As we’ve said before, each of us as parents have to try to give what we didn’t get as kids. The attention. The support. The understanding. Whatever it is, we have to try our best to be better for our kids.

That can be encouraging them to become who they are–even if you don’t agree or understand. Or making sure to give them space to fail, while showing them support and encouragement to try again. Or maybe it’s choosing to be an ancestor, not a ghost.

But the other side of this is harder. We also have to strive to forget what we did get–forget what hurt us, what we struggled with. The yelling. The lack of understanding. We can’t keep carrying the past around with us or it will make it impossible for us to give our children what they need here in the present.

A walking wound can’t be a good mother or father. A pile of resentments is not safe to have near children. We have to process, we have to work on ourselves, we have to be able to move on. That’s the only way we’re going to be able to give what we didn’t get.