Why do my parents make me feel like a bad person?
His father was a teacher. People called when something was broken and they didn’t know what else to do. Sometimes it was turtles stuck in flower beds. Sometimes it was birds that wouldn’t leave a tree. Sometimes it was his son.
He watched his father respond to these calls the same way every time. He showed up. He stayed calm. He did what needed to be done, then went home and never mentioned it again. No credit. No complaint. Just the work.
And his father never once called him over and said: He is doing well. He is enough. He is not the problem here.
We learn what we are by watching what gets rescued.
A baby pigeon gets flying lessons. A snapping turtle gets driven to a stream where it belongs. An eagle that turns out to be fine gets a crowd of people willing to climb for it anyway.
And then there is the child watching all of this, waiting to be looked at the way the turtle was looked at. Waiting for his father to turn that same steady attention toward him. To see him stuck and think: I should do something about this.
But that call never comes.
Some parents are good at saving things. They show up for the wounded bird, the neighborhood crisis, the student who needs help. They have endless patience for everything that is not their own child.
And the child grows up understanding perfectly: he is not the eagle. He is not worth the climb.
Maybe it is not that they think you are bad. Maybe it is that they have already decided you do not need saving. You are capable, you are fine, you do not require the careful hands they reserve for fragile things.
Maybe that is worse.
Because you spend your whole life after that trying to prove you were worth the effort. You become the person who shows up. You rescue things. You stay calm. You do the work and never ask for credit.
And you still feel like you are failing some test you were never told about.
What are you still trying to prove? And who, exactly, are you proving it to?
Sitting with it:
Think of the last time you helped someone. Did it feel like enough, or did it feel like you were still one rescue short?
What would it mean to stop waiting for your parents to finally see you the way you needed to be seen when you were small?
If you cannot remember the last time someone looked at you and thought you were worth the climb, does that make you the problem, or does it make them the people who could not see?