In recent years, I have become increasingly aware of what appears to be a growing trend: adult children distancing themselves from, and in some cases completely disowning, their parents because of painful experiences from childhood. It raises an important question. Is this truly a modern trend, or are we simply more willing than previous generations to openly discuss family wounds that once remained hidden behind closed doors?

I suspect the answer is complicated.

Through conversations with siblings, friends, and people from many different walks of life, I have discovered something remarkably common. Most of us believe, in one way or another, that we could have been raised better. Some carry disappointments. Others carry emotional scars that never fully healed. And some, like me, carry memories that shaped the entire course of their lives.

I can only speak honestly from my own experience and leave others to tell their stories in their own way.

My childhood could only be described as horrific. The details themselves are not important for this article, nor is recounting them my purpose here. What matters is understanding the emotional reality of living through them.

That statement is difficult to write because it would be easy for someone reading it to assume my parents were cruel people. They were not. They were products of the era in which they lived, just as I was shaped by the era in which I grew up.

Parents of that generation were taught to trust experts, institutions, educators, religious leaders, and the prevailing social expectations of the time. My parents did exactly what many loving parents believed they were supposed to do. They trusted the advice they were given because they sincerely believed they were helping me. They believed they were protecting my future.

Unfortunately, good intentions do not always produce healthy outcomes.

When I became a young adult, there was a significant incident between my parents and me, one that forced me to reevaluate both our relationship and my own emotional well-being. The specifics no longer matter. What mattered was the realization that I needed distance in order to think clearly and determine whether maintaining the relationship was emotionally sustainable for me.

So I stepped away.

For approximately eighteen months, there was no contact between us. Time, however, has a remarkable ability to provide perspective when emotions are allowed to settle. Eventually, my parents reached out in hopes of reconciling and finding common ground. I was willing, even eager, to try.

During that time apart, I had begun reevaluating our relationship through a different lens. I was beginning to understand that while my childhood had deeply affected me, my parents themselves were not one-dimensional villains in the story of my life. They were flawed human beings navigating a world with limited understanding, limited emotional tools, and often overwhelming societal pressure.

At first, I struggled to explain this shift in my thinking. In truth, it took years before I could fully articulate it, and ultimately, it was writing that brought me clarity. I wrote a book about my parents’ lives, attempting as much as possible to understand their experiences from their point of view rather than solely through the lens of my own pain. That process changed me. It allowed me to see them not only as parents, but as people.

From that point forward, our relationship became different.

As an adult, I eventually spoke honestly with my parents about my childhood. I told them something I believed then and still believe today: parents are responsible for a child’s upbringing, whether that experience is good, bad, or somewhere in between. I told them my truth plainly and without embellishment.

For me, childhood was lived in fear.

Every single day.

I woke each morning terrified that before the day ended, someone would expose me in the cruelest possible way and that my life, as I understood it at the time, would effectively end in that moment. That fear was not occasional. It was constant. It shaped how I moved through the world, how I viewed myself, and how I believed others viewed me.

That was my reality as a child.

But I also told my parents something equally important.

While they were responsible for my childhood, I became responsible for my life once I reached adulthood. My healing became my responsibility. My happiness became my responsibility. My peace, my future, and the person I ultimately became could no longer rest solely in the hands of the people who raised me.

That realization changed everything.

As painful as my childhood was, it also forged strengths within me that I likely would not otherwise possess. Even though I did not choose or want the path my parents were attempting to create for me, I was still given certain tools that eventually allowed me to forge a completely different life. When I left home, there was no clear direction ahead of me and, honestly, not even the belief that a meaningful future was possible. Yet somehow, step by step, I built one anyway.

Eventually, I came to forgive my parents.

Not because my childhood was acceptable.

Not because the pain disappeared.

Not because the damage was imaginary.

I forgave them because I finally understood that they were acting out of the beliefs, fears, limitations, and cultural expectations of their time. They were not trying to destroy me. They were trying, however imperfectly, to prepare me for a world they themselves barely understood.

Two sayings have remained with me throughout much of my life.

The first came from my grandfather. He once told me this is what he wanted written on his headstone:

“I was once as you are now. I am now what you will be. Pray for both of us.”

Within that simple statement was profound wisdom. He was reminding me that age brings perspective impossible to fully understand when we are young. He was saying, in essence, “I once stood where you stand today, and one day you will stand where I stand now.” I have carried that lesson with me whenever interacting with older generations. Time and experience reshape how we see the world, often in ways youth cannot yet comprehend.

The second saying has stayed with me just as powerfully:

“There was a day when your parents picked you up for the last time.”

Most of us never realize when that day occurs. There is no announcement, no ceremony, no recognition that an entire chapter of life has quietly ended forever. Yet I can assure you, most parents remember it. They remember the child you once were. They remember the sound of your laughter, the weight of you in their arms, and the heartbreaking realization that time moved forward without asking permission.

Even without children of my own, I have felt the emotional truth of that idea deeply.

My relationship with my father was complicated. We were never especially close, and there were wounds between us that never fully disappeared. Yet despite those wounds, I could never completely turn my back on him. My mother and I, on the other hand, shared a very close bond, and I treasure every memory we created together.

None of this is meant to suggest that every parent deserves forgiveness or reconciliation. Some wounds are unimaginably deep, and some people endured abuse no child should ever experience. Every family story is different, and every individual must decide for themselves what boundaries are necessary for their own emotional survival and well-being.

But I do believe we live in a time when compassion is too often being replaced with judgment, and understanding is frequently abandoned in favor of division. Perhaps before completely severing ties, more of us should ask not only what happened to us, but also what happened to the people who raised us.

What fears shaped them?

What pressures defined them?

What pain did they inherit from generations before them?

Understanding does not erase accountability.

But sometimes, understanding makes forgiveness possible.