Being a parent is a strange, confusing path to navigate. You live your life, as good or as bad as it may have been. You experience your childhood. Your personality is wet clay and through the years it is shaped by each encounter you have. Every interaction, every failure, and every victory slowly guides and molds who and what you will be as an adult. The problem is we can only look back after years of reflection and self-analysis and see the path we were on. In that light we can see why we do many of the things we do now as adults. For better or worse.

Those of us with trauma or abuse in the footnotes of our story carry a great deal of unrealized pain in our hearts. That pain, or anger, or fear that we keep locked away always has a way seeping out and making a mess of things when we aren’t paying attention. When the warden who guards our trauma steps outside for a cigarette, we momentarily lose control. The narrative slips away and we lose all sense of what the long game is, which is raising a well-adjusted child into a functional, loved adult. Can’t see the forest through the trees.

That spilled drink. The mess, after the mess that you’ve cleaned up for fifth time that day. The new hole in the drywall. The disrespectful retort and side-eyed glance that triggers your ire. Whatever it may be, we, “Pop off”. We, “Fly off the handle.” We, (as my ten-year-old recently said) “Go all Red Hulk on me,”. Whatever analogy you want to use, we let anger and frustration get the better of us.

I say this not as a cautionary tale, or a “How To” on being the perfect parent, but more-so as a verbal hug and pat on the back to those of us who struggle with the soul-crushing guilt we drown in after we realize that the thing we said, or the way we reacted, or the tone we used was One-Hundred-Percent an echo of the way we were treated as children, and a part of us is still stuck back in our childhood home absorbing that abuse.

Speaking from personal experience, when I lay in bed some nights and preform the autopsy of my day, there are times when the mist that clouds my thoughts thins enough for me to see through my bias and knee-jerkingly hot-headed reactions to things, and I see myself… through their eyes. Through the eyes of my two young sons. I am ten again and looking up at my father, his face red with frustration. The volume of his voice shaking the picture frames on the wall as he fights his own demons. I see the man my mother married after my parents divorced rearing his arm back at me with a closed fist, his eyes swimming with hate.

In those moments of quiet retrospection, I hate myself.

I’d be lying if I said I haven’t gone into their room long after they’re asleep, tears in my eyes, and silently promise them to do better tomorrow. To be the Dad they deserve. To remember what it was like to be ten, and understand they are doing their best and it’s my job to keep them on the path.

It can be hard to pull myself out of the shame spiral I fall into. The ‘Dad guilt’. I second guess every thing I said and did, and then catastrophize about how many years of potential therapy they will need to process the damage I’ve hypothetically done with my reactions. I do yell at times. I do get upset. I look at all the happy, smiling Peace-Gurus on Instagram preaching the gospel of gentle parenting and question what the heck I’m doing wrong. Why can’t I achieve the same tranquil results they promise if I simply take a deep breath, use a calm monotone cadence to my voice, and tell my feral wolverine of a child to find his center and show me his big feeling with words? Let them live their truth.

I’ll tell you why, it’s because I know how hard, and evil, and painful the world can be. I know just how brutal and uncaring people are. How cruel the broken human heart is underneath the façade people paint over their faces to hide the truth. I know that if I don’t prepare them for THAT world I am doing them a disservice as well. Kicking them out of the plane with no parachute.

So, I’m trapped in a paradox.

On one hand, I want to protect them from all of the horror and pain I experienced as a child. I want to shield them from the damaging disfunction I lived through. I want to be there for them and for them to be confident that they can come to me for anything and I will always answer. An unmoving constant in the chaos of their lives they can always depend on. True North. I want to be safe.

But, I also want to teach them respect, and empathy, and morality. I need them to understand that actions have consequences. As harsh as my reactions may be at times they are always measured. They know that deep down as upset as I seem there is always love beneath it. As scary as I can be, the world is worse. Some thing I always tell them is, “The world does not love you. The world doesn’t care about you. I do.” I am treating them with (at times) brutal expectations and high standards because I know that the world will as well, but once they leave my nest there will be no safety net.

That’s the hardest part of all of this. Finding the delicate balance of tender love and brutal discipline. Holding them when they cry. Listening to them express their feelings and validating those emotions so they that know they matter, while drawing a line in the sand where they can expect a slap to the back of the head when they cross it.

Young boys are like pack animals. In Jurassic Park, Sattler asks Muldoon if the fences surrounding the Velociraptor enclosure are electrified, and Muldoon replies, “That’s right, but they never attack the same place twice. They were testing the fences for weaknesses, systematically”. They test boundaries to see what reaction they get. They want to see what they can get away with. What’s acceptable and what will get you yelled at.

It’s my job to not let my insecurities and trauma get in the way of seeing that for what it is and to react with measured discipline. The problem is, I’m not perfect. I am flawed man and I fail. All the time. I get irritated and overwhelmed. As a single Dad I am constantly playing zone defense. I’m outnumbered.

What I’ve learned through years of trial and error is to do something I try to instill in my boys. Responsibility. I am no hypocrite. Owning up to your mistakes. When I fly off the handle, I always take time to rectify it. I will sit them down and apologize. I will explain what I did wrong. How the way I reacted was more than what the situation justified. I have even given them the permission and authority to call me on it as well. I try to explain what I was feeling and why, and If I overacted I ask them for forgiveness. This is a pattern I am constantly trying to instill in them. To practice using in their squabbles about the X-Box or what cartoon to watch on Netflix. Always with varying results.

I guess my point is, Keep showing up. We will stumble and fall, and at times feel like utter failures. Like I said at the outset, being a parent is a strange, confusing path to navigate. Love your kids, and keep doing your best. If they don’t see it now, they will one day.

Nick Gerasimou is a Southern California based author and educator, and Jiujitsu Black Belt under Juliano Prado.

Copyright: © V. Nicholas Gerasimou 2026

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