From Everyday Blessings, the Inner Work of Mindful Parenting, by Jon and Myla Kabbat-Zinn 

And just as in life itself, when faced with a range of family, social, and cultural pressures to conform to frequently unstated and unconscious norms, and with all the inherent stresses of caring for children, as parents we often find ourselves, in spite of our best intentions and our deep love for our children, running more or less on automatic pilot. To the extent that we are chronically preoccupied and invariable pressed for time, we may  be out of touch with the richness, what Thoreau called the "bloom," of the present moment. This moment may seem far too ordinary, routine, and fleeting to single out for attention. Living like this, it is easy to fall into a dreamy kind of automaticity as far as our parenting is concerned, believing that whatever we do will be okay as long as the basic love for our children and a desire for their well-being is there. We can rationalize such a view by telling ourselves that children are resilient creatures and that the little things that happen to them are just that, little things that may have no effect on them at all. Children cat take a lot, we tell ourselves. 

But as I am reminded time and time again when people recount their stories in our Stress Reduction Clinic and in mindfulness workshops and retreats around the country, for many people, childhood was a time of either frank of subtle betrayals, or one or both parents out of control to one degree of another, often raining down various combinations of unpredictable terror, violence, scorn, and meanness on their own children out of their own addictions, deep unhappiness, or ignorance. Sometimes, in the deepest of ironies, accompanying such terrible betrayals come protestations of parental love, making the situation even crazier and harder for the children to fathom... 

In our view, an automatic, unexamined, lowest-common-denominator approach to parenting, whether it manifests in overt violence or not, causes deep and frequently long-lasting harm to children and their developmental trajectories. Unconscious parenting also conspire to arrest our potential growth as parents as well. From such unconsciousness come, all too commonly, sadness, missed opportunities, hurt, resentment, blame, restricted and diminished views of self and the world, and ultimately, isolation and alienation on all sides. 

If we can remain awake to the challenges and the calling of parenthood, this does not have to happen,. On the contrary, we can use the occasions that arise with our children to break down the barriers in our own minds, to see more clearly into ourselves, and to be more effectively present for them.