A new way

I am reading Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and in one of the chapters, Effia, an African grandmother who was raised by a mother who hated her, who eventually married a white soldier and moved away from her village, tells her grandson who does not want to spend his life like his parents, fighting with each other: we all come into the world weak and learn how to do things from our mother and father, but if we don't like the person we have learned to be -- maybe it is possible to make a new way.

Most of my closest friends have found themselves in that position at some point. I have too.

My parents did not fight, but I learned other things from my mother, who I suspect learned them from her mother. I knew these things made me very unhappy and I did my best to change. I managed to change some things, but I still did other things I know my children need to unlearn, to make a new way.

That is the way life works. We take the best of what we know and try to make it better. No one is ever perfect, but with a little luck, each generation gets a bit better.