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Is it proper to blame your parents for your problems in life and are you allowed to have taainas on their upbringing of you? (This question is excluding/not referring to extreme cases.)
Most parents try their best even if the child doesn’t realize it.
Blaming and having taanis to parents doesn’t help the situation, but recognizing and healing trauma with a therapist can help.If they think they could have done better when they became parents, walk in their shoes and recognize one’s parents backgrounds, אל תדין את חבירך עד שתגיע במקומו don’t judge your friend until you have expirenced his experiences, which applies also to parents.
It’s two questions:
1. It’s improper to blame your problems on your parents. It is also wrong for your parents to blame their problems on you. It is quite oftenly very difficult to figure out whose problems belong to whom.
2. You are “allowed” to “have taainas” on your upbringing. This doesn’t mean the taainas have merit. Moreover, “having taainas” is merely an emotional state of feeling hurt. Finally, as with the rest of life and perhaps moreso, just because one may have taainas, that doesn’t mean that it is prudent or productive to focus on them or to communicate them.
If you focus on them, it should not be bottled up but comunicated to someone you trust, otherwise it will make you miserable. My father lost a wife and two children in Aushwitz which reflected my upbringing by losing his temper very easily. My mother, who was in Aushwitz doing hard labor, had a problem showing physical love to me even though she loved me very much.
Definitely. Everything is their fault. It not only removes any responsibility on your part for growth and challenges but it also frees you from feeling like a victim of your own doing
Reb Eliezer,
While what you experience seems to be unfortunate, having the awareness as to the reasons why you were exposed to these behaviors seems like a healthy approach.
If someone gives you a small vanilla cake, while you would love a big strawberry one – do you thank them or blame them?
you are definitely allowed to learn lessons from your upbringing and fix what you need to fix. Of course, after careful study and making sure what you think are errors are actual errors.
And be careful not to repeat the same things in your family. This often happens…
R Pliskin brings a question from someone – how can I NOT repeat same patterns as I was exposed to them every day.
Question back – did you ever witness proper behavior?
Yes, when I visited my friends’ families, but this would be once a month, while the rest of the time I was exposed to incorrect behavior
Answer: Play good behavior that you saw in your mind multiple times, and then majority of your experience will be good behavior.Do you know that abusive parents have abusive children? The Rav Abarbanel on kibud Av says that the children will be respected as parents as they respected their parents. Your children see how you respect your parents and that will be how they respect you. I heard from my father a mashel.
There was a grandfather, father and son. The father fed the grandfather in a wooden plate. thinking that because of his feebless he will break regular china. When the grandfather passed on, the father wanted to get rid of it. The son said to the father, don’t throw it out father because we needed it for you.Should be above feebleness
I absolutely abhor when people claim that children who were abused are abusive parents themselves. That is absolutely a false assertion. First of all, according to the Torah we all have bechira, no one is a carbon copy of their parents to the extent that they repeat that behavior. It is a goyishe concept that we have no independent control over our instinctive actions.
I know many wonderful people who are excellent parents even though they had abusive parents themselves. I know selfish parents and spouses who had wonderful parents themselves.
> when people claim that children who were abused are abusive parents themselves
It appears to be true statistically, and also mentioned by the Rabbis who write about these issues.
You are right that these people have an opportunity, and a mitzvah, to turn this around, but it is a challenge that they need to realize and approach accordingly. This is discussed in halakha when discussing children punished for the sins of parents – presuming they continue the sins.
UJM – it is possible to have hakaras hatov and also “have taainas.”. There are a number of comments here that attempt to oversimplify complex issues.
Having an ongoing meaningful relationship with anyone requires a level of accountability. The idea that because parents start off so far “up” in terms of giving to the relationship that they have nearly unlimited “get out of jail free” cards seems (to me) to be wrong, and a terrible way to view relationships.Any relationship one has with an omnipotent perfect entity has its own rulebook, obviously. Hashem never said “no taainas,” regarding parent child relationships. Ever.
Why blame parents when there are so many libs who deserve blame?
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