Your Inner Child

"When one has not had a good father, one must create one." Friedrich Nietzsche

Those with less than great childhoods enter adult life with some significant deficits. I know a woman now in her 70's who never became a mother. It was a conscious choice on her part. She had suffered terrible abuse as a child and feared she might do the same to one of her own. It does happen. Abuse can be a horrible family legacy.

But I have known many other folks who are childhood abuse survivors who became awesome parents themselves. If you emerge from the experience with your empathy intact, you know what it is to be hurt and you make sure that never happens to a child of your own. Sometimes it's as simple as doing the opposite of what was done to you. Your kids certainly benefit from your own painful experiences that way.

And it helps that hurt child living within you as well. There is great healing in becoming the parent you never had.

Susan