Families!!!

Parents are our first role models. How they treat us (particularly in the first five years) determines to a large extent how we treat others. If we are brought up well, then we can develop to become law-abiding, contributing, well-balanced, happy, healthy adult members of society. We will also learn that ‘love’ is reciprocal and unconditional. We don’t need to ‘earn’ our parents love. They don’t need to ‘earn’ our love. It is the default presumption and the basis for judging other people’s relationships in the future. Parent-child relationships determine our future relationships with others as adults, in particular, when forming our own boy-friend-girl-friend pairings. Of course, if the parents abuse the position of trust over us, or if they neglect us through divorce, separation or abandonment, the damage is extreme.

As we get older, we can ‘choose’ whether to continue the relationship with our parents. If they abused/neglected or abandoned us as children, then we can choose to do the same to them as adults. Adult relationships are a choice. Parent-children relationships are not a choice. Children start as totally dependent on their parents. Good parents encourage their children to gradually become more and more independent as they develop and mature. The best outcome is that the children become adults who are independent and so no longer ‘need’ their parents, but choose to maintain a relationship with them.

Siblings, grandparents and the wider family are less important relationships. Here, there is less ‘need’ and less ‘dependency’ or bonding, particularly if the age difference and/or geographic separation is great and then it is definitely a ‘choice’ whether to maintain these relationships.

Similarly, it is a ‘choice’ to ‘love’ step-parents/children. These people have to really work hard to become part of their reconstituted family. I wish them all good luck!