Forgiving one's parents

 I am 75 years old and still trying to forgive my parents for what happened to me growing up.

As I have matured I realized often that it's true they did the best they could do raising me. I looked around me growing up and most people's parents I knew were sort of horror story parents especially after the Great Depression and World War II harming and killing so many of them in various ways and traumatizing all the rest to where believing what was next was Nuclear Annihilation of all peoples on earth made sense to them.

The level of paranoia in the 1950s after World WAr II cannot be underestimated. So, as a child to even physically survive people's basic paranoia's in some ways I see as a miracle that I or anyone survived all this.

But, as good of parents (for the 1950s) that may parents were (relatively speaking) I still have to forgive them for putting me in positions where (there was no way to succeed or to please them). So, this is what I need for forgive my parents for, for putting me in a no win sort of Suicidal position in my life.

Not having studied psychology in College like I did they had no idea what they were doing to me (their beloved Son) and I barely survived my 20s because of this.

But, like I said to me the miracle of the children of the 1950s to me really is that ANY of us survived at all.

So, I forgive my parents for asking impossible things of me because they didn't know any better. At least they were as kind and as helpful to me as possible.

But, in the end they also helped me survive the mess they put me in by not understanding basic psychology.

But, I survived anyway and compensated and was more there for my children than my parents were for me.

Becoming a parent was one of the main things I wanted to be to correct the wrongs of how I and most children in the 1950s were treated anyway.

So, I forgive my parents for not knowing any better than they did.