QA253 QUESTION: There is a place where I know that I don’t really take responsibility as a stepfather. I feel the pain of this and would like some help as to how to make the step to give more, and also help to see how I fit into the distortion which perpetuates the separation of parents from children. I would like to know how to begin to share parental responsibility with my wife.
ANSWER: This problem is directly connected with your still-existing need to be yourself a child who has an ideal parent to take care of you. You are pained about not having this and so angry that this part in you resents being something to someone else that you crave for and believe you have to do without.
It is very important that you connect more with this resentment and this voice of refusal to be a parent. The more you are conscious of it, the more it is then necessary to reeducate this part and fill it with truth.
The truth is that you are no longer a child and cannot ever be satisfied as a child, even if it were possible to produce this ideal parent. You overlook the source of your own inner richness that could nourish you so deeply and fully by giving to others, for instance to your stepchild. You do not see that this is the only way you and life can give to you.
