How Not to Become Your Parents

Are we destined to parent the way our parents parented even if we strongly object to some of the things they did? Sure, we can probably keep ourselves from dropping cigarette ashes in our toddler’s cereal, but when things get chaotic do we snap the same way our parents did? In her article “The Parent Prophecy” in The Atlantic, Faith Hill says there are elements of Greek tragedy in it all, “parents run away from their parents and sometimes end up right back in the same spot.”What do you do, for better or worse, that your parents did? And are things your parents did with you that you wish you were able to do with your kids?