Are my parents perfect?

I have been asked after publishing the previous two posts about them.

No, my parents weren't and aren't perfect.
Are yours? What about you, are You perfect? Is God perfect?
"We, human beings have designed flaws... ." I read it somewhere, sorry can't remember where.
However, what is Perfection?!

I have also been asked why do I refer to my parents in the past as they didn't exist anymore. Family members reproached me that. It is painful having to explain, but I understand the confusion. They are going to be 82 soon and stopped doing most of the things I write about so many, many years ago. They are fragile elderly people with poor health. I/we all (siblings) try hard not to think about the course of life. :(

My parents+my older brother during a day trip. Several years back.

My parents were born in an era without internet. They went to school for just a couple of years. There was no library in the village, no mass media, no documentaries about education or human behaviour. There were no nappies, no creams, no baby food, no fridges, no washing machines, no microwaves, no nothing! My mother breastfed each of us until she remained pregnant again. Then she fed us cow milk my father used to bring from his job every evening. She washed by hand for hours every day waking up at 3 Am or going to bed after midnight. For years, we were forced to light up candles instead of using the light bulbs we had in the house.

They didn't know how parents in America, Great Britain or Italy educated and raised their children. We were born during an oppressive communist regime, children were considered gold mines. However, we were farmers and expected to provide food for an entire country. Education was compulsory and Ceausescu was quite insistent about it. Back then, you didn't need to go to school to learn how to plant, seed and harvest though.

My parents did their absolute best with what they had and for that I am grateful. From them, often indirectly through acute observation or even unconsciously, I learned what's reliability and respect, how to cook and wave, how to always strive to be a good human, to stay away from bad influences and negative temptations, and so much more.

Many Romanians will tell you about starvation and indigence during the communist regime. I wrote and will write about it myself, but we never starved and never walked naked or bare feet, unless we wanted so. My parents worked night and day to provide food and clothes for us. If they couldn't buy food and things because the shops were empty, they made them. They grew plants/food, made the fabric and sew the clothes themselves. I used to look around and feel sorry for neighbours and friends as their parents were not so successful in that.

My parents always wanted the best for us. My father insisted on the power of education. My mother on the power of becoming a human capable of doing great things with nothing.

From my mother, I learned to cook incredibly delicious meals with extremely poor ingredients. I also learned to make beautiful things with my hands. She was an amazing and complete artist. I have got so many stories about her work.

From my father, I learned to transmit powerful emotions to people. To make them laugh or to make them cry through writing and storytelling. I learned what is integrity, respect, reliability and so on.
They didn't write and read much but were/are smarter than many people with three PhDs.

Do I have negative memories about my parents? Yes.

Have I fought with them, did they ever unfairly punish me? Yes.

Do I blame them for anything? I used to, but I learned I had no right. So, no, today I didn't only stop blaming them for various things, but I am grateful for every single bad thing I thought they made me feel or live. I have spent years of my life trying to understand human behaviour and I realised something incredibly simple.

Children (young, adult or old) often blame their parents for random countless things. For failures in personal and professional lives, for lack of emotional stability, wrong religion, not enough care, too much severity, poor education or lessons, and the list could go on indefinitely.
Let me ask you a few things: Do you have a brain? Can you read, hear, speak, see? Then what's stopping you from becoming the person you want to be? Watch documentaries, read books, educate yourself. You are the master of your true essence.
Your parents might have given you bad examples, but you don't have to follow them.

My parents, as I said, were illiterate people. They didn't have the privilege of reading books or watching documentaries about ANYTHING, how could I blame them for not giving me the power of knowledge (e.g.)? They gave me what they had or thought was right. I was a child, I couldn't make the difference but I am an adult now and I can and want to educate myself.

YOU have the power and the huge potential to be a great person, despite your heredity. It is all within YOU!

Are you blaming your parents for what you are today? Look inside you, then look around you. Do you have more means your parents had to learn to be a better person? Is the internet available to all at a small cost? Can you spare five cans of beer to have it in your house? Are there documentaries about human behaviour on each channel? Are there movies about the capacities a human could have and develop if they wanted to? If your answer is NO, look and think twice, and if your answer is YES, then it is not them, it is you!

I could waste my entire life thinking that if my parents were A or B or C or even Y, my life would be so much better. But would that help me, them or others in any way?

My father was an extreme rule follower. Because of the communism censures and oppression, he developed a deep sense of worry and anxiety about everything in this entire Universe. Terribly invalidating for him and for us.
I inherited that from him and other traits or behaviours I didn't like. Same with my mother. I've been upset for many years because of that. Not anymore. Now I am deeply grateful.
Because of these flaws I discovered psychology and learned to know myself in profundity. What I felt was because of me, not them. It wasn't the heredity or indirect/unconscious acquisitions of their weaknesses, it was my mentality that didn't allow me to see behind despondency.

If they were perfect, today I wouldn't be here. And you see, I want to be here, I love to be here!

A year old image. The shoe box contains my father's medicines and my mother was giving him the lunch prescription.

My father never wanted to be seen dressed like this in public as he was even more careful with his looks than my mother, but he doesn't go out very often these days (many years).


I know that this post will attract a lot of polemics and divergent opinions, but you know as well as I do, it's the honest and cruel truth.

There is another one to come, stay tuned as it's truly phenomenal.

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See you soon, amazing human being.