The Asymmetry of Parenting: Why Repair Is (almost) Always the Parent’s Responsibility

The parent–child relationship is inherently asymmetrical; from the outset, parents carry the greater share of responsibility and exert the primary influence on the child’s development. This imbalance reflects the child’s dependence on caregivers for survival, safety, and emotional attunement. Parents are positioned not only to meet immediate needs but also to serve as the primary architects of the child’s relational blueprint, shaping expectations of trust, security, and intimacy. Importantly, this asymmetry does not dissolve with age. Even in adulthood, the parent remains the original reference point in the child’s relational world, which helps to explain why responsibility for repair continues to rest more heavily with parents when ruptures occur.

Parents Create the Blueprint

Parents set the foundation for how relationships feel. It is, quite literally, the ground upon which children build their lives.

If the foundation is steady — built on attunement, consistency, and repair — the child grows up with structures that can hold weight, windows that let in light, and a roof that provides safety.

If the foundation is cracked — shaped by neglect, unpredictability, or ruptures that were never addressed — then the child is forced to build on unstable ground. Even if they renovate as adults, those early cracks remain part of the structure.

Because parents design and pour the foundation, the greater responsibility for the health of the relationship rests with them.

The Myth of Mutual Responsibility

Popular culture often promotes the idea that relationships thrive on equal give and take — that both parties should “meet in the middle.” While this is true of friendships and partnerships, the parent–child relationship is not symmetrical.

Even when children reach adulthood, the original imbalance persists. An adult child may have the words to articulate how they feel, but they should not be asked to repair wounds they did not create. When parents suggest that their children should “be the bigger person” or “just move on,” they unintentionally perpetuate the same distortion of responsibility that may have existed during childhood.

Why Repair Belongs to the Parent

Ruptures are inevitable in every family. No parent is perfect — nor should perfection be the goal. What matters most is repair: the act of returning to connection after something has gone wrong.

• In childhood, repair must come from parents, as children are not developmentally able to initiate it.

• In adulthood, repair still begins with parents, because unresolved ruptures often originate in early misattunements.

When parents acknowledge harm and take responsibility, it can be profoundly healing. Without repair, however, children often internalize the rupture as their fault, which may lead to shame, self-blame, and difficulty trusting others later in life (DeYoung, 2015).

When Adult Children Struggle to Relate Safely

There is, however, an important caveat. While asymmetry places the greater responsibility on parents, not all adult children are able to engage in the relationship with openness or safety. For some, unresolved trauma, insecure attachment strategies, or untreated mental health challenges make it difficult to sustain reciprocal or respectful connection.

Attachment research demonstrates that early disruptions in caregiving can contribute to maladaptive strategies later in life — such as avoidant, dismissing, or preoccupied patterns (Main, Kaplan, & Cassidy, 1985; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016). When left unresolved, these strategies can manifest in adulthood as mistrust, volatility, or rejection, sometimes leaving parents feeling as though their efforts at repair are continually met with resistance.

In these circumstances, the task is not to repair “at all costs,” but to recognize the limits of what is possible when both sides are not willing or able to engage safely. Boundaries, rather than relentless repair attempts, may be the most loving option. As Bowlby (1988) noted, secure attachment involves both closeness and autonomy — knowing when to lean in and when to step back.

What About Exceptions?

Does this mean adult children should sometimes carry the burden of repair? From a relational perspective, generally no. The parent–child asymmetry means that greater responsibility rests with the parent, who laid the original blueprint.

That said, adult children may choose to initiate repair for their own reasons: to seek closure, to extend forgiveness, or to find peace. This is an act of agency, not obligation. The distinction matters — choice is not the same as burden.

Even when parents are elderly or unwell, the asymmetry does not fully disappear. A child may reach out, but that does not erase the fact that the foundation was set by the parent.

How EFT Helps When Repair Doesn’t Come

Many adults seek therapy because the repair they longed for from their parents never arrived. Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) offers a structured pathway for healing in the absence of repair.

EFT views emotions as signals of unmet needs, rather than obstacles to be suppressed (Greenberg & Goldman, 2019). For adult children, this often means working through layers of sadness, anger, shame, or longing when parents cannot or will not take responsibility. EFT helps by:

• Recognizing unmet needs — identifying what was longed for but not received.

• Processing blocked emotions — allowing grief, anger, or shame to be expressed.

• Transforming emotions — shifting maladaptive patterns into adaptive ones such as assertive anger, grief, or self-compassion.

• Creating corrective experiences — where validation and attunement replace dismissal or neglect.

As Pascual-Leone and Greenberg (2007) remind us, the only way out is through.

Closing Reflection

Parenting is not about being flawless; it is about accountability. Children, whether five or fifty, do not require perfect parents — they require parents who can own their part, acknowledge mistakes, and lead the way back to connection.

Still, accountability does not mean tolerating destructive relational patterns. In most cases, repair belongs more to the parent because of the inherent asymmetry. But there are situations where parents have done what they can, and the healthiest step is for adult children to take responsibility for their part, or for both sides to accept boundaries where repair is not possible.

The parent–child bond is never a level playing field. The asymmetry endures across the lifespan. What matters is how it is navigated — with responsibility, with boundaries, and with an openness to healing where it can occur.

References

• Benjamin, J. (1995). Like Subjects, Love Objects: Essays on Recognition and Sexual Difference. Yale University Press.

• Bowlby, J. (1988). A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development. Basic Books.

• DeYoung, P. A. (2015). Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame: A Relational/Neurobiological Approach. Routledge.

• Greenberg, L. S., & Goldman, R. N. (2019). Emotion-Focused Therapy: Coaching Clients to Work Through Their Feelings (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association.

• Main, M., Kaplan, N., & Cassidy, J. (1985). Security in infancy, childhood, and adulthood: A move to the level of representation. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 50(1–2), 66–104.

• Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2016). Attachment in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

• Miller, A. (1983). For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

• Pascual-Leone, A., & Greenberg, L. S. (2007). Emotional processing in experiential therapy: Why “the only way out is through.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 75(6), 875–887.

• Schore, A. N. (2001). The effects of early relational trauma on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22(1–2), 201–269.