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> All that said, now as a parent myself, I feel sorry for him.

Slowly but surely, everything I thought I knew about my parents has changed now that I am a parent. I used to harbor bitter resentments against my mother, and wanted her to know how she failed me… now I just see an old woman who gave what she could to her five children and is just as much a “beloved child of God” as each of them. I am also acutely aware that, as long as I’m not abusive, absent or wildly inconsistent, my behavior as a parent is probably more important as my child’s future model of parent behavior when it comes time to raise the next generation. I like to joke that I insist on my son giving his grandmother a hug each time he sees her as a favor to my wife: down payment on more grandchild hugs for her in the future.

My friend, I think you've got this humanity stuff figured out.

I wish I'd been so lucky. As I've grown as a parent, I've unconsciously put my mother under a microscope and keep discovering that, while she tried, she failed. We were once very close but as I've gotten older, I can compare and contrast her behavior with mine. We all suffered emotional abuses (and I've my sisters repeat the patterns, to varying degrees) but I also suffered physically, which is then took out on my younger siblings. And my mother was the good parent.

My father (a term I use only to describe lineage) was mean and heavy handed. Belts were common, switches less so but not out of the realm of possibility. He was violent with my mother, his next wife's, my oldest sister and me. Probably more but those are the ones I remember. To the world outside, he was a good person but to me, he's both my demon and my motivation to be good person, a good father and a good spouse.

Ask him and he'll tell you that things we witnessed never happened. The tray of brownies fell, he didn't throw it. That burn mark on the ceiling is just there; he threw the iron "in the general direction because if I'd wanted to hit her with it, I would have."

We've been estranged since I was in 17. We agreed to let him back in once. Lasted six months. Never again. He doesn't know where I live and unless my kid wants to meet him some day, he'll never be given the opportunity.

My mother and I finally fell out because of COVID. There were other things going on but COVID was the last one. I drew a line that said unless you get vaccinated, you can't come in my home. (She got every flu shot and vaccine, until this one.) She chose politics, I chose to protect my kid and wife. Since she won't be visiting ever again, we decided the easiest path was to just stop talking. If my kid wants to meet "mean nanna" some day, I'll arrange it but my wife and kid come first.

I live my mother. It's an unfortunate outcome. My father... I couldn't care less. He's been dead to me for years.

I guess that's what happens if you're a competent parent. I had the opposite experience, my failures as a parent have highlighted my own parents' failures that I had previously thought were normal.

I'm in a similar situation, but I'm don't sympathize.

I don't support the "doing their best" philosophy. Everybody does their best; at the very least, in the sense that actions are rationalized as the best in the moment.

The website deals with this theme at least twice. One point is [here](https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/dysfunction...), under "Disfunctional beliefs":

  - If I put up with a certain level of mistreatment from my own parents, then you should put up with the same level of mistreatment from me.

The real difference between parents is those who are willing to sacrifice themselves and change, and those who don't. Theraphy can help a lot, and I bet that all the abusive parents actively refuse it precisely because they don't want that change.

Therapy doesn't do anything for personality disorders. Therapy can't undo the childhood traumas that cause personality disorders. A personality disorder by definition is an inability to change that begins at childhood.

Therapy is not (necessarily) a solution to the given problem; it can help handle problems. In the specific case of estranged relatives, it can establish some level of communication, which can be a very significant step.

A step towards what? Even in the field of psychology* it's generally accepted that personality disorders don't resolve.

[*] Psychology as an analog to medical science is also a con job. Psychotherapies don't need to prove efficacy in clinical trials like drugs do. Whenever anybody does bother to do a study like that though (again -- purely voluntary) therapy never shows itself to be very effective at doing anything. But especially not for people with personality disorders.

Towards communicating between the two parties, which is significantly better than permanently truncating contact. But also prevent certain events/developments.

A minimum of progress could avoid, for example, the abusive parents calling the social services, and/or going to court, and/or receiving a restraining order.

There's lots of behavior that therapy can (potentially, of course) at least mitigate or teach to handle.

> every parent is just a human who is mostly winging it trying the best they can This is an eye opening statement. Often as a kid, parents tend to look like gods and superheros because they are doing things which are impossible for us. As we age we tend to notice the shortcomings both from the current situation as they are ageing and from our child hood which we have better understanding now. Again, second order thinking helps a lot here I guess.

Maybe it's just my outlook - I sit in meetings with adults and have to remind myself that we are all just children in overgrown bodies. Sure, some will have had experiences that have taught empathy, communication, etc, but most of us are still prone to the occasional temper tantrum or emotional outburst. And that's ok. Rather than seeing it in a derogatory way, I think it helps us all stay humble and open minded toward each other. With my kids - they are at an age where they are starting to realize that I'm human, with foibles. Better to admit that and build trust that they should heed my advice anyway, as a more experienced human, than have them distrust out of spite that I'm the parent and they are the teen.

"Daycare for adults" is how a coworker described a particularly dysfunctional government agency.

LOL! Isn't that every dysfunctional organisation ?

> my parent might not have known what to do

> every parent is just a human who is mostly winging it

Every parent is doing it for the first time, more-or-less; we're all beginners. Kids are designed to be parented by first-time parents. Thay're amazingly resilient in the face of not-very-good parents.

Of course, lots of kids have elder siblings; I don't mean literally "first-time". But few parents have more than three kids, so what I mean, I guess, is that for most parents, it's the first time they've raised one or more kids.

The way you were parented affects the way you do it yourself; it's the only model you have. Sometimes you will try to do it the opposite of the way your parents did it to you, but I think that is usually rather superficial - the attitudes trickle down the generations, however hard you try to break the chain.