In my last blog, I mentioned that childhood trauma did not have to be dramatic or obvious or severe to cause some degree of one or more of these dysfunctional feelings or behaviors.  Family counselor, author and theologian John Bradshaw estimates that 96% of all people have been raised in dysfunctional families.  Much of the trauma we experience is not dramatically obvious but rather a subtle drip, drip, drip of small and seemingly insignificant (and often unintentional) parenting events: disapproving looks, broken promises, subtle criticism and lack of acknowledgment, just to name a few.”

Let’s look at how this could happen.  Even if we had the most perfect parents in the whole world, because they loved us, they would want us to be happy.  But that means that they would want us to be happy THEIR way (because what other way would they know?)  Unfortunately, we are not them.  We can only be happy OUR way!

So we were automatically set up for failure.  We were judged, based on our performance and perfection, according to our parent’s model of what they thought we should be – not what we thought or wanted to be.

For example: how many people went into careers their parents thought they should take?  How many are still in them?  Or how many of us married the person our parents wanted us to marry?  Are we still with them?  Are we happy?

In the next blog, I will demonstrate how our parent’s expectations can lead to future problems in our lives.