Parenting from what you remember

So today I think I hit on an important thought. I have come to think that my parents thought of being parents as constantly being asked to say they were sorry and that everything they did was wrong.

As children my siblings and I felt very accommodated. I know I never learned to cope with feeling unhappy, or displeased. I wonder though why my mom and dad didn't try to help with closing the circle, with showing the right way to process negative emotion? I don't really remember getting the sense that a dramatic event was a bump in the road and not a ditch to get stuck in.

I have a very hard time recollecting the kind of person my father was; I think (sadly) I learned to see him through a lens my mother created. I was always exasperated with my father, he could never do anything right and I remember thinking from an early age that if he could not be counted on to do something on a consistent basis; thinks like rake leaves, clean up the yard, check the outside of the house for problems, etc. Now, he may well have done these things; what I don't remember is being taught that these were things that responsible people do and are done for their own sake.

One thing in particular I recall was an electrical outlet in our living room. At some point the outlet became unusable. Somehow the outlet was replaced and actually did work properly. The issue was that there was now face plate on the outlet. I don't know why this was; the original no longer fit, whatever. I can tell you that over 10 years later the outlet still had no cover. Now, one day my father and were arguing and I brought up the offending outlet and he shot back "well, why didn't you fix it?" At the time of this fight I was 19 and did he really think that I was capable, even at that age (how many teens do you know that should be making household repairs?) of doing this task and furthermore, no, it wasn't my job.

I know that to this day I can't recall the outcome of that argument, we accomplished nothing by it.

What a terrible, awful way to go through life, to think that no decision you make is worthwhile and will always be called into question, ridiculed, or dismissed. I am not sure how one over comes those who treat you that way; my dad never was able to.