A rambling post

I was thinking about all the mental baggage we carry in our lives and how that baggage gets carried into our parenting, which then affects the next generation.  Even when we think that we are not being like our parents, the very rejection of something my parent did is in itself a mental baggage I pass on. Every generation thinks "I won't be like my parents in such and such;  I'll never do that".  That is natural--a wish for every generation to 'improve' on the previous one. But the interesting fact is that your child may not see this different behaviour as an 'improvement'. 
We reach a certain age I think, before we are able to dispassionately be aware of the emotional baggage we carry and for many women, I think, it comes after our children are well past the toddler stage, because, while our children are very young, parenting is so much on auto pilot, either with ideas automatically taken from a parent figure of from parenting books and we don't have the time to really think how the child interprets our actions.  And so, even if we think we do not pass on emotional baggage it happens.  So I guess none of us need to dis ourselves on that.  Most of us do the best we can and with love.