HOW TO BE
A PARENT...
GETTY IMAGES/JOHNER RF
ing physically abusive, and out to
steal the family’s money.
Eight years ago, Mike cut all
ties with his mother, and he and
his wife moved to another state.
As they thought about becoming
parents, he worried about his own
parents’ legacy. He fretted that he
might somehow pass along a “crazy gene,”) as well as how his relationship with his parents might
sculpt his own parenting.
When he and his wife attended
a childbirth education class and
were asked to share their fears,
other attendees talked about no
longer being able to hang out with
friends, or sleep deprivation. “My
concerns were like, ‘Am I going to
be a good parent?’”
“I did have a lot of fear,” Mike
added. “It took a lot of [my wife]
saying, ‘Look. You are not them.
You are you. You are a good person.”
A MORE THOUGHTFUL PARENT
Unsurprisingly, experts say that
many men and women with extremely troubled parental relationships often are particularly
mindful of how they want to act
as parents themselves, as well as
the behaviors they hope to avoid.
Psychologists use the term “posttraumatic growth” to describe
HUFFINGTON
01.19.14
people who are changed for the
better by a traumatic event, and it
is both an outcome and a process,
explained Richard Tedeschi, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
In Tedeschi’s estimation, half
to two-thirds of people who survive a trauma — whether it’s a
particular event, an illness, a
troubled relationship or any experience in which their “philosophy
of living” comes into question —
later undergo changes that they
value and maintain.
“People go through a process of rethinking what they believe about themselves and their
world,” Tedeschi said. “They come
to new conclusions about themselves and their future.”