Are Our Parents Our Gods?

The Architects of Our Universe

The Architects of Our Universe

When you are a child, your parents are gods. Not in the metaphorical sense, not in the poetic, but in the absolute. They shape your universe—its laws, its limitations, its possibilities. If they say the sky is blue, you believe it. If they say the neighbor is dangerous, you believe it. If they say money is evil, education is salvation, or that certain people are lesser, you believe it. How could you not?

A child does not see suggestion—only fact. Parents dictate what is possible, what is valuable, what is worthy of fear or pursuit. They hand you a deck of cards—your genes, your upbringing, your inherited biases, your opportunities or lack thereof. You don’t choose the deck, but you do choose how to play. And yet, the deck is stacked.

Some parents shape their children in the form of their own fears. Others push them toward the futures they were denied. Some, bitter and lost, hold their children back to keep them close. It doesn’t matter if they were kind or cruel, wise or clueless—their influence is inescapable. Even rebellion is a reaction to their laws. Running from them is still living by them.

As we grow, parents are meant to transition from gods to advisors. Some do. They step back, treating their children as independent beings, free to chart their own course. But many never relinquish their divine status. They cling to their power, demanding obedience, treating their children as property, extensions of themselves, puppets with tangled strings.

And when these gods die, or fade into irrelevance, we seek new ones. Some turn to religion, searching for a sky daddy to replace the earthly ones who failed them. Others worship money, convinced it is the key to control. Some chase sex, love, validation, filling the parental void with the warmth of a thousand fleeting touches. Others bow at the altar of accomplishment, believing that if they achieve enough, they will finally be worthy.

We enter the world with empty minds. We see shapes and colors. We hear sounds. We sense warmth and hunger. We cry for attention. Our first gods appear enormous. They provide love, shelter, instruction. They warn of danger. They promise safety. We, small and impressionable, trust every decree they set forth.

Yet behind that divine facade, parents grope in the dark. They shuffle through beliefs, moral codes, prejudices—half-inherited, half-invented. They guess. They mimic their own parents. They mirror culture, tradition. Some want us to be unstoppable forces. Others desire obedience. Many pass along harmful doctrines, unaware of their lasting effects.

Psychologists have long studied this process. John Bowlby’s attachment theory explains how children rely on caregivers for safety. Albert Bandura’s social learning theory shows how we mimic parental behavior before we even have words to question it. Sigmund Freud argued that parents leave a psychic imprint, shaping how we understand authority, love, discipline, guilt. Jean Piaget observed how children see authority as absolute before they develop the ability to challenge it. Carl Jung believed parents occupy mythic roles in the unconscious, shaping how we later perceive teachers, bosses, political leaders, even gods.

This psychological web underscores one reality: parents wield immense power. They name us. They choose our religion, our traditions, our schools. They plant the first seeds of prejudice or compassion. They tell us which truths to hold sacred. Their biases become our first biases. Their comforts become our first nest. Their fears become our earliest nightmares.

Each child is handed a deck. Biology, culture, environment, economic status, health, temperament—it’s all preselected. Some get favorable conditions—wealth, stability, education. Others draw poverty, violence, neglect. The gods appear either benevolent or punitive. And from that deck, we play the game.

A father might insist that formal education is the key to success. Another might sneer at academia, worshiping trade skills. A mother might preach pacifism. Another might teach that strength is survival. A child absorbs these truths as cosmic law, rarely questioning them—until exposure to the outside world forces a reckoning.

Religion often comes bundled with parental authority. A child sees a parent kneeling in prayer and assumes the ritual is absolute truth. Even if the child drifts from that faith as an adult, the imprint lingers. They might replace God with money, success, pleasure—but the parental structure remains. We often seek new gods after our parents lose their hold.

Comedian George Carlin once joked that people worship different gods—some the sun, some a father in the clouds, some money or power. The parental role sets that pattern early. A mother becomes the nurturing goddess. A father becomes the all-knowing lawgiver. Or vice versa. The moment that power fades, we seek a substitute.

Some parents never step down from Olympus. They cling to control, treating their adult children as permanent dependents. They meddle in decisions, demand conformity, refuse to acknowledge growth. They want worship. They do not want equals. And this breeds conflict. The child seeks autonomy. The parent resists.

But some parents get it right. They transition from gods to guides. They let go. They become observers, cheering from the sidelines, allowing their children to stumble and grow. These are the parents whose children still seek their counsel—not because they must, but because they trust.

And when parents die, their children scramble for new gods. The old guardians vanish, leaving a void. Some fill it with faith. Some with wealth. Some with validation. We search for something to anchor us, something to assure us that we are still being watched over, that someone still holds the cosmic blueprint.

Many never escape childhood conditioning. The voice of the parent lingers. A mother who shamed emotions leaves a son who cannot cry. A father who worshiped money raises a daughter who never feels rich enough. Parental doctrine shapes adult identity, often in ways we fail to recognize.

Even when we reject our parents’ beliefs, we remain bound to them. Every rebellion references the original authority. We might adopt new values, forge fresh perspectives, but echoes of the past remain. In therapy, this is called reframing—the slow process of unlearning inherited scripts. It requires exposure to new ideas, conscious self-reflection, and often, painful realization.

Some never question their parents’ teachings. They swallow them whole and pass them to the next generation. Others dissect every lesson, deciding what to keep and what to discard. Those who choose to question must accept a painful truth: their childhood gods were flawed, fallible, human.

Each generation refines the script. Some children grow into parents who foster curiosity instead of obedience. Others repeat the patterns, unable to escape the gravitational pull of their own upbringing. But all parents, whether they admit it or not, remain gods to their children—at least for a time.

And that is the cruel joke. One day, we may become gods too. Our words will be law. Our fears will be our children’s shadows. Our wisdom—or our ignorance—will shape their reality.

The cycle continues.

We begin in the arms of gods. We learn they were human. We seek new divinities. Some embrace the chase. Others reject it. But in the end, we are all architects of the universe for someone smaller. The deck is stacked, but we play the hand. And one day, someone else will hold the cards.

The deck is stacked. We don’t get to shuffle it. But we do get to play the hand.

Further Reading

1. Bowlby, John. Attachment and Loss (1969)

2. Bandura, Albert. Social Learning Theory (1977)

3. Piaget, Jean. The Construction of Reality in the Child (1954)

4. Erikson, Erik H. Childhood and Society (1950)

5. Rogers, Carl. On Becoming a Person (1961)

6. Freud, Sigmund. The Ego and the Id (1923)

7. Jung, Carl. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (1959)

8. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish (1975)

URLs:

• Bowlby’s Attachment Theory Overview

• Bandura’s Social Learning Theory

• Piaget’s Cognitive Development

By Noel | Fowklaw