On the topic of “blaming” parents
Symptoms, better known as “diagnoses” bring families into therapy. In the world of mental health, understanding symptoms or emotional presentations, requires the exploration of the emotional landscape, both of the ‘identified patient’ and the family system they belong to. because symptoms are developed in the context of the environment, not “simply for no reason , out of nothing”. I call myself a Family Therapist because a problem makes no sense to me without a context.
Very often , as I raise my foot to step into the larger context of the family system, I come across the concept of “blaming the parents”. As a parent myself, I can understand the deep confusion and distress that goes along with the effort to comprehend symptoms like depression, anxiety , addictions or eating disorders in the child that we have raised with great care. However, as we all know , parenting is a complicated business and the mechanics of emotions in a family system , even more so. And we can all benefit from some help.
Family therapy is not about asking the question “Whose fault is it?” or assigning blame. “Is it my fault?” would be the wrong place to start. As a therapist , I see young children brought in by their parents - small people full of shame and older confused adults who are all convinced that they are inherently flawed, that they must be particularly ‘screwed up’ because everybody else “is fine”. It is essential to help the individual lift the veil of personal shame and understand a symptom in a different way, to make progress.
Every child is a different creature requiring a different dance. Some children notice that we are not very nimble dancers and make it easy for us. We know these children - the ‘good’ children , the easy ones, the ones that make us look good. And then we have the child who struggles with the dance of life. They are not ‘bad’ children or ‘difficult’ children. These are the children who point out that we might not be the greatest of dancers. That maybe we do not know ALL the steps.
Parents are only ordinary human beings trying to accomplish the complicated task of raising a baby into a well-functioning adult without a manual, with all of our limitations. The simple fact is that everything we do has impact on our children. It would be ridiculous for any of us to assume that we have done a “perfect” job in raising our children. We have put in our BEST efforts with our BEST intentions, given the circumstances of our lives at the time. It would come as a surprise that sometimes our best efforts and intentions alone do not always add up to the best results. Guilt and shame (about our limitations or mistakes we think we have made) are common travelling partners in this parenting journey. It is helpful to not forget or overlook that children also struggle with guilt and shame for not living up to their parents’ perceived expectations. People who become parents also struggle with depression, anxiety , eating disorders, trauma and addictions. When we lean in to teach, to support, to help, to save our children, we lean in with our depression, with our anxiety, with our trauma or at the very least, with our fears. We lean in with the best intentions of our flawed , incomplete selves. Sometimes we do not realize that we are anxious beacuse we have not stopped long enough to notice. But our children feel it and absorb it. As we did with our parents.
So it is helpful to our children that we arrive with genuine curiosity, which takes us out of the realm of judgment altogether. To not come with defensive assertions that we have done our best and therefore it must be good enough. A curious , open stance is like a bright room with open windows and fresh air. This is a complicated dance and you have done your best. And there is an opportunity to learn new steps through a collaborative process. We are all on the same side.
