Video summary
Dr. Julie Smith addresses how to achieve peace with parents who may have made significant mistakes or caused harm, emphasizing that understanding their backgrounds is a crucial step in this process. She suggests that many adults carry complex childhoods filled with damage and generational cycles they were unable to break due to the lack of education on emotional dynamics during their upbringing. Consequently, parents often relied on coping strategies developed from their own trauma rather than acting out of malice. While acknowledging that understanding these origins does not excuse abusive behavior, it helps explain how harm can be inflicted without intention and why individuals often remain stuck in relational patterns established early in life. A central theme is the shift required to view parent-child dynamics as adult-to-adult relationships once adulthood is reached. Dr. Smith argues against placing all responsibility on parents for creating a good relationship or waiting indefinitely for apologies that may never come, noting that many parents lack the insight they possessed when their children were young. Instead of resting healing on external validation from parents who cannot change, individuals must develop a realistic understanding of what their parents are capable of giving and stop expecting more than is possible within those limitations. This perspective encourages breaking the cycle where one generation blames another without examining how grandparents or great-grandparents contributed to similar behaviors, challenging the notion that every family struggle is unique when historical patterns often repeat themselves across generations. The discussion highlights a generational shift in emotional awareness between Boomers and younger cohorts like Millennials and Gen Z, who have greater access to information regarding attachment styles and behavioral genetics. This knowledge creates an idealized view of what life could be, leading to frustration when comparing oneself against these standards while parents operate under the "physics" of their own era without such visceral understanding. Dr. Smith poses a critical question: is ignorance bliss, or does one prefer the pain of realizing that personal disposition and circumstances are partly within one's hands? She advocates for being educated on how biology and environment influence behavior so individuals can actively make improvements rather than remaining at the mercy of their genetic or environmental programming. To counter feelings of bitterness and resentment, Dr. Smith recommends nurturing gratitude by identifying positive aspects of a childhood that were overshadowed by negatives. For instance, while a father might have been emotionally absent due to long work hours—a common complaint from Millennials about Boomer parents—his presence at the workplace ensured food on the table for his family every night. This reframing helps shift focus from surviving despite one's parents to recognizing specific contributions that helped shape security and love. She introduces Thomas Sowell's quote, "There are no solutions, only tradeoffs," as a guiding principle for accepting that perfection is impossible; often, positive outcomes come with inherent negatives, such as waking up early at 3:30 or 4 AM improving mood but causing annoyance about the loss of sleep. Ultimately, Dr. Smith encourages listeners to accept that having difficult moments where they feel victimized by their circumstances is human and does not constitute failure. The key lies in maintaining awareness that one always has a choice to step back from negative reactions and reframe situations using clarity gained through experience or knowledge. By remembering quotes like Sowell's during dark moments, individuals can choose how to respond rather than reacting automatically out of misery. This process allows people to learn from their experiences, optimize what they control, and find balance between acknowledging shortcomings without descending into a surefire route of misery caused by railing against unchangeable realities.
Read the full video transcript
if our parents got it wrong and in the
ways that our parents got it wrong how
can we become more at peace with that I
think in some ways a part of that work
is is understanding where your parents
have come from and
that they more than likely had their own
complex childhoods in which they had
their own um you know damage that was
done and and cycles that they were stuck
in um and and probably you know they
were sort of growing up in an era where
there wasn't that education around this
kind of stuff and there that and so they
would have been living out their own uh
coping strategies with whatever they
were dealing with so I think that's part
of it is understanding that doesn't make
it okay if your parents were you know
horribly abusive but it's it's one way
of understanding these cycles that
people get stuck in and how um damage
can be caused often without
intention um but also there's a degree
of um you know in that parent child
relationship
often we carry the parent child
relationship into adulthood and and we
still behave like the child in that
relationship that's just what I was
about to say yeah in a sense that we we
give all the responsibility to our
parents for making a good relationship
and actually what you have now is an
adult to adult relationship in which you
get to decide you can't change your
parents and and actually often people
assume that if I could just convince my
parents that and and and help them to
see the damage that they did and get
that apology that everything would be
better and you know possibly but but a
lot of parents won't necessarily have
any more insight than they had when you
were a child and so I think we can't
sort of rest our idea of healing on that
on getting those apologies or getting
their
Insight um because often they don't have
it and and often it's about developing a
relationship with our parents that um
that they are capable of as well um so
that not expecting more of them than
they're actually able to give it's it's
interesting that we see the lineage
between our parents did this and
therefore I am like that how unfair how
could this be the case you just go just
go back one generation just move back by
25 years and you go well your
grandparents were like that which made
your parent how can you give yourself
this uh excuse or this reason and not
continue to R and then the
great-grandparents the grandpar you know
you all the way back yeah so yeah it's
um it is odd and I think that you're
right as well every generation thinks
that it's Unique and I get the sense
that emotionally maybe this has been the
biggest change across one generation
from sort of like Boomer period to
whatever ex- Millennial genz just that
the opportunity for people to ruminate
the challenges that people have from an
emotional stressor perspective uh the
