"I was shouted at and I'm fine"

Most of us were. And most of us are fine, in the sense of having jobs and relationships and no obvious damage. The argument is that since you survived it, your children will, and the fuss about shouting is a modern indulgence.

I'd look at two things. What "fine" includes, and what was learned.

Start with what you remember. Not the shouting in general, which has blurred, but the particular times. The occasion your father lost it in the car. The thing your mother said on the stairs that you've never repeated to anyone. I'd guess you can picture them, forty years on, with the light and the words. Children don't remember the four hundred ordinary evenings. They remember the ones with a shout in them, and they remember them for good. That's what "fine" contains. It contains a small set of vivid scenes, each of which carries a lesson about what adults do when they're pushed.

Then look at what you learned, and I'll say what I think it was. You learned that the person you depended on could turn, briefly, into someone frightening. You learned to read a mood from a footstep. You learned that being asked nicely was optional and being shouted at was serious. And you learned, from watching, how a person gets what they want when they're at the end of their rope, which is that they shout. You're now doing it. That's not a coincidence, and it's not a character flaw. It's the lesson, learned well.

The NHS makes the point about smacking, that children learn by example, and if you hit your child you're telling them that hitting is acceptable. The same applies to shouting. A child who's shouted at when they don't comply learns that shouting is what you do when someone doesn't comply. You'll hear it in how they speak to a younger sibling. You may hear your own sentences.

None of this means you were damaged, or that your parents were bad. It means that "fine" is compatible with having learned some things you'd rather your children didn't learn, and that you've been passing them on in the normal way, which is by demonstration. The fact that you're reading this book suggests that you've noticed. That's the part of you that isn't fine with it, and I'd trust it.