I was chatting with a friend about parenting—the things we've picked up from our parents, and the things we hope we'd do differently. She asked me a simple but loaded question: "What's one thing you'd do differently from your parents?"

Without thinking, I said, "I think I'd say sorry more often." There was this pause where we both kind of sat with that for a moment. It hit me then: most of us grew up never hearing an apology from a parent.

I know this might get eye rolls because expecting a "sorry" from a parent is still seen as disrespectful in many Indian households. We grew up being told, directly or indirectly, that parents are above mistakes. That they know better. That their good intentions automatically absolve them of the impact their words or actions have. But intention and impact don't always match. And sometimes the impact hurts.

How silence shapes who we become

We are wired to believe our parents are right, to be enough in their eyes, to feel validated by them. Their frameworks become ours. I once worked with a woman in her mid-twenties trapped in a toxic workplace, terrified to disappoint her boss, and convinced she owed him everything. No matter how badly she was treated—isolated, criticized, humiliated—she kept shrinking herself for scraps of appreciation.

When she spoke about her childhood, everything clicked. She grew up in a home full of shouting, comparison, and emotional distance. Her parents were too overwhelmed to ever come back and repair the damage. She explicitly described feeling inadequate, incapable, and unworthy. No one ever said, "I'm sorry, you didn't deserve that."

As an adult, she kept gravitating toward the same dynamic—chasing approval from powerful, unpredictable authority figures the way she once chased her parents. She tolerated mistreatment because the fear of losing validation felt scarier than staying hurt.

She said something that stayed with me: "Maybe none of this would have affected me the way it did if my parents had just known how it affected me. Maybe I wouldn't have overworked for love or kept hoping I'd be treated gently if I was just enough."

What she was longing for wasn't a dramatic gesture. It was simple awareness.

What we (didn't) learn to do

As a therapist, I've had a front-row seat to how our parents shape us—not in a "blame them for everything" way, but honestly and nuancedly. We talk about how their belief systems, fears, insecurities, emotional regulation (or lack of it), and coping mechanisms slowly became ours. Therapy becomes the space where people realize: That didn't come from me. I learned it.

The unfortunate part? Just like we weren't allowed to question our elders, they weren't either. They don't apologize because no one apologized to them. The cycle perpetuates. But we can break it. None of us will ever be free of messing up. Since we're all going to get things wrong eventually, why not try to reduce the damage it causes?

I keep thinking about how different things might have been if we had heard even a small acknowledgment from them—a moment of, "Yes, I could've handled that differently." Not to erase what happened, but to make us feel seen.

One of the most prominent effects I've noticed in myself is not being able to voice my boundaries. I'm still uncomfortable telling someone they hurt me or that I wish they'd handle things differently. To me, it means shame. Shame for feeling too much, for "blaming" someone, for needing care. It means I'm overreacting. That I'm not worth fixing things with. That my pain won't be seen.

With my mom, I carried silent resentment for years. I didn't feel seen, so I failed to see her as human either. I was angry at what she did, sure. But mostly, I was angry that I had to teach myself to self-soothe. That I had to sit alone, trying to make sense of what happened and why she said what she did.

The truth? I wasn't always angry at the incident itself. I was angry that no one stayed back to ask, "Are you okay?"

The next morning, she'd be normal or bring me my favorite food. But what happened the day before was never addressed. I wasn't asked how I felt. I wasn't given a chance to hold her accountable. I learned that it was wrong to feel offended over things. That it was my duty to reconcile. That expecting someone to own up was asking for too much.

As an adult, this meant I apologized without even making a mistake.

I remember crying alone after huge fights, waiting for her to console me. It never happened. I felt dramatic for feeling bad, like I was painting her as the villain when all I wanted was acknowledgment. This bled into my relationships—I couldn't let someone know they'd hurt me. I was afraid of confrontation because I thought I was asking for too much.

A real discussion would have done more than ease the immediate pain. It would have told me my feelings weren't unreasonable. It would have taught me it was safe to express anger. It would have left me to assume less, fear less, and shrink less.

I often wonder: how much of our pain came from what our parents actually did, and how much came from the loneliness of feeling misunderstood, unheard, or too scared to express what hurt us?

Parents are human. They make mistakes. They project. They act from their wounds. They don't always know better—just like we don't. But if we expect acknowledgment from friends and partners, why does it feel so radical to expect it from the people who raised us?

Why do throwaway words become our identity

Sometimes the things that shape us most aren't the dramatic moments. They're the quiet, throwaway lines said on a stressful day. A parent is tired, overwhelmed, scared, or dealing with something we know nothing about—and a sentence slips out. Something small. Something they may not even remember.

But children always remember.

