Family Portrait

(moved from my other blog which i will delete)

In the so called "family" problems are always occurring, this is a fact that we cannot run away from. But what happens when hurdles are too high to jump and these are to blunt to digest?

No one can pinpoint the exact antecedent to a failing family, but almost always we are all aware of what the consequences are: a broken family. When secrets are revealed and hearts are broken the mind starts to play tricks on you. A person who was once an intellectual thinker gradually becomes an assumptive thinker and all hell breaks loose.

According to Abraham Maslow, the third essential need for human life is the need of love and belonging. People must feed this need through friendship, intimacy and the FAMILY. Parents give a special kind of love to their children, they give an unconditional love. This kind of love must be felt by the parents and parents alone for the love found in friendships and in intimate relationships fall under different categories of love. But in the case of a broken family, who is to render this specific love to the children if the parents come to the point where they forget their utmost duty to care for their own flesh and blood?

Parents have the responsibility of carrying the burdens of the family which they decide to raise. However, sadly, in some cases parents (despite how intelligent or professional they may be) let their ego get the best of them and forget that they are trying to raise children and, thus, the burden only gains. Children get pulled into the parents conflicts and miss out in their childhood. Instead of keeping the issue discreet and finding rational means to resolve the problem, they expose their children to the lies, to the betrayal, to their own pain. It is a shame in cases like this because children no longer get to feel the feeling of being a carefree child and they experience stress in an early stage of development. According to Sigmund Freud, childhood experiences have an essential role in our development as a person. It is most likely that children exposed to this kind of environment, especially those directly experiencing it, would grow up to be harsh and bitter. Children would have trust problems and therefore would never be able to establish normal relationships with others. There will always be a hindrance in social skills of the child and the fear that the curse of their parents would also happen to them.

It is improper when parents destroy one another to their own children. In this case children become confused and start to choose sides, which is also unfair on the part of the child. Parents forget to give praise to their children because they are too caught up on destroying each other thus, the child feels unloved. In worst cases parents no longer recognize their children and do not know what is going on with them, they do not even bother to ask how their children feel... and sadly, they start to hurt the children emotionally as well. When matters reach their worst point, children tend to farther themselves from the family and the broken family becomes a million piece jigsaw puzzle.

And now the underlying question: what should the children do when the parents are just not capable of saving the family themselves?