I Had To Tell My Parents I Hated Them To Start Healing

We get honest about what it’s like to resent your parents for years and how that anger can shape your identity, your ambition, and your parenting. 

We talk through the shift that comes with maturity, the power of a real conversation, and why healing can protect the next generation. 
• growing up with grandparents and feeling abandoned by parents 
• separating the “perfect parent” fantasy from the real people you have 
• how unmet needs can fuel cyclical trauma and harm others 
• using achievement and success to try to fill emotional voids 
• asking for help and letting your village support you 
• saying the hard truth out loud and hearing your parents’ full story 
• choosing grace, seeking validation, and considering therapy as a tool 

Transcript

Gratitude And Why This Space Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:05

And we're back to another episode of the Carlo Speaks Podcast. Um number one, I'm grateful for every like, every uh subscription, every share, every comment. Um, I truly believe that this space or these kinds of spaces are necessary for conversation to help us zoom in, zoom out for personal development, all the things. Um, so I'm grateful that I have an opportunity to hold a space of this nature. So thank you for that. Let's jump right into it.

Childhood Resentment Toward Absent Parents

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Um, one of my viral episodes talked about my parents and talked about uh my dad and a lot of the wisdom that he gave me as it pertains to being what we consider a baby daddy, right? And I was like, oh, your dad is so wise for that. You're so amazing for listening to your dad. And that was perfect. Let's be a bug. I hated my daddy and my mama. Yeah. Yeah, let's lean into that today. Um and a little backstory. Um, my parents were teenagers uh when I was born. And again, this this isn't um a violation of their privacy. I've talked about it on previous episodes. There's even an episode with my mom uh on the audio version of my podcast, um, where she just really goes into her experiences as a teenage mom and finding her way. So just to disclaim that, but from my perspective, I hated them. And the reason why is because when I was born, um, I was raised by my grandparents off top, right? Um and as I grew, I started despising my parents because I felt like I deserved better. I felt like I deserved parents that I was raised in the house with. I felt like I deserved parents that would take me to and from my football games, my little league, pee-wee sports games, come to my events, all of those things. And I didn't have any of that. Um, my parents uh actually um grew apart, moved away, got married, and had families of their own. So I suffered a bit from a feeling of abandonment and things of that nature. I despised them for uh at least the first 15 years of my life.

Becoming A Parent Changes Perspective

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Now, the transitional point that occurred for me for my parents was that at some point, especially when I became a parent myself, I had to disassociate my idea of the perfect parent from the parents I really had. Because ultimately, uh Jennifer's existence isn't to only be my mama. Being my mama is a role that Jennifer also played in the grand scheme of her own life. And I had to get to a point where I realized that my mama did the best she could with the what she had, with the capacity she had. And my daddy Al did too. And I think that we live in a generation where, um, especially being a millennial personally, um, we kick and scream when we don't get what we believe we're entitled to have, and we use that as an opportunity to traumatize somebody else. All right. So essentially, we are the source of the cyclical nature of trauma because we haven't dealt with the things that hurt us. So we hurt other people, right? And it took me a very long time to get into a position where one, I could hold myself accountable for demonizing my parents when they did the best they could. And the other side of that is also, right, creating a bar so high as a result of how I felt about my parents for myself as a dad. Okay. We we might as well have a real conversation.

Using Success To Fill The Void

SPEAKER_00 4:16

I held disdain and um a lot of negativity in my heart for my parents, especially when I got, when, when I grew up and uh I got enrolled to college, I joined the army, I did all of these phenomenal things. And a part of me did it out of anger. Like if if if if I could just do the next best thing to show them that I never needed them anyway, and and if I could, these accomplishments will will make room for the feelings that I want to feel for my parents, and I just took accomplishment and accomplishment and accomplishment one after the next, and I just tried to fill that void with success. So essentially, I'm I'm as accomplished and successful as I am today because I was angry. It wasn't even anything that I innately want to do myself. Every opportunity I had, oh, that'll that'll show my dad that he should have been there. That'll show my mom that that she should have made me a priority. Right? And and and and even as a young father myself, there were things that I broke my back to do when I could have supported, I could have leaned on him, the support of my village. But I was too angry at my dad to say, okay, I need help carrying this. I don't know it all. And so I don't ever want to get to a point where people see the relationship that I have with my parents today and forsake what it took to get here from all sides.

The Hard Conversation And New Truths

SPEAKER_00 6:02

I had to sit down with them. I'm like, hey, bro, I gotta be honest with you. I hate you. And it went hard for me to say, because I meant it. I meant it. And I wasn't trying to be disrespectful, I wasn't trying to be crass, I wasn't trying to be any of those things. And I can't imagine what it felt like as a parent to hear that from your child that you gave everything you could have to. Right? And again, if you go back and listen to the the previous episode when I'm interviewing my mom, there are some things that came out in the in the conversation that I didn't even know about. So as a child, I didn't even have all the pieces to the puzzle, but I made the pieces fit out of anger and I cut out room for grace because I don't care what your side of the story is. All I care about is my experience. So I'm grateful that I have an amazing relationship with both my parents today, but I'm sure that there's somebody somewhere who needs to hear that because you have to disassociate the experience from your perspective as it pertains to your parent, maybe trying the best they had. Do your parents do with deal with addiction? Is there trauma? Were they were they sexually abused? My mom was so there's so many facets of opportunity to have a conversation and to find healing and conversation.

Trauma Context And Breaking The Cycle

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Because just like violence, trauma only begets more trauma. Now we're keeping uh if if if my parents and I had never made amends, my children would have never had a relationship with their grandparents because of a misunderstanding. Not even a misunderstanding. Watch this. It was because of my anger and my assumption that they just didn't want to be there. And that seated hate in me. No, you can't tell me nothing, bro. Me and my dad almost got in a fist fight because he wanted me to cut the grass. I'm like, bro, you ain't my daddy. I can't imagine what that must have felt like. Because let me tell you something. My son, my son was to tell me that. I send the police quick. Send the funeral director too. But I say that from an entirely different perspective as my father. And I'm grateful that I have parents who were who were willing to be honest and open about their experiences, their traumas, um, the burdens they carried. I felt terrible. I felt this big when I had a conversation with my mom, and she told me the things that she had experienced and the things that she protected me from by stretching her arms out to protect me from it. The things that broke her back so I could stand up. Same with my dad. I,

Grace, Validation, Therapy, And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_00 9:11

you know, in hindsight, I wish I could go back and understand, but I could only have the capacity that I had. And I think that having the capacity now gives me the opportunity to live with grace. Watch this from anybody. Because you don't know what nobody's going through. Nobody. And I'm not saying that having a conversation automatically demands forgiveness and grace, but you don't know what it'll do for you. Because sometimes a person can validate that they did traumatize you, they did hurt you, they did abuse you. Right? And that gives you sauce to say, I'm not, I'm not overreacting, I'm not acting out of a place of um uh imaginary abuse. No, this happened. I'm not being gas-lit. This really happened. And I truly believe that that begins with the conversation. Even that conversation, go talk to the lady, call the lady, get in some actual therapy. Life is too yielding, too fulfilling to walk around burdened by the things that happen to you by the hands of somebody else. So it's my prayer that you find the space and the capacity to do what heals you. Thank you for your time.