Parents see their children as report cards on their parenting ability. When a child runs into trouble, parents torment themselves: “What did I do wrong? Was there some point when I could have done this instead of that and kept the whole mess from happening?” The truth is, children develop in a particular way because of a multitude of factors, including inborn temperament, the circumstances in which they grew up, the social climate and times in which they live, their families, and more.

Mothers most often take the blame, the unbearable pain, and the guilt on themselves, while fathers and experts have often supported and intensified the mother’s own self-criticism. Says one psychotherapist, “There’s been a conspiracy in psychiatry, ‘Hang the mother,’ It’s our version of witch hunting.”

In recent years, a more realistic attitude has been taking hold, with the realization that fathers, too, have an enormous impact. Fathers are now routinely invited into delivery rooms to hold their newborn babies and bond with them. They are also being criticized for focusing their energies on their careers and neglecting their children’s need for emotional as well as financial support.

Despite heroic efforts, all any parent can be is what a Long Island social worker, echoing the English psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott, calls “good enough.” He says, “We all make mistakes.” A father put it more bluntly: “I screwed up as a parent and I did my best,” No matter how hard we try, at times, nothing seems to help. When our children are infants, we do our best to protect them from falling downstairs or touching a hot stove. But as they get older, our protective shield becomes less effective. Our children hook up with the wrong friends, are hurt by life’s ordinary blows, and even run away or try suicide. We feel helpless and sad when they meet the world on their own and fail—by our standards and by theirs, too. Religion can be a steadying force. If you are a person with strong religious convictions, you certainly should turn to your clergyman for guidance or rededication to your faith. Belief in a “higher power” is very much a part of recovery for some people. Prayer alone cannot be counted on, but it can certainly hold out hope and comfort.

Instead of assigning blame, a parent has to have the courage to say to a child, “Something did go wrong—mistakes were made and you were hurt. But we didn’t intend this to happen, and we are all victims of forces that we’re unaware of and can’t control.” It isn’t helpful to beat yourself with what a mother called the “if only” whip—“If only I had stayed home more.” “If only my husband hadn’t lost his temper so often.” “If only we had gotten her into treatment the minute we suspected.”

Yet it is only natural that you should feel disappointed in your child and in yourself when things don’t go smoothly. The mother of a twenty-two-year-old man says, “I couldn’t understand what had happened to me and to my child, who was so full of promise. He was such a great little kid.” Youngsters who start using drugs are not all failures; some are honor students and star athletes, so the loss of what might have been is stunning. The discrepancy is often beyond understanding.

When a child becomes deeply involved with alcohol and drugs, parents go through a period of mourning for what was and what could have been. “I look at old pictures, old letters, and cry for the child he was,” said the mother of a heroin addict. “The loss of the dream is a horror.”

Sometimes the dream is only deferred until recovery moves life back into its earlier pattern. But sometimes the child will never fulfill that early promise. “Nothing can be more hurtful than to see a child going through this,” says one mother. “Something in me thought it was just a stage and how would be a normal kid again. The irrational part of me still thinks he will come out of it. But then I realize he will always be damaged.”

“I felt so horrible,” the father of a boy who had used “The whole smorgasbord of drugs” recalls, “that I wished he would die somehow and we could bury him and avoid the shame and struggle of having to deal with it. I guess that’s what you call guilt.”