach yourself emotionally.
Question: Are you emotionally detached or do you react but then calm yourself and let it go (If this is too intrusive a question, please ignore me and accept my apologies)

When I hear that expression, I apply it to my own past / present circumstances and experience an explosion of hurt and anger. This happens automatically - I have no idea what to do to get it to a conscious level where I can choose to experience the anger or not to experience the anger.

Can't get my head around this..... for me, if my parents had done better in the past, I would not be posting here, I guess. I feel it affects my recovery because of the intensity of the anger I feel whenever I here that expression.

Doing much better on this now - not perfect but much better than I have ever been thanks to SR

DesertEyes

no worries We are all on different places in our paths to recovery. My posts are just where I am today, they are not a response or challenge to anybody else. I don't believe there is a "right" way to do our recovery, or a particular "speed" at which anybody should do it. This is not a race, it's just a healing.

lessee.... I didn't really start working on _me_ 'till I was in my early 20's when I found my first good shrink, so I'm going to say I've got 30 years of "re-wiring" my head <big grin>

I don't do it that way. First I dug out the _real_ reasons why I was angry at my parents. For me it's that I was trying to _change_ them and force them to become the parents they never were. The problem there is that if by some miracle they did change, and did apologize, and did become wonderful..... that still would not change the past.

Turns out I was addicted to a fantasy; that if I change _them_ I would be happy. When I worked the 12 steps on _my_ addiction to that fantasy, and gave it up for a healthier life, the anger just vanished. For me, the anger was just a symptom of my underlying addiction.

When I first got into recovery I would get angry just like everybody else here has mentioned.

With some time, a good sponsor, a couple runs thru all 12 steps, a good therapist, I was able to "detach". And by detaching I mean I didn't get angry right away. I would go beat up a pillow, go yell in the shower, call my sponsor.

Some years later and the anger had become just irritation.

And then I had that epiphany.... which was actually a very good sponsor hearing my fifth step, when I realized that anger is a _secondary_ emotion. It only exists as a response to something else. In my case, it was my addiction to fantasies that caused my anger.

no worries, I am honored to be able to share my experience here.

Anger is a feeling. Feelings are neither conscious nor controllable. All we can do is either respond to them in a healthy way or dig out the reason they happen in the first place. That's what therapy, recovery, 12 steps, and all that "stuff" is supposed to help us accomplish.

What helped me the most when I used to feel that overwhelming anger was to say the ACoA version of the serenity prayer over and over and over....

God, grant me the serenity
To accept the past I cannot change
The courage to change the future I can
And the wisdom to start today.

Mike

dollydo

I know that my parents did not do the best they could, because, I was never their priority, alcohol was.

With that said, I forgave them. Not for them, for me. It took years, but the anamosity I was feeling for them was eating me up from the inside out. I was only hurting me, for their part, they could have cared less.

I can be happy whether I interchange with them or not. My well being is not hinged on what they think of me, they were/are terrible parents, I will do what I want to do for them and nothing more. That is my choice and I am comfortable with my decisions.

wolf99

I think this is mostly true...they are just so screwed up in the head and selfish and also of course drunk that they are completely blind to how they are affecting you. I think my parents have such low self-esteem that they don't even think that they have any impact on anything. I used to look at them with anger...but now I just mostly feel sorry for them. They havn't and never will be okay with themselves. It is such a waste

kudzujean

I especially like this from your post:

"I have forgiven my parents for what they did, the same way a bank forgive a bad loan cuz it's just too much trouble to chase it down."

That's a good way of looking at it.

And I can see that analogy about the bank loan and forgiveness. Also, as I read somewhere "forgiveness isn't forgetting, it's letting go of the hurt."

Let me add--I'm adding this for me--Forgiveness doesn't mean we have to love that person now that we've forgiven them. No matter if they are our parent or other blood relative. To me that would make as much sense as loving someone who murdered somebody close to us. To forgive the murderer would relieve us of the burden of resentment. But we don't have to love them.

I guess I am belaboring the point, but it's important to me, because IME most of time when people talk about forgiving our parents, it seems to be implied that we also must love them.

