I think most parents genuinely care about their kids and love them to the fullest extent they know how. I think it just gets lost a lot of the times because parents are also just people with decades of their own trauma who probably had kids before they really worked on themselves enough. Sometimes they’ll show you “tough love” (read: unkindness) because from reflecting on how they were raised, they think it will be good for you. If you try to understand what their belief system is, you’ll probably start to see how they believe they are helping you.

Ex) My mom never wanted kids, and told me so herself. She didn’t spend much bonding time with us. But she worked a lot in laborious jobs and always cooked us healthy meals even though she didn’t like cooking either. She doesn’t enjoy interacting with kids, but she still loved us by trying to keep us as healthy and financially stabile as possible. This also reflects some of the struggles she experienced when she was a kid dealing with food rations.