Sunday, June 19, 2022
Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:
If and when we do become fathers, we will realize that, despite doing the very best we can, we are passing both gifts and wounds onto our children — just as our parents passed gifts and wounds on to us. We may react with dismay when our offspring use a similar nasty tone of voice or develop some of the same negative habits we exhibited in the past. Becoming a father always sheds new light on the struggles our own father experienced.
Though we may be very different from our parents, the process of raising children is a common bond we have with all our ancestors. In our attempts to correct the mistakes our parents made, we may choose a completely different style of parenting from that of our father, but we still walk in his shoes some of the time. This opens the door for us to have compassion for the times he was not the father we wanted, hoped, and needed him to be.
Perhaps, for instance, when we were in the throes of our addictions, our father had to withdraw to protect himself, even though we longed for his support. We do not condone his most serious errors, but we hold them in a larger field of understanding. This new perspective can help put us on a path of healing our relationship with him.
Raising my own children offers new possibilities for healing with my father.
Hazelden Foundation
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