Wascally Wabbit

I really appreciate some of these answers. It just shows how people long into recovery have wisdom.

Me, I feel like it's a ridiculous cliche' that someone came up with to "excuse" the A.
It's like the Sam Walton cliche that "The customer's always right". It's a cliche that is not accurate.


They did not do the best they could.

But, there's nothing I can do about that now. I have to keep trying to live in the now. I have to do the best I can for the betterment of myself and family, and mean it.

So, today I forgive her. Tomorrow I forgive her...

DesertEyes

I _totally_ agree. Love is _earned_, and it's built with trust. I forgave my parents, but I never trusted them with my children. In fact, one of the boundaries was that if they ever set foot in the same state as my kids I'd call the probation officer on them _immediately_.

The reason I went to all the trouble of therapy and recovery and forgiveness was out of love for _me_ and my kids. I wanted my kids to have a healthy, positive parent, and I could not be that while I was consumed with anger.

Mike

cymbal

I am guilty of saying this very thing about my parents. I didn't realize it could be offensive. I think for me I said it because I cannot change my parents or the past. I did change my perception and perspective through my own recovery. Now as an adult I can look back, and try not to repeat the same mistakes.
Recovery tells me that when I know better then I do better. My parents made many of the same mistakes as their own parents without taking time to consider a different way. I'm thankful that as a child I realized that I didn't have to be like my parents, and I could maybe do better.

I really enjoyed reading all the responses! Good question! Maybe I will stop using that expression altogether now. Oh, I have forgiven my parents. I don't need to ever allow them to hurt me or my children in the now. I have choices.

MsPINKAcres

this is an awesome thread -

I have to say that I have always heard the phrase "they were doing the best they could, with what they had."

I am one of the blessed and fortunate ones that have been able to discuss some of the childhood issues with my parents ~ not all of those issues because "except when to do so would injure them or others" applied.

My parents truly did not know that help was available ~ Just like the first 10 horrible years of my marriage to an active alcoholic/drug addict - I didn't know AL-Anon was available to me.

It doesn't excuse the behaviors - but I can relate to why things weren't different than they were.

My parents still do things that hurt me, because they are not in recovery - but I am in recovery.

Today, I can choose to live a healthy program and show them a different way. They see it, they notice it, they respond to it. Will it change their world - probably not as much as it changed mine - but it may do a little to help them and that in turn helps the entire family.

It's a personal journey for each of us - we are on the same road, just at different places-today I am in a decent relationship with my parents - tomorrow I may need each of you to help me even be in a room with them ~

I think recovery gives us the tools to process how we were affected, heal and the courage, strength and wisdom to try a different way with our children and grandchildren. Will we do it perfect? NO. but prayerfully we will do it better and then our children will do it better and our grandchildren even better than our kids - and so the cycle will continue . . .

At least that can be our Hope, Prayer and Goal!

HUGS,
Rita

Hope44

Sounds to me like two different things are being discussed here - what a parent could have done, and what a parent should have done. As it was mentioned, “could” seems like it has more to do with our parents' abilities (doing the best they could with what they had), based greatly on how they, themselves, were brought up, along with with the choices they have made which, in turn, have made them into who they are or what they've become.

On the other hand, I think “should” has more to do with a predetermined moral framework of what we believe qualifies as a good parent (loving, nurturing, attentive, supportive, and so on).

We each move into parenthood with a unique and varying degree of potential and skills. When I consider my alcoholic father, he was far from who he should have been. But could he have done better? Perhaps not. In my way of thinking, this does not let him off the hook. He will still need to answer before God as to how he lived his life, as will his parents, and their parents, and so on down the line. Addiction should never be an excuse for a lack of good parenting, BUT – it is a reason for it.

In my own life, I have chosen to walk a much different path than my father did – it is a path of light, of peace, and of love towards others. But – I know that I am only one slippery step away from falling myself, in some way, as we all are. I think humility plays a big part in allowing us to heal from the hurts that have been done to us.

EveningRose

Interestingly, I think my parents always implied to me that when I became a parent myself, THEN I would see just how tough kids are. But the fact is, when my children were young, I was better able to take the view that my parents did the best they could. I knew my dad had a lousy childhood. I knew he and his family put my mother under a great deal of stress.

