Ideal Parents Do Not Exist. What Changes When You Learn to See Them as Human Beings. 

By Acharya Tadany.
Published in the Diário de Santa Maria, June 4, 2026.
Translated into English by Gemini.

A large part of the conflicts between parents and children is born not from a lack of love, but from the unrealistic expectations that both construct over the course of a lifetime.

From childhood, we are taught to view our parents through a specific role: that of protectors, providers, educators, and moral references. For many years, this vision is natural and necessary. After all, they are the ones who help us understand the world and find our place within it.

The problem arises when we become adults and continue to expect our parents to match the idealized image we created of them.

It is at this moment that many frustrations begin. We expect them to always know what to say, to never fail, to understand our pains, to support all our choices, and to possess the emotional maturity that, quite often, we ourselves are still developing.

However, there is a simple and deeply liberating truth: before they were parents, they are human beings. And human beings possess histories, traumas, limitations, fears, insecurities, and contradictions. Just as they also possess dreams they never realized, pains they never shared, and internal battles that perhaps no one knows of.

Thus, when a child views their parents merely as “parents,” they run the risk of forgetting this human dimension.

On the other hand, when one begins to see them as people, something extraordinary happens. Criticism gives way to understanding. Resentment begins to lose its grip. The constant need for approval diminishes. And that which previously seemed like an unpardonable fault begins to be understood as a human limitation.

Naturally, this does not mean justifying abusive behaviors or ignoring grave errors. Nor does it mean agreeing with everything our parents did or do. It simply means looking at reality with greater maturity.

For example, a father who was emotionally distant may have grown up in an environment where affection was never shown, or an excessively controlling mother may have lived for decades dominated by the fear of losing those she loves.

These, among so many other examples, merely demonstrate that, quite often, what we interpreted as rejection was simply emotional incapacity, or what we perceived as coldness was, in truth, a person trying to survive their own difficulties.

Therefore, when this shift in perspective occurs, family relationships begin to transform and, consequently, the child stops fighting a battle against an idealized version of their parents and begins to relate to real people. And real people possess limitations, just as we do.

Curiously, this understanding also produces another important effect—that is, it directly helps us to accept ourselves, substantially so. For by perceiving that our parents were never perfect beings, we understand that we also do not need to carry the impossible weight of perfection.

And, as a result, life becomes lighter, conversations become more honest, judgments become less frequent, and, above all, compassion finds a space to flourish.

In other words, perhaps one of the greatest demonstrations of emotional maturity is not trying to change our parents, but learning to see them holistically: not just as parental figures, but as human beings who, just like all of us, are doing the best they can with the resources, the awareness, and the circumstances they possess.

This simple shift in perception can heal ancient wounds, interrupt cycles of resentment that span generations, and open space for relationships that are more authentic, more serene, and more human.

Because, quite often, the peace we seek does not arise when our parents change. It arises when we finally learn to see them as they truly are: human, simply human.

Acharya Tadany

Photo by ketan rajput on Unsplash