There’s more. Just let us fail to deal with a personal issue or a family secret — like being beaten when we were a child or not telling anyone that Mommy or Daddy drinks — and we pass our unhealed issues on to our children so they have to deal with our unfinished business. A short story to illustrate: there was a woman who was afraid of men. She sought therapy, intent on making a thorough examination of her life. She included her family in her search to understand her fear. At last, she learned that as a child her mother had been sexually molested by a neighbor. Her mother had been very frightened and had not spoken of the incident since. But she acted out her feelings and treated men as scary and dangerous. So her daughter learned to imitate her mother’s response to men without ever experiencing any "abuse" herself. Her mother’s unhealed attitudes, posturing and behavior were passed unexamined directly to her daughter.

So, how do I become the best possible parent, a healthy model for the adults of tomorrow? There seems to me only one clear answer — I become the kind of adult I would like my children to become. I do my personal work. I examine my life, heal and make peace with the past, and strive to be someone I can be proud of. I find out who I am, what I believe, why I behave as I do, how I view people and how they view me. I do my work as if my life depends on it. If I have any hesitation about doing this for myself then I look into the faces of my children, for that matter into the face of any child, and I do my work for them. And always I remember that the children are watching me to see how to live the gift of life.

LifePartners