information that you have to become
aware of how much better things could be
as well which creates an ideal and then
you sort of compare yourself to oh well
if only I could get rid of my anxious
attachment if only I could get rid of my
fear of the future if only I could get
rid of my overthinking on my whatever it
is um which is now opened everybody up
to think back more but our parents don't
necessarily have that they're just sort
of uh dealing with the physics of their
system the way that it was given to them
without necessarily realizing quite so
much or quite so viscerally that well
things could have been a different way
it's like well things just are the way
they are and you go okay so what do you
want do you want to be largely unaware
that things could have been different
and to understand the way that
attachment Styles and child rearing and
behavioral genetics and etc etc work to
influence the disposition you have as an
adult or do you want to have it this way
like is ignorance Bliss because for me
personally I would much sooner be able
to contribute a little bit to have the
pain of the realization that there's
something which is in my hands and that
there are ways that this can be changed
but be educated
on this and able to make some s of imp
as opposed to just being at the mercy of
it yeah absolutely and I think what we
have to be really careful of and you
kind of see a lot of online is is this
sort of resentment and bitterness this
sort of um
onesided this negative thing was done um
you know parents are the bad guys I'm
the victim of the bad guys and and now
it's awful and you know to a degree you
know in in the most severe scenarios
where things are just awful um you know
that's almost separate from from what
we're talking about here where you know
you can have a a fairly sort of normal
childhood um and there were things that
negatively affected you but there would
also have been a lot that positively
affected you and and so I think one way
of sort of creating a sort of antidote
to just feeling bitterness and
resentment towards your parents
is
to sort of nurture some gratitude around
okay these were the things about your
childhood that weren't
ideal what what would be the things that
you would repeat you know when you
become a parent yourself what were the
things that you value about your
childhood that you think helped you
become the person that you are or that
helped you you know feel secure or you
know so your your parents might have
been um emotionally neglectful and not
sort of spent lots of time with you but
actually maybe uh they held down a
really difficult job and endured that so
that you could have food on the table
every night and maybe you know maybe
your mom was at home every day when you
got home from school with a warm dinner
and you know had that kind of beautiful
sense of love loving you and uh so so
there will be new ways of sort of
turning something and looking at it in a
slightly different way that helps you to
uh shift shift the feeling and and not
just sit in that resentment of um you
know I've I've survived um despite my
parents rather than because of them are
you familiar with the Thomas Soul quote
there are no Solutions only tradeoffs I
am now okay so I I this year it feels
like that's been the quote of the Year
for me um and a lot of the time what it
means is trying to optimize absolutely
everything and railing against things
that are
shortcomings is a Surefire route to
misery because you're not going to be
able to get everything to be perfect and
in many situations something is positive
and something is negative and the
negative thing has probably come along
for the ride as the dark side of the
positive thing yeah uh and I think that
it's the same with the parents it's so
right you know um uh Dad wasn't there
for me uh sufficiently emotionally I
imagine that's a big sort of uh
Millennial complaint about Boomer
parents you know Dad was sort of this
classic still Blue Collar guy and you go
yeah he was at work like 10 hours a day
five days a week for 18 years to raise
you and before that and for brothers and
sisters and all the rest of the stuff
and you go okay so there are no
Solutions there's only tradeoffs you had
this level of SEC or maybe there's
somebody else who dad was there for me a
lot of the time but we really struggled
with money and you go okay again you you
it came to me
because I started I made a big pivot
with my diet and that improved uh a ton
of energy problems I was having but I
was finding myself waking up at 3:30 or
4: in the morning every single day for a
week uh and the first day I thought oh
this is just it'll be like it's a
transition thing then the second day I
thought oh no this has become a habit
and then by the third day I was railing
against it so I woke up and I was like
God I like why is this the case how come
I'm waking up at this time this is so
annoying I'm going to be tired tomorrow
etc etc and that Thomas Soul floated
into my head and he the quote there are
no Solutions only tradeoffs I thought
right okay would you be happy to get up
at 3 :30 in the morning if it meant that
your mood and your cognition throughout
the day was better than it had been over
the last couple of months like yes like
what are you complaining about then what
you're complaining about is why can't I
have the entire world exactly the way
that I want yeah it's like no no no no
you don't you would that be beautiful
yes is it in anyone's World realistic
absolutely not and the same thing I
think when we look at our parents is a
nice perspective yeah absolutely and
it's there's always something to
grateful for and something to feel a bit
annoyed about or miserable about and and
um I think part it's a really important
life skill to to just have that Clarity
that you can choose you don't have to be
you know we're all human we all find
ourselves in those moment and you know
when I'm talking about that you know uh
Health scare stuff that I went through
in the summer um and I talk about sort
of you know being the Predator not the
prey and all that that doesn't mean
every moment I was feeling that that
that was response to those dark moments
where you feel oh my you know what
what's going to happen to me and and and
you those dark moments so it's only
human to find yourself in those but just
by having that awareness and knowing
that it's a choice gives you that
opportunity to step back from it get
that you know put it at arms length see
it for what it is and then you get to
choose but you know having those moments
of difficulty or the moments when you're
not doing that like you say the the dark
moments in the morning when you're
thinking oh why am I doing this it's
okay to have those moments doesn't mean
you're failing but then you had that
process of hang on a minute I remember
that quote now I get to choose and and
you just learn from all of those
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