We Don’t Just Remember Our Childhood — We Interpret It

This blog is inspired by a current client. The relationship they had with their parents growing up, is, they feel, impacting on how they are managing adult relationships now.

I’ve worked with many clients who describe their parents as emotionally unavailable, overly critical, distant, or hard on them.

I grew up with a parent who could be intensely critical. At times, his words were sharp and sometimes, through drink, they were cruel. I remember how small I felt. Instead of becoming more determined, I became less confident in my abilities. As I’ve grown — and as I’ve done my own work — I’ve realised something important. We don’t just remember our childhood – we interpret it.

I do just want to be clear about something. There is a significant difference between:

• Physical abuse
• Ongoing verbal humiliation
• Emotional neglect that leaves deep trauma

And:

• Parents who were strict
• Parents who were emotionally limited
• Parents who lacked warmth or emotional intelligence
• Parents who repeated what they themselves were taught

Some childhood experiences require deep therapeutic work and some require trauma-informed support. If that is your story, this is not about bypassing or minimising that. However, for many of the people with whom I work, the issue is not a traumatic childhood experience, it’s their relationship with the past.

The Missing Context

As adults, we are have the perspective we didn’t have as children. So, in my case, my parent was critical, but he also:

• Made sure we were fed.
• Kept a roof over our heads.
• Valued education.
• Worked incredibly hard.
• Believed that pushing me would prepare me for the world.

Was his method perfect? No.
Did it impact my confidence? Yes.
Was his intention to harm me? No.

He believed — wrongly or rightly — that toughness created success. That had been his childhood conditioning and that’s what he was showing me. Our parents were operating from their own blueprint for success.

Perhaps they grew up in homes where discipline equalled love. Perhaps emotions weren’t discussed.  Perhaps affection wasn’t modelled and perhaps survival, not sensitivity, was the priority.

Parenting doesn’t come with a handbook – it tends to come with conditioning.

The Trap of a Single Story

When we stay attached to one interpretation — “They ruined my confidence” or “I just didn’t live up to their expectations” — we unknowingly give our past ongoing authority over our present. We make our parents the permanent explanation for our adult struggles and whilst telling that story might feel validating, it can also keep us stuck. The truth is, as adults, we are now responsible for how we relate to our pas, not for what happened, but for the meaning we continue to assign to it.

What Did They Do Well?

This is the question I often ask clients to widen the lens.

Were you warm?
Were you fed?
Were you educated?
Did someone show up?
Were your parents basically decent people who may have lacked emotional tools?

Many of us grew up with imperfect but well-intentioned parents. They may have lacked softness, or boundaries, or emotional vocabulary but they were not villains, they were human and therefore flawed.

When we only focus on what was missing, we reinforce deficiency — in them and in ourselves. When we also acknowledge what was provided, something shifts and we discover that gratitude and grief can coexist.

The Instant Shift

One of the most powerful realisations I had whilst becoming a coach was that I can choose the relationship I want to have with the past. I can say, “He believed pushing me would make me strong.” In that belief and the acceptance that parents are flawed humans, just as we all are, we find compassion. That shift doesn’t require denying what hurt it just requires us to decide how we want to be defined by it going forward.

You Are Not Your Parenting

Your parents’ limitations are not your identity and their emotional capacity does not define yours. Their style does not have to become your blueprint; your map.

As adults, we get to:

• Develop the emotional intelligence they may not have had.
• Speak to ourselves in ways they didn’t.
• Parent ourselves differently.
• Choose new beliefs about who we are.

And perhaps — when we’re ready — soften toward them too, not because they were perfect but because they were human.

Moving Forward

If your childhood involved genuine trauma, do the deeper work. You deserve support. But if your story is more about imperfection than abuse, consider this:

What if you expanded the narrative?

What if you allowed both truths?

• It wasn’t always how I needed it to be.
• And they did what they knew how to do.

You can honour your experience without remaining defined by it. Parenting doesn’t come with a handbook but adulthood does come with choice and how you choose to relate to your past now — that’s where your power lives.

As a child, I didn’t see a man shaped by his own upbringing. I didn’t see his fears, his beliefs about success, his conditioning, I saw criticism. As an adult, I see more.

Through coaching, I can show you how to see more too.