And for us, the un- and under-parented, there are five specific and key tasks that we are called upon to face on our own individual healing journeys as adults.
Today’s blog post is dedicated to exploring what these tasks are. And to letting you know, my fellow un- and under-parented sojourner, that you are not alone. And that there is hope, opportunity, and strength in your healing process if you’re willing to explore it.
What does it mean to be un- or under-parented?
The experience of being un- or under-parented is a complex and subjective personal experience for each of us.
For some of us, it may mean that one or both of our parents died when we were young. Others, it may mean we were abandoned to an orphanage or foster care system. For others, it might mean we had caretakers with very limited capacities. Or mental health challenges, or addictions. And so on and so forth.
While the specific circumstances will vary widely, at its root, to be un- or under-parented means that, for whatever reason, you didn’t receive the developmental nurturing, guidance, and protection that you – as all children and young adults do – needed so very much when you were younger.
And it’s worth noting that by this definition, we are almost all under-parented to a certain extent. Let’s face it, no parent is perfect. The best we can ever hope to receive and to be is a “good enough parent,” a term coined by famed psychotherapist Donald Winnicott.
But with that said, in some cases, there are those of us who didn’t experience good enough parenting. And those gaps and lacks may impact us and our development more significantly. And if you identify with this scenario, there are five key tasks that you are called to do upon your own unique healing journey.
- Bring awareness to what is.
- Grieve what you didn’t receive.
- Cultivate reparative relationships.
- Cultivate reparative moments and experiences of healing.
- Become your own “good enough” inner parent.
Bring awareness to what is.
The first task in your healing journey as one who has been un- or under-parented is to bring your awareness to the fact that you were indeed un- and under-parented in some way (or many ways).
By bringing your awareness to what it is you did and did not receive and coming to terms with the reality, you actually begin the process of change and transformation for yourself.
This sounds simple and perhaps easy, but, for those of us just starting out in our healing journeys, often this first task – bringing awareness to what is and what we did not receive when growing up – can be a bit like asking a fish, “How’s the water?” To a fish, the water is the only thing he has ever known and so this question absolutely baffles him.
