Sometimes I notice the contrast between how I treat my cat Miki and how I was treated growing up.

My parents didn’t view parenting as a relationship with a small human. They thought parenting was about managing a child, not relating to one. They saw it more as a role or duty, defined not by empathy, but by cultural conditioning, fear, control, and their own unresolved limitations. They provided resources, food, medicines and money – but left a void in place of real care and connection.

They didn’t think a child’s emotional distress needed to be responded to. They used fear-based methods like shouting, hitting, threats or “teaching a lesson” to fix perceived rebellion. They feared that letting a child be free to follow their own mind will lead to chaos. They tried to get blind agreement from the child, rather than helping the child trust themselves. They sometimes treated parenting like it was a 2v1 match, as if they were teaming up against the child.

They tried to mold the child into what they could manage, never wanting to know who the child really was.

Maybe these methods would work on children who were more like them. But my inner world was more like Miki’s than they realised.

When I am gentle and kind with Miki, when I don’t punish or control her, when I respond to signs of her distress, when I give importance to her needs over my own – sometimes I feel sad for never receiving what I now offer her, because I see myself in her.

Maybe I, too, needed to be protected, understood, supported, allowed to be myself, and treated kindly. By being nurtured as a person, and having my own choices respected, I would have felt a sense of safety and self-worth that I have struggled to find.

When I looked back on things as an adult, I felt disillusioned. I started to see that, while I was responsible for my own life, there are many things I carried from my upbringing into adulthood, which were affecting areas of my life like mental health, career or relationships.

Sometimes I think about how so many people today are healing from their childhood trauma. And yet, parenting continues the same way, in too many homes. It’s as if people have children without ever wanting to learn what parenting should be like, and it almost seems irresponsible.

Of course, not every child is like a cat. But what if parents at least tried to understand who their child actually is, before they start using methods that do more harm than help? What if they tried to check if there’s a misalignment between the real needs of the child and what the parents provide? What if they tried to think about how the family environment may affect the child?

Maybe these are idealistic questions, but I believe they are worth asking anyway. Maybe then, there would be one less child always wondering “what’s wrong with me”, or one less child turning to the dark side to cope with their early reality.