A Twelve Days of Christmas meditation:
A wonderful poem--Asleep in Jesus at Rest: A Gravestone Epitaph--read by the author Henri Cole.
The final lines:
When I was born,
I weighed nine pounds of flesh.
Mother's hair fell down
the back of her long neck.
Tears ran out of her eyes like animals.
Fragrant convolutions from her insides
filled the room with the strife of love.
Daddy was on a tour of duty.
"Remember you got a father," he used to say.
"You weren't born by yourself."
This is true, and those of us who have to work through our childhoods have to separate our identities from our parents somewhat. I think this is what developing a self-identity is, but you are the psychologist.
Adults may remember many things about their childhoods and this is a good thing, usually, but those that are bound to please, perform and/or define themselves by their parents standards or perfections, need to find what inhibits them from independence. Isn't this what individuation is about?