Bad parents love their children just as much as good parents do.

I have said this before and will likely say it again, but nevertheless : this might well be the most startling and important thing I have ever uncovered in my endless rambling through the world of emotions, ideas, and memory that exists inside this skull of mind.

It’s not an easy thing to accept. In fact, I came to this realization over a week ago, and I feel like I have only absorbed a tiny fraction of its full and inescapable truth.

And it is truly inescapable. It is the sort of thing that once the words formed in my mind, I instantly recognized the inexorable truth of it. So while part of me does not want this to be true and wants to stick to the accusation, blame, anger, and “justice” model of the universe, as a seeker of truth, I cannot simply bury this in the back yard of my mind. It is true. I must accept this.

Here is the case for its truth, as simply as I know how to put it. Love is an emotion. Parenting is a skill. These things are not connected in any way, and one cannot be turned into the other by an act of will.

So no matter how much your parents truly love you, no matter how sincere and deep and powerful that love is, it does not make them any better suited to parenting.

And even more importantly, their lack of ability as parents does not mean that they simply did not or do not love you, or love you “enough”.

This is the truth of what every parent, at some point, has to say to an angry and accusing child : I love you, and I have done the very best that I can to raise you. I am not perfect. I have made many mistakes. But never doubt that I love you.

As we grow and mature, we become increasingly aware of our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities, and our limitations, and it is not hard, as teenagers or even as adults, to see how these weaknesses and vulnerabilities can be traced directly to the imperfections in how we were raised and the weaknesses and imperfections of our parents.

And let be be clear : I am excusing nothing. I am demanding nothing. And I am not, I repeat, not, asking you to forgive anything, or everything. Forgiveness is not something you simply wish into being. I couldn’t talk you into it even if that was my goal.

Many people have truly severe grievances with one or both parents (or guardians… whoever raised you), and overcoming these is no simple or painless process. The conflicts with our childhood caregivers often form the very fault lines of our souls, and such deep pain is not easily washed away.

Instead, I will approach the problem like this : no doubt, gentle reader, you know a great deal about all the ways in which your upbringing was lacking. You can list, in great detail, all the things they did wrong from the moment you were born till your graduated from college. You know, intimately and bitterly, just how badly they bungled the entire parenting issue, and have grievances outstanding from decades ago.

But can you write the other list, the one that lists all the ways that they got things right? What about all those mistakes they never made? If you are having trouble getting started on that list, just think about all the other parents you have known in your life. Your friend’s parents, your aunts and uncles who had kids, your neighbors, your colleagues, families on television…. any examples of parenting styles and strategies you can think of. List all the mistakes other parents have made that yours did not. Do those count for anything?

Can you really be sure it could not have been worse? Can you be so confident that you understand all the challenges of parenting well enough to assign your own parents a failing grade?

Maybe they really did a bad job of raising you. Maybe they truly were lousy parents. Maybe they got a lot more wrong than they ever got right. Maybe you truly had bad luck in the birth lottery and your parents should never have had children at all, let alone raised them.

But that doesn’t mean they do not love you with all their hearts.

It just means that they were never very good at doing the right thing with that love.