But, as the years have gone by, I've discovered I married someone who has put me under the same kinds of stress my dad put on my mom, and much more. I also did not have an ideal childhood. I've got more than twice as many kids as my parents, less money, and I work part time. And I still do not grouse and yell at my kids the way my mother did. I have struggled hugely with depression, but have made it a point not to treat my children the way she treated us, or say the things to them my dad said to us. They are now nearly 70 and still doing the same things.

For what it's worth, whatever it says about me, I have less compassion and understanding now for them than I did then. I have come to feel that if I can deal with all this and still look at my children and feel I'm blessed and kiss and hug them in the morning and be pleasant for the sake of those around me...she, they, could have done better, too.

I don't necessarily think that losing my compassion and understanding is a good thing. And I think I would feel different if they had ever learned, and changed and left these behaviors in the past, but the criticalness, judgmentalism, scapegoating, and smearing my name to people who don't even know me are STILL going on. Maybe some day I will find or know what the right balance is.

I really appreciate this site in learning from others' experiences.

chicory

This is a fascinating subject- albeit a tad painful.
My mother- was the last child of 7 sibs, born during depression times. Her sibs were mostly gone out of the home, in the service, or married. Her dad , who I hear adored his last little girl, died when she was 7. Must have been very sad for her. Her mom, tired from surviving with 7 children, and a husband who was not around most of the time, worked while my mom was a latch key kid. She tells me how they did not have the money for a comb for her to take to school. They lost every thing in the ohio flood, in the 30's. My mom was always criticized by her older sibs, as not quite right. that she did not take good personal care of her self, etc. When my grandmother re-married , my mom , at 15, went to live with a sister, rather than go with her mom. I wonder if she was really wanted there. she met my dad, at 17, and married, and I came along shortly.

my dad, was an alcoholic when he met her. he had been married twice, and had three children from both marriages. i figure my mom wanted her own life, love and home. boy, she got none of the security she hoped for. dad was a veteran, 14 years older than she. he went to work, came home, went to the bar, came home drunk. nearly all the time. sometimes, he disappeared for a while, and came home, swearing off booze. not sure how long that lasted- It may not have been long at all.
he would lose a job, we would move in with my grandma, and dad would usually take off for a while again. my mom was constantly depressed. she read books, westerns, probably wishing for another reality for herself. She loved us, but did not understand the needs of children, i dont think. i think she was in such pain her self, that she could only focus on that. she had nothing to give. i dont understand it, but i feel it. she could not make her self , except on rare occasions, go to school events with us. she yelled a lot, but not nearly like she did after she divorced my dad.
dad was a person who had been doted on by his mom. he had an education, was charming to a lot of folks, while drunk. but was hopelessly addicted. he moved away when they divorced, and i never saw him again, tho he would call and cry so much , he could not speak. he had quit drinking, and became a volunteer fireman. he died of a heart attack, at a young 52 . he had worn out his body. i wish i had been able to know the sober man. i was 12 when they divorced. the last years were so traumatic, it was a relief when he left. i loved him, but the fights, and horrors of drunken acts were too much to live with.
after the divorce, my mom began her alcoholic career. why? dont know. it was like she could escape life, and it snared her, and she lost a kidney before she was forced to quit or die. she was a horrid drunk- mean and abusive.
my mom could be fun, but when we lived with her, she was mean and verbally abusive. even when not drinking. after i was married and gone, she would act like a good mom, and actually helped me many times. but i remembered always , being called sh--a--, more times than you can imagine.
my kids ask me how i got to be so loving and such a good mom, with such a crappy childhood, and I am just thankful that they feel that way. I did not always do the best I could, i know that. so i dont think my parents did either. i have made some selfish choices, and I could say it is because of great loss, and doing without, but i feel it is because i was exposed to selfish behaviors , lots of it. and I have those tendencies. but for some reason, i have a natural love of my children, and i always loved them more than anything. I could not stand for them to be unhappy. not that it has been without its problems, for changing destructive behaviours takes awareness. I am thankful that i never chose drink as a survival tool.