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    %CHILD ADULT PARENT IMPERFECT SUBSTITUTE HONEST 891021

     When  we  were  infants and children we  had  limited
experience and limited basis for understanding the  nature
and extent of our parents'  limitations and imperfections.
To  encourage  our/their sense of security we  learned  to
ignore  their limitations and imperfections,  putting them
out of mind,  repressing them. Respect,  obedience and our
sense of security were thus enhanced.

     As  adults  we  are the  children  of  our  childhood
experiences,   and of the lessons we learned as  children.
The child of our childhood within us remembers the lessons
we learned, and respects and honors the parents we knew in
our  childhood,   without proper regard for  our  parents'
limitations and imperfections.

     In  our  confusion we do not deal honestly  with  the
facts of our early lives.  We make dishonest substitutions
because   we   cannot  face  the  facts  of  our   parents
limitations  and imperfections.  To face those facts would
force  us to deal with the repressed issues and  conflicts
relating to power, abuse, authority, impotence, insecurity
and  despair  which were buried in our  childhood  without
creative resolution.

     The child within us as adults  still cannot cope with
those conflicts, and fears to challenge the image we carry
of  parents  without limitations  and  imperfections.   We
dishonestly  substitute false images for the  truth,   and
fail  to  face the tragic consequences of our  dishonesty,
because we do not know how to be honest with integrity and
courage.

     Our limited and imperfect parents did  not  teach  us
how to be honest with integrity and courage through  word,
deed and example. They did not know how, and now we do not
know  how  to  teach our children how to  be  honest  with
integrity and courage through word, deed and example.

     These  considerations  apply most  obviously  in  the
instance   of  families  torn  by  the  strife  which   is
characteristic   of  overt  addiction,   codependence  and
fanaticism.   The considerations also apply in more subtle
ways in instances of families torn by more subtle forms of
addiction, codependence and fanaticism; yet the damage can
be  equally real and lead to progressive advances  of  the
diseases  from generation to generation---unless  creative
steps are taken to arrest the diseases through appropriate
honest and charitable confrontations.

     It  is  helpful for each generation to understand  in
some  way the nature of the disintegrative process so that
each  generation  can  be better able to  teach  the  next
generation  through  word,   deed and example  how  to  be
creatively  honest with integrity and courage.  Often  the
generation  which does not take a successful step  forward
falls back two or more steps.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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