Being around parents can sometimes make you (fine, me) revert to your angsty teenage self. Mother-daughter relationships are known for being particularly, um, complicated, but any relationship between an adult child and their parent has the potential to bring up some feelings. After all, there’s a reason why parent-child baggage is the stuff of Greek myths, Shakespearean tragedies, and countless blame-the-parents pop psychology clichés.
In other words, it makes sense why you might find yourself occasionally being kind of snotty to your parent(s) well after you graduate from high school—maybe you hang up on them abruptly, slam a door, or talk to them in a tone that you’d never use with anyone else. But that doesn’t mean it feels good when it happens.
Anger or resentment toward a parent can be a justified reaction, of course—to abuse, emotional neglect, and/or not getting certain needs met when you were growing up, for example. (And if you regularly fight with your mom or dad about those issues, talking to a therapist will probably help more than the advice below.) But what should you do if you’re feeling guilty about how you reacted to a well-meaning parent who pushed your buttons in the way only they can? We asked family relationships expert Amanda White, LPC, a licensed therapist and the executive director of Therapy for Women in Philadelphia, for her best advice.
Try not to beat yourself up for losing your cool.
“Often when we act like a jerk to so