There are clearly cases when a parent has abused a child, and the child seeks "low or no" contact with their parent as an adult. But more often the child is "escaping" the only people who love them enough to criticize their bad behavior without abandoning them, who understand them in ways they don't understand themselves.

I had a falling out with my parents when I was young, and I am so thankful we reconciled before they died. I was simply incapable of seeing the world through their eyes or accept that they were as flawed as I was.

As children we often see parents as "demigods" dedicated to making our lives better. Only as adults do we realize they are more "human" than we realized. So much of their adult lives were devoted to supporting us and putting us ahead of their own wants and desires. Some may have even developed some resentfulness towards us even as they loved us at the same time. All their dreams were put on hold to raise us.

So then why did they have us in the first place? In many perhaps most cases, it was not planned, it was simply a night of unprotected sex. But they accepted the responsibility that came with our birth... sometimes gladly... sometimes resentfully.

Only as we become parents do we begin to understand our parents. We swear we will never be like our parents... and we won't. We will have our own set of flaws, and our children will write about us like we wrote about our parent's flaws.

In my older age, I have come to realize the most "perfect" people in the world are those who love us without conditions. It starts with loving yourself for who you are and then accepting others for who they are. People including parents tend to be judgmental, but the reason we love our family is because they were there often like it or not, when we needed them to be.