You either face your demons, or they will raise your children: here’s why every parent should break the cycle, not repeat it

Last month, my eight-year-old daughter came home from school with tears in her eyes and a math test marked with a big red 67%.

Before she could even explain what happened, I heard myself say, "Well, what did you expect? You barely studied for this." The words came out sharp and automatic, exactly the way my mother used to respond when I brought home disappointing grades.

I watched my daughter's face crumple, the same way mine used to when I was her age. In that moment, I wasn't seeing her struggle with fractions—I was seeing my own childhood fear of not being good enough reflected back at me. Instead of offering comfort or asking what she needed, I had become the critic I swore I'd never be.

That night, lying awake at 2 AM, I realized I had just repeated the exact pattern that made me feel small and ashamed as a child. The same pattern that taught me my worth was tied to my performance, that mistakes were character flaws rather than learning opportunities.

Here's what I've learned from my own fumbling through parenthood and a recent deep dive into some eye-opening research: we don't just inherit our parents' eye color and stubborn cowlicks.

We inherit their coping mechanisms, their fears, their ways of handling stress, and yes, even their unhealed wounds. The question isn't whether we'll pass something down to our kids—it's whether we'll pass down the patterns that served us or the ones that held us back.

The inheritance we don't talk about

When I really started paying attention to my family patterns, I discovered something unsettling. The same emotional volatility that made my grandmother slam doors when frustrated had trickled down through my mother's passive-aggressive silences and landed squarely in my own tendency to shut down during conflict.

Three generations of women, three different expressions of the same unprocessed emotion.

The research backs this up in ways that should make every parent pause. Studies show that trauma and stress responses can actually be passed down through epigenetic changes—essentially, our genes carry the memory of our ancestors' experiences.

But here's what's more interesting: the patterns aren't just biological. They're behavioral, emotional, and psychological.

Children learn how to regulate emotions by watching their parents. They absorb how we handle disappointment, how we express anger, how we cope with uncertainty.

A parent who explodes at every minor inconvenience teaches their child that big emotions require big reactions. A parent who stuffs down every feeling teaches their child that emotions are dangerous territory to avoid.

I see this playing out in my own parenting constantly. When my daughter spills juice on her homework, my first instinct is still the sharp intake of breath and the flash of irritation my mother would show when I made mistakes.

The difference is that now I recognize it as an inherited response, not an inevitable one.

The truth is, most of us parent on autopilot, using the emotional software we downloaded in childhood. We react to our children's behavior through the lens of our own unhealed experiences.

The parent who was criticized for being "too sensitive" might dismiss their child's tears.  The parent who was praised only for achievements might unconsciously tie their love to their child's performance.

Recently, I picked up Rudá Iandê's new book "Laughing in the Face of Chaos: A Politically Incorrect Shamanic Guide for Modern Life," and one insight particularly struck me:

"Our DNA is not a fixed blueprint to follow rigidly but a living code, inviting interpretation, expansion, and personal expression."

This hit me like a revelation wrapped in hope. We're not doomed to repeat our parents' mistakes. We can rewrite the code.

The book inspired me to look at my own patterns differently. Instead of seeing my inherited tendencies as fixed traits, I started viewing them as starting points for conscious choice.

When I feel that familiar surge of overwhelm that used to send my mother into cleaning frenzies, I now pause and ask: "What would I want my daughter to learn about handling stress from watching me right now?"

Sometimes I still mess up. Last month, I found myself yelling about toys left in the hallway with the same exasperated tone my mother used about my backpack by the door.

But here's the difference: I caught myself, took a breath, and said to my daughter, "I'm sorry I raised my voice. I was feeling frustrated about the mess, but that doesn't mean it's okay to yell. Let me try again."

That moment of repair, of modeling how to acknowledge mistakes and try again, felt like breaking a chain that had bound three generations of women in my family.

The courage to do your own work

Breaking generational cycles isn't about becoming a perfect parent—it's about becoming a conscious one. It means doing the uncomfortable work of examining your own emotional responses, your triggers, your automatic reactions that might not serve your children.

This work isn't glamorous. It's sitting with the discomfort of recognizing when you're responding from your own childhood wounds rather than your child's actual needs. It's catching yourself mid-reaction and asking, "Am I responding to what's happening now, or am I responding to what happened to me thirty years ago?"

I've had to confront some hard truths about myself. My need for control when things feel chaotic stems from growing up in a household where emotions felt unpredictable and scary. My tendency to over-explain everything to my daughter comes from never feeling heard as a child.

These aren't excuses—they're data points that help me make different choices.

The work also means grieving. Grieving the parent you needed but didn't have. Grieving the childhood you deserved but didn't get. Grieving the fantasy that your parents were perfect and that their way of doing things was the only way.

This grief isn't self-pity—it's necessary for clearing space to parent from your own values rather than your inherited programming.

One of the most profound shifts happened when I stopped trying to give my daughter the childhood I wanted and started paying attention to the childhood she actually needs. My daughter is naturally more sensitive than I was, more verbal, more emotionally expressive. The parenting style that might have worked for me would have crushed her spirit.

The hardest part of this work isn't recognizing the patterns—it's sitting with the uncomfortable emotions that come up when you start digging into them.

When I first started paying attention to my reactions, I had to confront memories I'd rather forget. The times I felt invisible as a child. The anxiety that lived in my chest when my parents fought. The way I learned to make myself smaller to avoid conflict.

Nobody wants to revisit these moments. It's easier to stay busy, to focus on our children's needs, to convince ourselves that our past doesn't matter anymore.

But here's what I've learned: those unprocessed emotions don't disappear—they just go underground and resurface in how we respond to our kids.

Iandê's insight about emotions being messengers really shifted my perspective: "Our emotions are not barriers, but profound gateways to the soul—portals to the vast, uncharted landscapes of our inner being."

Instead of seeing my triggered moments as failures, I started viewing them as information. My sudden anger when my daughter talks back isn't really about her disrespect—it's about the powerlessness I felt when I wasn't allowed to have opinions as a child.

This reframe has been game-changing. When I feel that familiar surge of panic because my daughter is crying in public, I can recognize it as an old wound speaking—the part of me that learned crying was shameful and needed to be stopped immediately. Instead of rushing to quiet her, I can breathe through my own discomfort and respond to what she actually needs in that moment.

My daughter will undoubtedly inherit some of my quirks and challenges—that's part of being human. But I'm working to ensure that what she inherits are my strengths and my growth, not my unprocessed pain and unconscious reactions. I want her to inherit my curiosity instead of my anxiety, my resilience instead of my people-pleasing, my authenticity instead of my performance.

Final words

Breaking generational cycles isn't a one-time decision—it's a daily practice of choosing consciousness over convenience, growth over comfort, healing over hiding. It's messy, ongoing work that doesn't come with a completion certificate or a gold star.

But here's what I know for sure: every time we pause before reacting, every time we apologize for our mistakes, every time we model emotional regulation instead of emotional chaos, we're not just changing our children's experience—we're changing the trajectory of generations we'll never meet.

Your children don't need perfect parents. They need parents brave enough to face their own demons so those demons don't become their children's inheritance. They need parents willing to do the hard work of healing so that love, not trauma, becomes the family legacy.

The cycle breaks with you, one conscious choice at a time.