While I love this entire piece, this is where I settled into home. My mother's inability to accept that my father was an alcoholic was heart rending to me. She chose Dad, who was an abuser, over a daughter who wanted to love her and wanted acceptance in return. I finally had to accept that given the trials she had experienced, this was how she coped with a shit marriage. Nobody gets a handbook for raising kids when we slide screaming and mewling out of the womb. That said, you and I as adults are utterly responsible for making the best of the enormous gift of life they gave us. That was gift enough. They owe us nothing more.