Kids don't have the emotional context adults do. They don't know that a parent's mood had nothing to do with them. They only know how it felt. And because children are wired to keep their caregivers safe and happy, they translate those moments into stories about themselves: that they might be too much, that they might be the problem, that they don't deserve more.

Even now, there are things my mom has said or made me feel over the years that have stayed with me. Whenever I bring them up, she's surprised, almost offended that they stuck. It comes across as me carrying a grudge or not being "grateful" enough. Most of my clients feel the same guilt about bringing up something that hurt them, like it's offensive to even mention it. So we start to keep quiet, even in our adult lives.

The impact doesn't come from the size of the moment. It comes from the silence that followed.

What if we'd been seen instead?

I worked with a client whose family constantly compared her to lighter-skinned cousins and smarter classmates. What started as casual comments about her appearance became a belief: love was conditional. There was always someone better. She could be replaced.

This internalisation meant she learned to overcompensate, overperform, become agreeable, and be grateful for any attention. She became terrified of not being enough.

I wonder what a simple acknowledgment—"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that"—could have saved her from. Instead of spending her twenties unlearning that belief, she could have understood early: This says nothing about my worth.

When our parents hurt us without acknowledgment, the message that comes across is clear: if someone loves you, they might hurt you. And that shouldn't be addressed. That people in positions of authority shouldn't be expected to apologize.

Maybe we grow up shunning that same duty.

The sentence we're still waiting for?

In my sessions, even with grown adults, there's often a part of them that still waits for one sentence they never heard. A client once shared how, after her mother's divorce, all her mother's unspoken fears about marriage and men were quietly passed down to her. Warnings like "good men are hard to find" and "girls like us don't get everything we want" were meant to protect. But protection given through fear becomes its own wound.

Over time, those comments turned into beliefs: that she wasn't pretty enough, special enough, or worth choosing wholeheartedly. Relationships became something she had to grip tightly. Confidence became conditional. Comparison became instinct.

The heartbreaking part? None of this came from malice. Just a mother's pain spilling over, her good intentions expressed in words heavier than she realized.

Imagine if, at some point, her mother had paused and said, "I know I passed my fears to you. I'm sorry. You deserved to grow up believing you are enough, not bracing for heartbreak."

That one acknowledgment wouldn't erase years of insecurity. But it would soften them. It would loosen her grip on the idea that she had to settle. It would separate her identity from her mother's fears. It would tell her: The heaviness you carry was never yours to begin with.

Because an apology isn't just about blame. It's about recognition. It's about naming the impact so a child doesn't have to keep mistaking it for the truth about who they are.

In homes where repair exists—even if imperfectly—children learn that love can hold humility. That we are obligated to own up to our actions. That being seen matters.

I don't think this realization hit me in one moment. It came piece by piece—in conversations with friends, in my own experiences, and especially in the therapy room. Over the years, I've seen so many clients carry the same quiet ache: not for perfect parents, but for parents who could acknowledge the moments they got wrong.

An apology doesn't erase the past. But it takes away the sense that the child must have deserved it. It helps them see their parents as human—flawed, limited, trying their best with what they had—rather than as unquestionable authorities whose words became their identity.

With that shift, something opens up. The ability to separate their parents' opinions from their own truth. The realization that love doesn't always make someone right. The understanding that they are allowed to outgrow the stories they were raised with.

What we learned (instead of love)

I worked with a teenager once who'd grown up in a home where appearance, discipline, and self-control were everything. She struggled with cycles of restriction, bingeing, guilt, and shame.

She wasn't trying to be thin to be pretty. She was trying to feel worthy of parents who made her feel guilty about gaining weight. Her episodes with food weren't about hunger. They were about feeling valued and appreciated—feelings she never received at home.

Her mom once said in anger, "I wish I didn't have a child like you," because she'd put on weight.

Her relationship with food was never about food. It was about the acknowledgment that never came. The repair that never happened. How small she was made to feel, and how much she ended up judging herself.

She didn't binge because she lacked discipline. She binged because it was the only moment she felt in control, comfortable, and not judged. Parental actions create our emotional templates. We struggle our whole lives to unlearn them alone, trying to make ourselves feel seen. It would be so much easier if we'd felt that way at home.

The simple thing we're all waiting for

As a therapist, I've seen countless versions of that child in my clients, aching to hear: "I see how that hurt you."

Sitting with clients has taught me that parents don't have to be villains for wounds to form. And children don't have to be dramatic to feel hurt. Again and again, I hear stories where a small apology—just a simple acknowledgment—could have softened years of self-blame.

Maybe a sorry wouldn't undo everything. But maybe it would make the weight of our stories a little lighter. Maybe it would remind us that our feelings weren't unreasonable. Maybe it would help us feel a little less alone.

Maybe that's enough.