We are our parents

One of the biggest lessons we learn growing up, and we realize the truth in usually after 25 years, is how naturally and without effort, we begin to become our parents.

It is something really hard for someone to control. It’s like a curse for some; or a happy gift for others.

Our most important years – and by that I mean the years we start to develop our personality– are spent, luckily –or not– with our parents. It’s them we have as an example, and at that age, we cannot easily judge what’s right and what’s not, but even if we do, the everyday contact creates such an attachment, deep down in our subconscious, that is impossible to avoid.

That’s why we catch ourselves doing things we hate –because our mom or our dad did the same and subconsciously we have adapted it. Except for the habits and some parts of our personality, there is something much more important than our parents give us, without even realizing it.

It’s the way they love each other. It has nothing to do with the love they offer us as children. Most of us seem to behave to our significant others in a similar fashion; which we have been taught by living close to our parents’ relationship.

What needs to be clear, our parents’ behavior in their relationship will certainly affect our personal life, too. But that doesn’t mean that we will be cursed, or even blessed for that matter, to have the exact same personal life or relationship as our parents. The way our parents treated one another will be the way we will treat others or let them treat us, though.

If a child grows up in a family where the two parents show their love to their partners, this child will give his/her love to their partner in the same way. If a kid grows up in a family where the parents are fighting all the time, or there is no respect for each other, the child will probably act this way or, even worse, the child as an adult, this might cause abusive, whether physical or verbal, behavior towards his/her partner.

The influence of our parents is something everybody will carry throughout this game called life, but everyone has the chance to keep only the positive feelings and throw away what they would not like to pass to the next generation.

It’s a hard procedure growing up and realizing you carry almost all your family in your habits, in your speech; in your everyday life. It is certainly not unpleasant all the time, but that is not the point.

We are born in order to walk our own path in life, to fulfill our own aspirations and our own mission, which will and have to be completely different than anybody else’s. So we can learn through our parents’ lives but in no way can we relive them -even if they do seem dreamy.

Our parents bring us into this world, raise us, love us, comfort us, they transcend themselves to create healthy and happy individuals. Believe me, the last thing they would ask for is to watch us make the same mistakes.