Parents We Wish We Had (and Didn’t Have)

The parents that we wish we had and did not have often form a brand that stings and that accompanies us for life. It is a void that is accompanied by the almost persistent feeling that we have been missing something in our existence. However, despite this, many continue to maintain contact with these parents who, after all, remain part of themselves.

There are endless ways to be a good mother and father. What is striking is that there are also multiple forms of the opposite. However, despite this, the cultural myth persists that fatherhood or motherhood almost automatically endows a person with good parenting skills. It is assumed, among other things, that all children are loved and their well-being is always a priority.

Now, as we already know, this does not always happen. Somehow, we are almost forced to assume that sometimes the world is as unfair as it is strange. Also that there are bad fathers and little affectionate mothers, as there are also children who do not love their parents and who are violent towards the latter.

However … what can be done when there is that sadness inscribed within us because we have not had the parents we want?

Types of parents who do not love their children

There are some types of upbringing and education that are invisible to most. We are talking about those styles that, without physical abuse, show multiple deficiencies that go unnoticed in the eyes of others. These parenting and parenting styles have nothing to do with child neglect and are often even compatible with taking children to the park, the zoo, or the movies.

There are behaviors that are missing, that are absent and yet every child perceives them regardless of their age. Because every person who comes to this world does so needing love, security and that attachment that validates and enriches emotionally. When this does not exist or does not occur in an adequate way, any little one perceives it regardless of whether they are 3 or 12 years old.

Thus, the parents that we wish we had and did not have are characterized by a series of very specific traits and behaviors. They are profiles in which disapproval, empty gestures, emotional coldness or the most severe demands abound. We analyze these typologies below.

Parents who did not give us affection

Parents who do not love their children exist. As there are also those who still love their children infinitely, they love them badly. The reasons why this happens are multiple and it is not so easy to define them. Sometimes it may be that they didn’t really want that parenting and still took the plunge.

Other times, we may find ourselves with mental problems or simply having other interests in mind. Be that as it may, few things are so psychologically damaging. So much so, that studies such as the one carried out at Columbia University indicate that these types of experiences are experienced by the brain in the same way that it processes physical pain.

Narcissistic parents

The parents we wish we had had almost always profile figures capable of giving uncompromising love. Instead, what we could have had was narcissistic parents who only prioritized themselves.

In these situations, it never matters what a child wants or needs, their priorities are secondary. It matters only what the father or mother wants.

Controlling Mothers and Fathers

There are controlling families that do not allow themselves to be, nor grow, nor mature nor choose the course of their own life. Authoritarian and sanctioning parents leave deep marks because they clip wings and fill the mind with deep insecurities. This type of upbringing and education also leaves its deep mark on the development of the person.

The father and mother with preferential love

There are fathers and mothers who profess a preferential love for only one of their children. This selective love towards the golden son or daughter neglects the other or the others, leaving them in a disconcerting background.

Those dethroned children do not know what they have done wrong, they do not understand why the affection of parents sometimes does have conditions.

The Parents We Wish We Had: The Mark of Lack

Parents we wish we had and didn’t have leave a permanent wound. It is the mark of lack, of the feeling of not having had what we need in a moment. It is also the misunderstanding of why certain things happened the way they did. That disappointment that is threaded with sadness and sometimes, even with anger, accompanies us from the past to the present.

How can we deal with all those feelings?

Accept the imperfection of our parents

The first step to overcome that life injury that a bad relationship with our parents usually leaves is acceptance. It is necessary to assume everything that happened. It is also good to understand that our parents were not perfect, that they did not do things well and that nothing that has already happened can be changed. 

Accepting what has been lived is not giving in to it, it is validating each emotion felt, each disappointment and experience and then moving forward.

We were not to blame

There are many people who, even in adulthood, continue to assume that perhaps they did something wrong to avoid receiving parental affection.

No child or adult is guilty that one or both parents did not love them as they deserved. The responsibility is always the parents.

We are deserving love

It is true that the parents we wish we had had will never be as we expected, that second chances are rarely given and that the past is not easy to repair. However, there is one fact that we must be clear about. We are deserving of love and the affection that we do not receive from our parents can come to us from many other figures: friends, partner, siblings, uncles …

Love, wherever it comes from, always nurtures and enriches. The authentic affect of the present is the balm for any lack of yesterday.