The situation
I’m 34 and my parents still criticise almost every decision I make, from my job to how I raise my children. My dad gets angry if I push back, and my mum goes quiet for days. After every visit I feel like a teenager again, then guilty for resenting them.
Your situation, reframed
AI interpretationWanting your parents’ approval and resenting their control at the same time is one of the most common tangles there is, and the guilt does not mean you are doing anything wrong. Your parents are who they are, and you cannot rebuild them. What you can decide is how much authority their judgements have over your choices, and how you respond: honestly, kindly, and without handing over your life.
The dichotomy of control
AI interpretationYours to act on
- The decisions about your own work, home and children
- How you reply to criticism, and what you decline to argue about
- How often and how long you visit
- Treating them with kindness while you disagree
Not yours
- Your parents’ personalities, histories and opinions
- Your dad’s anger or your mum’s silences
- Whether they ever approve of your choices
- The way they brought you up
The Stoics said
Verbatim from the source · full citationsEpictetus, Discourses 1.12 ¶5
… Do you not rather thank the gods that they have allowed you to be above these things which they have not placed in your power, and have made you accountable only for those which are in your power? As to your parents, the gods have left you free from responsibility; and so with respect to your brothers, and your body, and possessions, and death and life. For what then have they made you responsible? For that which alone is in your power: the proper use of appearances. Why then do you draw on yourself the things for which you are not responsible? It is, indeed, a giving of trouble to yourself.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13
Suppose any man shall despise me. Let him look to that himself. But I will look to this, that I be not discovered doing or saying anything deserving of contempt. Shall any man hate me? Let him look to it. But I will be mild and benevolent towards every man, and ready to show even him his mistake, not reproachfully, nor yet as making a display of my endurance, but nobly and honestly, like the great Phocion, unless indeed he only assumed it. For the interior parts ought to be such, and a man ought to be seen by the gods neither dissatisfied with anything nor complaining. …
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 3
Were all the brightest intellects of all time to employ themselves on this one subject, they never could sufficiently express their wonder at this blindness of men’s minds: men will not allow anyone to establish himself upon their estates, and upon the most trifling dispute about the measuring of boundaries, they betake themselves to stones and cudgels; yet they allow others to encroach upon their lives, nay, they themselves actually lead others in to take possession of them. …
What this means here
AI interpretationEpictetus, Discourses 1.12 ¶5
Epictetus imagines someone lamenting that they have such a father and mother, and his reply is unsentimental: you did not choose them, and they are what they are. But he turns that into relief. You are not responsible for who your parents are or how they behave; you are responsible for how you meet what happens to you. Much of the guilt and resentment comes from trying to carry both loads at once.
Translation note: The proper use of appearances means how you interpret and respond to what happens, the way you handle your impressions of it.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13
Marcus divides the problem cleanly. Someone else’s contempt is their business; his business is to make sure he is not actually doing anything that deserves it. Then he adds the harder half: to stay mild and well disposed, and to be ready to show the other person their mistake, honestly and without reproach. With critical parents, that means you can listen for anything true in what they say, leave the rest with them, and disagree plainly without staging a fight.
Translation note: To despise someone here means to look down on them; Phocion was an Athenian statesman whom Marcus holds up as an example.
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 3
Seneca is writing about time, but his image fits controlling parents well. People will fight over a few feet of boundary, he points out, yet let others walk into their lives and take charge, and even invite them in. If every decision about your work or your children goes to your parents for approval, you are leading them in; setting a boundary is not an act of war, only a decision about which parts of your life are yours to run.
Translation note: Cudgels are clubs; to encroach is to move in on what belongs to someone else.
Read together, the passages lift two burdens and hand you one task. You are not responsible for your parents’ characters, and their disapproval is theirs to look after. You are responsible for your own life and your own conduct: kind, honest, and not run by them. That can mean fewer explanations, shorter visits or a calm no. If the control ever turns into threats, intimidation or fear, that goes beyond ordinary family friction, and it is right to talk to someone you trust or to a professional.
One action for today
AI interpretationMorning preparation
Before your next visit or call, pick one area of your life, such as how you raise your children, that you will no longer put up for debate. Prepare one calm sentence for when it comes up, along the lines of having heard their view and having made your decision, and then move the conversation on. Afterwards, note how it went without judging yourself for any wobble.
A line to carry
“As to your parents, the gods have left you free from responsibility …”
— Epictetus, Discourses 1.12 ¶5