Thread: "Our parents did the best they could."
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Old 10-08-2010, 08:46 PM
  # 34 (permalink)  
dothi
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This phrase hits me differently every time, depending on which parent I'm thinking about at the time... my alcoholic father or codependent mother. I have a lot more forgiveness for my mother when I hear that, but she is also the only parent who has ever tried to take ownership for her role in my less-than-perfect upbringing. She was very young and uneducated, 100% reliant on my dad for many years. It feels obvious to me that she really didn't know any better for a lot of the things that went wrong.

But that said, I can't stomach her company for very long.

To say my AF did the best he could? No, not really. He could have done better than choose alcohol addiction every time. He could have done better than be drunk at every xmas, birthday, and other special occasion, especially when it was clear that he could be sober when he wanted/needed to. He just choose not to.

Push come to shove, I like Ginger's statement:

My parents did the best they could with what they had - I did the rest.
Damn straight. My folks can get so busy fighting over who "owns" my brains or was the "most responsible" for how I turned out... they don't get that I succeed in spite of them.
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