[IggleSniggle]

This is what makes parenting so exhausting and so rewarding. Action/inaction, advice or advice withheld, you are constantly setting the environment that will shape your child’s entire life.

That said...I can remember phrases that my parents said in passing that for whatever reason stuck deep in me that I carry to this day, while doubtless advice they gave countless times I have no recollection of.

So, the stakes are extremely high, but the variance is also so high that it’s important not to let it paralyze you.

[nonbirithm]

> Action/inaction, advice or advice withheld, you are constantly setting the environment that will shape your child’s entire life.

I don't want to believe this is entirely true. I want to outgrow the coping mechanisms my upbringing forced me to learn in order to adapt, which are now actively harming me. If some things we impart on children truly are irreversible, then it's as if I'm trapped consciously aware of how my parents influenced my life and still there isn't enough I can do to move on. And I didn't choose my parents, so I could not consent to being raised in the ways they chose.

[IggleSniggle]

I believe we are all fundamentally malleable, and that you can “escape” your past. Certainly, maladaptions can often be reverted and reformed. Still, regardless of where you end up, your childhood environment affects your trajectory as a whole.

Optimistically, perhaps by overcoming the things that currently hold you back, you will later have greater insights and advantages from having to have had to rework that part of yourself.