As a recovering catholic (not funny I know,) I had some of my sponge soaked with fear of god, blame etc. As much as I would like to think I wrung all of that out before it had time to get stuck permanently, how do I know?
I came to terms, through trial and error and wasted effort and failure, that making excuses robs you of any power. Divert the blame so you don't have to address the stinging pain and you are free! When you look truthfully at that, the less blame you put on yourself for the consequences of your actions/decisions, the more you become a helpless victim of circumstance. Blissfully free of responsibility but mired in shittiness that is out of your control. Hmmmm....not thanks no matter how hard it is to own my actions.
I think every generation feels hard done by from their parents. Present one included. Maybe this generation of parents wanted to preserve childhood so bad that it is a contradiction when we see them failing as they learn, later than we might think they should?
Painting a whole generation with the same brush is one of the things we hated about boomers. I like to focus on what I can control which is helping the people I have responsibility to. Mind you I am not doing a great job at it but I will own it long enough to show by example that it is okay to be tough, human to make mistakes, and you can find peace while accepting blame on the way to empowering yourself and taking control of what you can.
I wonder if it makes you a better person to have a little bit of that in you still, where even though you might not believe, the habit is still there to do the right thing - just in case.
Yep. And yet, people fight to be labelled a victim of something. They want to have a disorder...
The problem I often see is that parents want to be friends with their kids, rather than parents. Friends don't teach you the skills of adults, they are trial and error support along the childhood paths.
Sure, but there is only so much granularity to add here. There are some who have good heads on their shoulders and will go far, but they are definitely outnumbered.