All humans see reality from their own conception - in fact, some philosophers think there may be no objective reality. For example, our conception of time: it seems to slow down or speed up according to memory encoding. If you're doing something boring, in retrospect it seems to go by in a blink of an eye because you're not recording much detail densely. Here's a video:
[bigthink.com]

Agree. I think that as adults we have the ability to change that narrative. It isn't easy though and it takes a lot of inner work, and most people don't want to go there. Most of us sort of manage in one way or another, until something happens to wake us up and/or we get tired enough of living a certain way. I've been going through a lot of this, both the wake-up calls and the getting tired part. It's really humbling to see parts of myself I'm not proud of.

Rebellious, if for good reason, I appeared to have turned against my parent’s worst traits early.. The oldest of four, I began to ‘protect’ my siblings. An adult, I made ..damn sure not to pass those negative traits on, but embellish the positive ones.

My parents, seemingly incapable of giving compliments.. had apparently talked over the holidays, concluding, I’d done a wonderful job of raising my daughters, and what impressive young women they’ve become. ...literally stopped me in my tracks.. and nearly tears me up.

I suspect everyone does their best. And had my parents not continued to mature, along with me, there’s all kinds of stuff I might blame on them. But having stayed united, we grew..

That depends . . . . at the age of 14, I swore to myself I would not be like my father, and we are indeed diametric opposites, we do not get along because I strongly disapprove of his behavior, and I even went so far as to change my last name . . . . he was a child abuser too, the way I look at it, if you become the same thing as a bastard like that, they have won. At the age of 14, I started to look for outside role models . . . teachers, authors . . . the whole family is for the most part a bunch of hillbillies, who are anti-cosmopolitan . . . me, I traveled all over hell on earth, learned several languages, and spend nearly all of my free time learning new things . . . the difference is night and day.

I suspect that in large part you have made an astute observation, but I suggest that it is not completely true for all. Some have come out of the dungeon of childhood without dragging along the parental chains. I can't tell you the moment, but I can tell you the month and year that I made the conscious decision that I would choose what I considered positive from my early years to carry forward and that most of that did not include what my parents had to offer. It was early January, 1948 (I had just turned 7 two months before) when I realized that there were far better role models to follow than what was offered at home.

Yes, that decision created considerable emotional turmoil and a lot of it was handled poorly, but that too was eventually overcome. I'm not sure all that was a matter of thinking things through, responding emotionally, or a combination of both, but I know that I bear little to no resemblance to my parents or grandparents who lived with us during those early years. I also made it a point to avoid squashing my children. It was a struggle because the tendency is quite strong to try to mold your progeny, but I think I was at least reasonably successful. I even have something of a testimony to that effect written by my youngest daughter. I prize that bit of writing highly because it was not just vindication of the effort spent, but it was a hell of an ego boost.

I know that as a parent I made mistakes along the way, and there have been some heated moments as well, but, all things considered, it appears to have turned out reasonably well. At least, I hope so.

I think for the most part, it is true...but I also think that as adults, once we recognize the childhood we had, we can choose to do as you are doing so well...change the things we don't like or no longer want in our lives...children have no choice, we do...it is worth the effort to edit and grow and not get bogged down too much in our childhood as an excuse for our adult lives...