Parenting from Broken Pieces

Growing up, we could all agree that our normal was not everyone else's standard.  We all have a story, experiences, and a chapter that we have purposely filed in the back of our brains hoping never to have to pull the file out again.  We go through life pretending to comprehend the normal that we witness in other households and attempt to emulate it only to discover that we are unique in our ways.  We pull the file when we become parents, and we regress to that memory subconsciously and unwillingly.