Riflessioni su mio padre

When we expose our children to our anger and frustration, what we really communicate to them is that they are responsible for our anger, while, in reality, we are the only ones who can control and dissipate our feelings of frustration. From the child's perspective, he gets the illusion that he can "control" his parent's anger by suppressing certain behaviors and promoting others that will instead (or so he thinks) please the parent. The truth is that this is only an illusion. The child has no power. The parent does and the child will never win against such type of parent.

Which explains why no matter how hard I tried to "please" my father, in reality he always had his agenda and what he did and thought was never affected by my good actions and good will, even in my adulthood.