Thank You, Mom and Dad: Uniting Who I am and Where I Came From
Has anyone ever remarked that you have the same laugh as your mother, or that you think in a very similar way as your father? Whether we know it or not, a lot of who we are today is highly influenced by the way our parents do things. From the moment we are born, our parents love, teach and guide us as best they can. We often don’t become aware of the investment of a parent’s heart until we become parents ourselves! We have a lot to thank our parents for, but somewhere in the process of growing up, we may have had moments where we tried to shake off our parents’ love, perceiving it as control, dependence or overbearingness.
In the western world, the relationship people have with their parents can conflict with a heightened value of individuality. So often in society we hear the mantra of “I’m my own person,” and “be true to yourself.” Do you remember a time when you rebelled against your parents’ wishes, just to prove that you could make decisions for yourself? Developing an identity as an individual can make it difficult to find a bridge between that and our parents’ hopes for us. We often jump to the other extreme, only to realize later that we are grateful for our roots.
No matter what stage we are in with our parents or as parents ourselves, there are a few things we can keep in mind in order to understand the parent-child relationship for what it really is: a valuable, beautiful and unbreakable connection.
Scott Kroger
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I was born on the day the Rev. Moon came to America — unless it was referring to the lunar calendar — in which case, it’s slightly off.
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Scott Kroger
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My father was a great Lutheran reformer, but my mother is a Nazi. They did everything together.
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