What do you do when the person who’s supposed to love you the most causes your deepest wounds?
It’s one of the hardest spiritual and emotional challenges a person can face: trying to honor your parents when the relationship itself feels unsafe, controlling, or deeply painful.
When Family Formation Misses the Mark
Parents have a sacred calling to mirror God’s fatherhood and motherhood—to form identity, stability, and love in their children. But when that call becomes distorted, children often grow up learning to take care of their parents’ emotions instead of being cared for themselves.
I call this “the inversion of parenting.” It’s the moment when a child’s God-given need for love becomes replaced by responsibility for another’s dysfunction. The result is deep confusion about identity and a lifelong struggle with boundaries.
This confusion doesn’t heal by cutting ties—it heals by discovering who your real Father is.
St. Francis and the Freedom to Begin Again
The life of St. Francis of Assisi offers a striking image of this kind of freedom. When his father dragged him before the bishop for giving away the family’s wealth, Francis stood in the public square, stripped himself of his clothes, and said, “No longer do I call you father. From now on, I will say, ‘Our Father who art in heaven.’”
It wasn’t an act of rebellion—it was an act of conversion. Francis wasn’t rejecting his earthly father as a person; he was rejecting the false values that had shaped his childhood. He was choosing a higher Fatherhood and reorienting his identity around divine truth instead of human dysfunction.
That’s the same spiritual movement we’re all called to make when we realize our parents’ love—while real and meaningful—was also imperfect.
Rediscovering True Sonship and Daughterhood
Healing doesn’t come from vengeance or distance alone. It comes from reestablishing who you are in light of God’s fatherhood.
When you allow God to redefine your worth, you can finally see your parents as human beings—flawed, wounded, and loved by the same Father who loves you.
At that point, you may choose to reengage the relationship—or you may need distance for a time. Either choice can be holy if it’s rooted in truth and charity.
The Eternal Perspective
In the end, even the parent-child bond is temporary. In heaven, every relationship is transformed into the communion of saints. Your mother, your father, your children—all will one day be your brothers and sisters in Christ.
That truth changes how we love now. It invites mercy over bitterness, intercession over resentment, and compassion over control.
From Family Wound to Family Redemption
The path to healing a difficult parent relationship isn’t about pretending the pain isn’t real. It’s about surrendering that pain to the One who heals through truth.
Like Francis, we may need to “strip off” false values, walk into the arms of Holy Mother Church, and trust that the Father will clothe us again—this time, in peace, identity, and freedom.
Then, when the time is right, we can return to our families not as children trying to earn love, but as sons and daughters who already have it.