If we focus mostly on how we might have been partly or wholly to blame for what might have been less than a perfect, problem- free childhood, our guilt will overwhelm their pain. It becomes a story about us, not them. . . . When we listen, accept, and acknowledge, we feel regret instead, which is simply guilt without neurosis.
ATTRIBUTION:
Jane Adams (20th century), U.S. author and lecturer. I’m Still Your Mother, ch. 2 (1994).
