The Rules of Love, 3rd Edition

RULE 73

Don’t blame your parents

When we’re little, most of us assume our parents are good at the job. Unless they’re really dreadful, it doesn’t occur to us that they don’t always know what they’re doing. As we get older, we notice that our friends’ parents do things a bit differently. Maybe we’re envious – maybe we think we’re the lucky ones. Probably a bit of both. As we get older still, it may start to dawn on us that our parents are getting some bits really wrong.

That’s what happened to me. Quite early on I realized that my father was seriously bucking the trend by not actually being there at all. Before long I realized that my mother was in very different ways similarly hopeless, and she struggled to cope or to show any affection to us. ...