Whether you are a parent or not, we have all been raised by parents. They have done their best to raise us to be productive citizens in our society. They have either educated us based on what was passed on to them or through their own personal experiences.
No one is perfect. My objective here is to help those who can recognize the "errors" in their upbringing to figure out what can be done now.
Whenever we identify a problem we automatically go into "process improvement" mode. It makes sense! We don't want that problem to arise again. However, very few of us, when we recognize there was a problem in our upbringing, ever want to correct that mistake. We rather use the mistake as an excuse for not behaving the way we should. For example - an adult man recognizes that he hits women because that is all he saw growing up as a child. Rather than acknowledging that his action may not be correct, he uses his "upbringing" as an excuse for the action. Similarly, the rape victim who becomes somewhat of a recluse will say that he/she does not interact with the opposite sex because they were raped. Although psychologically speaking these are normal reactions to childhood traumas that often take time to get over, they should not be mistaken for excuses. There comes a point in everyone's life when they realize that there was something from their childhood that is the "reason" for why they do things the way they do things now.
For example - you realize you are a selfish person who doesn't care about anything but your own agenda. One day in your adult life you are sitting with your parents and they are exhibiting the same behavior. You start to think back and reminisce on every experience you had. You begin to pick apart your parents’ actions. You begin to realize that before you were seven years old you were already well "trained" in the art of selfishness!!!
Oh dear!!!! What do you do now?!?!??!
Recognizing the flaw is the first step. The second is NOT to blame your parents. They didn't know any better, they honestly thought they were teaching you proper values. The third thing is to start the process of corrective behavior. It makes no sense acknowledging the "bad" behavior or habit, identifying the source of the problem and then doing nothing about it. After all we're here to learn, develop and most importantly GROW, or as scientist like to call it - EVOLVE.
I can tell you I don't have all the answers but I know that blaming your parents for who you are today is pointless.
You now have to take control and change those habits and behavior. Yes, it will be very difficult if you realize that you've been this way since you were SEVEN. However, I believe that if you start to change NOW, no matter how far you get it, will be better than where you started.
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