Most of us enter parenthood with some version of a plan. We want to carry forward the things our parents did well and change the things that hurt, confused, or disappointed us. Then we find ourselves in an actual parenting moment, with an actual teenager, and discover that knowing what we want to do differently doesn’t always tell us how to do it.
In this week’s episode of Parenting Shrink Wrapped, Melissa and I talked with Julianna Burmesch, author of Life with Less of Me. Julianna is a former school principal, speech pathologist, parent educator, and child advocate. She’s also a mother and grandmother whose experience of raising children was shaped by a childhood that included abuse and neglect.
Her story invites us to consider how our childhood affects our parenting—and what it means to create a different experience for our families without demanding perfection from ourselves.
We bring more than parenting strategies into the room
At the beginning of the episode, I shared that my husband and I have had to learn how to repair after an argument. Neither of us grew up with a clear model for that. Tension might eventually fade, but the disagreement itself wasn’t necessarily addressed or resolved.
When that’s what you know, learning to return to a conversation and work through it takes practice. Wanting a different pattern is an important beginning. Actually building one requires learning something you may never have watched another person do.
That applies to parenting, too. We bring assumptions about mistakes, disagreement, affection, and asking for help into our relationships with our teens. Some of those assumptions serve us well. Others are worth examining. Recognizing both allows us to look at our upbringing with more honesty than simply declaring it all good or all bad.
Sometimes another family shows us what’s possible
Julianna described a moment from her college years that stayed with her. She was sharing a meal with her roommate’s extended family when a young child spilled milk. Julianna immediately braced for an explosion.
But the adults didn’t explode. They acknowledged the spill, cleaned it up, and continued caring for the child. What was an ordinary interruption for that family was a startling experience for Julianna. She was witnessing a response she hadn’t learned to expect. In her growing up house, a toddler’s spilled milk would have brought forth anger from the adults in Julianna’s family.
Many of us have had smaller versions of that experience. We spend time with another family and notice that people can disagree without the relationship feeling threatened, or that someone can make a mistake without becoming the focus of everyone’s anger. Those moments can help us recognize that the way our family operated wasn’t the only available way.
For parents of teens, that possibility matters. We may not have grown up seeing the kind of listening, steadiness, or repair we want to offer. We can still learn it.
The pressure to become a perfect parent
Julianna decided she would educate herself and become a parent who didn’t make mistakes. It was an understandable response to what she had experienced. If she could get everything right, perhaps her children would never feel what she had felt.
Then an accident happened when her son was a baby. He pulled a hot bowl onto his lap and was burned. Julianna sought emergency care for him, but she interpreted the accident as evidence that she had become like her own parents.
The story she told herself was devastating. Later, when parenting felt difficult, she continued connecting her children’s behavior to the belief that she was a bad parent.
That distinction deserves attention. There is a difference between recognizing that something needs to change and turning a hard moment into a verdict on who you are. The first gives you something to work on. The second can leave you buried in shame before you’ve had a chance to understand what happened.
Notice the meaning you give a difficult moment
Parents of teenagers have plenty of opportunities to question themselves. Your teen is upset, a conversation goes poorly, or a boundary creates more conflict than you expected. It’s easy to begin evaluating your entire parenting history when the immediate situation already feels challenging enough.
One useful reflection from Julianna’s story is to notice the message you attach to those moments. Are you thinking about a particular interaction, or have you jumped to a sweeping conclusion about yourself? Are you responding to what your teen needs now, or also struggling with what this moment seems to say about your worth?
Julianna described finding help through workshops, including learning to recognize and change the negative messages she was giving herself. She connected that shift with becoming a better parent. Her story makes room for a practical starting point: pay attention to the interpretation, as well as the event.
That doesn’t mean dismissing a mistake or avoiding responsibility. It means giving yourself a more useful place from which to respond.
Understanding the past doesn’t require minimizing it
Our conversation also explored adverse childhood experiences, often called ACEs, and Julianna’s reflections on the lasting effects of her upbringing. Her memoir includes painful experiences alongside her adult relationships, work, parenting, and health challenges.
One of the things that struck me while reading her book was the compassion she developed for her mother. As Julianna reconsidered her childhood, she saw more clearly the threatening circumstances her mother had been living in. That understanding became part of Julianna’s own story.
It doesn’t erase the care and protection she needed and didn’t receive. And her experience isn’t a requirement that someone else reach the same conclusion about their family. We can make room for the complexity of a parent’s circumstances while still acknowledging what was missing for the child.
You’re allowed to get help with your own story
Writing Life with Less of Me took Julianna six years. Early in the process, she realized she needed trauma therapy to help her work through what she was revisiting. She described taking breaks and receiving support as she found a way to tell her story.
One of her clearest messages in our conversation was to seek help earlier. She wished she had addressed those experiences sooner, rather than carrying so much of their weight into adulthood.
For parents, that can be an important permission slip. Supporting your teenager and getting support for yourself can belong in the same family. You don’t have to finish understanding every part of your past before you can show up with care in the present.
What I appreciated most about Julianna’s story was the possibility it held. There can be another insight, another conversation, another chance to learn a response you weren’t taught. Changing a family pattern can include mistakes, reflection, and help along the way.
Listen to our full conversation with Julianna Burmesch on Parenting Shrink Wrapped: