In a way it is good that parents are not perfect, but rather are ordinary. It is good that they have their limits. If you had ideal parents, then you would get stuck and you would have no possibility for growth, says Svagito Liebermeister, a well-acclaimed family counsellor
The father is the second most important person in our lives. Let’s look at the essential meaning of a mother and a father: The mother gives us life. So the mother, in essence, is supportive and nurturing. When you look at it, mothers usually always support the child. But the father is not always supportive. He is often experienced as a little hard, because the father represents the world and the world is not always supportive.
When you are born, the mother continuously gives. Even before that, in the mother’s belly, you are always supported. But the moment you come out of mother’s belly and you enter the world, trouble starts. You are confronted with the world; first comes the bright light and then you are disconnected from the naval cord. So now you are facing challenges. The world is actually a challenge.
The father in a way represents that challenge. And that is a good thing. He is preparing the child for the world. Both are needed in order to grow; we need support and we need challenge. If you are only supported, you remain basically incapable. You remain crippled. And if you are only challenged, you collapse. So we need the right proportion of both. We need some support and we need some challenge. And, in a way, you could say that the mother and father represent that.
Of course, I am speaking in an archetypal sense. In each real case, it may be a little different, because the real father also supports and the actual mother also challenges. I am talking about a life principle when I say that the motherly energy is supportive and the fatherly energy is challenging. That means that the love of a mother and the love of a father are essentially different. Because many people misunderstand that principle there is much complaining about the father: “My father is not there for me! He is always out of the house!” What are they saying? They are complaining that their father is not like their mother. A mother is a mother and a father is a father. The father has to be out of the house, because his love is shown, for example, by making money and supporting the family financially. His love for the family means he must be out of the house.
I was speaking generally. The love of a father is that he looks after the welfare of his family by creating money and that is an expression of his love. But there are situations where men are not able to support their families. There are also situations where a mother cannot support or nurture the child. This has to be looked at individually; the situation must be viewed in individual families.
There are always some limitations on how much parents can support a child, because the mother also was born into a family and the father also was born into a family. So they also carry something, a trauma for example, for their own family, which permits them to be available to a child in only a limited way. Individual situations are never ideal. No mother is an ideal mother and no father is an ideal father.
In a way it is good that parents are not perfect, but rather are ordinary. It is good that they have their limits. If you had ideal parents, then you would get stuck and you would have no possibility for growth. One cannot leave ‘good’ parents; one gets stuck with them. But parents who are not so good, who are imperfect, well, it is easier to leave them, separate and create a life of your own.
When a child grows up, he has to learn that his/her parents are ordinary people. They are not like God. In the beginning, when children are small, you can see it, they look up to their parents and the parents represent God to them. Slowly the child learns that his parents are not so perfect; they have their own ‘defects’; they have their own problems
So parents have limitations, because they are ordinary people and that is what a child has to learn. When a child grows up, he has to learn that his/her parents are ordinary people. They are not like God. In the beginning, when children are small, you can see it, they look up to their parents and the parents represent God to them. Slowly the child learns that his parents are not so perfect; they have their own ‘defects’; they have their own problems. And there is some disillusionment in going through this part of growing up; this is normal. We have to learn to see and respect our parents as they are, as ordinary people and we have to love them like that, as ordinary people with all their limitations. They could not give us everything, but what they gave us is the most important thing. They gave us life. There is always something missing and we have to search for this in our own life and learn to receive things also from other people. This is part of growth.
The first thing to understand is that the father is the first man you meet in your life and when you cannot love your father you cannot really love any other man. A father is always a representative of all other men, just as a mother is a representative of all women.
If you are not at peace with your father, one possibility is that you still expect or want something from him. That will keep you tied to him, in a state of hope, and will prevent you from really coming close to any other man. Hope is a dangerous state, a miserable state, and as we know, hopes never get fulfilled! So one remains stuck and cannot move forward in life.
One may actually look for a man in order get from him what one could not get or still misses from one’s father. This is bound to be a very frustrating experience. Because, for our unconscious mind, no man can be a match for our own father; every man will fall short and never will live up to comparisons with one’s own father. So, on one side, we search for a man, for the ‘right’ man, of course! And who is the ‘right’ man? The one who can be the ‘better’ father! And, on the other side, we will believe, unconsciously, that this man is not as good as our father. Then we will, at some point, do everything to get rid of him. Then the search continues without ever coming to a completion, because no man can really ever replace one’s own father.
In a way it is good that parents are not perfect, but rather are ordinary. It is good that they have their limits. If you had ideal parents, then you would get stuck and you would have no possibility for growth.
