I had a really interesting session the other day that stayed with me afterward.
We were talking about this client’s childhood and her relationship with her dad, who struggled significantly with alcoholism when she was growing up. There was volatility in the home. Fear at times. Instability. The kind of environment that absolutely impacts a child’s nervous system.
But what struck me most wasn’t just what happened.
It was how her mother helped her make sense of what was happening.
Her mom did not pretend things were okay. She protected her girls where she could. She acknowledged that their dad could be scary when he drank. She set boundaries. She tried to shield them from as much chaos as possible.
But she also never turned him into a monster.
And honestly, I found that really profound.
She talked to her daughters about addiction in a very human way. She helped them understand that their father was struggling with something painful and bigger than him. She admitted that part of why she stayed was because she feared what would happen if the girls had to be alone with him half the time after a divorce. And she also admitted something many people are uncomfortable saying out loud:
“When he was sober, I loved him.”
That complexity mattered.
Because this client grew into one of the most emotionally intelligent people in many ways. She has strong boundaries. Very strong boundaries actually. She is incredibly clear about what she allows around herself and her children. She recognizes unhealthy behaviour quickly.
But she is also deeply compassionate.
She does not immediately reduce struggling people into “bad people.” She does not collapse into black-and-white thinking. She understands nuance. She can hold empathy without abandoning herself.
And I found myself thinking about how much children are shaped not only by what happens to them, but by how the adults around them help them interpret what happens.
I think sometimes parenting conversations become very black and white online. As though good parenting simply means removing all struggle, all discomfort, all exposure to hard things. And of course safety matters deeply. Protection matters deeply. I’m not minimizing that at all.
But I also think emotional resilience and empathy often come from something more nuanced.
Sometimes what protects children is not the absence of hardship altogether.
Sometimes it is having emotionally grounded adults who help them make sense of hardship truthfully and compassionately.
Adults who say:
“This behaviour is not okay.”
AND
“This person is still human.”
That is a very sophisticated emotional lesson. Because the reality is that humans are complicated.
People can be wounded and loving.
Struggling and accountable.
Compassionate and unsafe.
Kind and deeply dysregulated.
And children eventually grow into adults who will have to navigate the complexity of humanity in relationships, workplaces, parenting, friendships, and within themselves.
The healthiest adults are often not the ones who never witnessed struggle.
They are the ones who learned:
how to tell the truth about pain,
how to hold boundaries around harmful behaviour,
and how to stay compassionate without losing themselves in the process.
That combination created something really powerful for my client: and honestly, maybe part of wisdom is learning to hold complexity without collapsing into extremes.
Not everything is all good or all bad.
Sometimes healing looks like learning how to hold both truth and compassion at the same time.
As for my client’s father, he eventually went to treatment and has now been sober for many years. And I think that matters too.
Because this story is not just about addiction or dysfunction.
It is also about the possibility of healing, accountability, repair, and the ways compassion and boundaries can sometimes coexist long enough for change to happen.