The sins of the father are visited on the children
or so the bible would have us believe.
My own experience suggests
that it is the sins of the children
that are visited on their parents.
I see in my relationship with my son
an absolute parallel with
my father’s relationship with me.
The guilt I now feel for a failure to feel,
for behaviour that was unthinking
rather than unfeeling,
but still obstructed feelings,
in my past,
I cannot criticise
him for behaviour
that I recognise
and identify as being my own
in the past.
and suspect will one day be shared
by my own progeny.
It makes me feel no better.
Nor, in truth, does it make me feel worse.
It simply is.
And has to be accepted.
And can merely be abated
by belief in the mantra that
what goes around will come around.