Having established that your parents aren’t perfect – can’t possibly be perfect – it stands to reason that you can’t really blame them when they get things wrong. They’re doing their best.

Suppose someone told you that you had to – let’s say – run the national railway network.² No training. Just thrown in at the deep end. Do you reckon you’d get it right first time? Of course not. So why expect your mum and dad to get it right when they’re suddenly plunged into dealing with you? By the time they’ve got the hang of coping with babies, you’ve morphed into a toddler. Once they’re getting on top of that, you’re off to school. When that seems to be going OK, suddenly you’re turning into a teenager, which is a whole new parenting thing again.

What’s more, although you may have been only dimly aware of this growing up, they’ll also have been coping with their work, your siblings, their parents, family crises, money worries and all the rest of it. So, thinking about it, it’s not very reasonable to blame them for every mistake they made.

The thing about being a parent is that you don’t get a dummy run at it to find out if you’re suited. Babysitting other people’s children just doesn’t come close. So by the time you get a chance to see if you’re any good at it, you’re already committed. If it turns out not to be your thing, there’s sod all you can do about it. Of course most parents do a decent enough job despite this, but none of us gets it right all the time.

The important thing is to consider your parents’ intentions. If they’re doing the best job they can, if they have your interests at heart, if they love you, then you’ll have to settle for that. It’s more than some people get. As one parenting expert said, ‘As a parent, your job is simply to keep them alive until they can get help’. And as we saw in the last Rule, once you’re an adult, you don’t have to do what they say any more.

I do just want to say that there are some things you can blame your parents for, if you’re unlucky enough to have been on the receiving end. If your parents have treated you in ways that are against the law – physical, verbal, sexual or psychological abuse, criminal neglect – then you can blame them. Even so, if you can get to a place where you can nevertheless forgive them, try to do so. Not because they deserve it, but because you do.