do you like your parents?

Personally, I do not like my parents (plural).

I like one parent, my mother, but HATE my father.

We don't get to choose our parents, and when we look at some of the horror stories in the papers, we might see that we didn't have it as bad as others.

On the other hand, we might wish we had different parents based on our friends parents, or even characters on TV.

Often people will say that their parents did 'the best they could'. Well, that might be true and it might be false, depending on the situation.

What's important is that we learn from our experiences.

Try and remember the good times, the happy moments, and not to allow the past to appear as one black, dark cloud.

And I guess its important to pray for our parents too, and to forgive.

The praying is easier than the forgiving part---and how does one forgive if someone never says they're sorry?

Well, maybe not forgiveness, but a prayer that healing and reconcilliation all round will occur.

What I've realized, about my relationship with my father, is that it wasn't me.

It WAS him.

And I think this is important at times in our lives to take note of.

We didn't bear the brunt of someone's dysfunctional personality because we provoked it, but merely because we were in the way. We were in its path.

And if it weren't us, it would have been some other unfortunate soul.

For me, this realization came when I visited my grandmother's home in Ireland and met my father's brother, who told me that he had been an absolute prick to him growing up.

And then it clicked: this is a pattern. He's always been this way. Sucking up to the woman in the household (then his mother, now his wife) and taking out his toxic personality on another (in that case his brother, in this case, me).

So it was never me!

This helps in some ways, but it still doesn't fix an unfixable relationship.

We each have our own paths to walk on this earth.

And sometimes its best if we walk them apart.

[deleted]

Yes I like both of them as people. I talk on the phone with my Mom and Dad at least once a week and we always have plenty to talk about. As parents, they have my undying loyalty. They brought me into the world and they sustained me until I was an adult. The least I can do for them is be a loyal son - which is exactly what I am.