do they gloss over the truth?

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I recently posted some pictures on Facebook featuring my Mom & Dad; one of the reasons being to give her "new life" so to speak, as we lost her almost 8 years ago.

My Aunt commented on the photos and said "you turned out so great because you had such wonderful parents".

Every time I keep reading that, I think "you are kidding, right? We were financially screwed my entire childhood, my Mom was very mentally disturbed from her inner fight with Autism, and my Dad was/is a walking doormat, and came off extremely weak to my mom. I turned out great cause I decided not to repeat their mistakes, and make something of myself."

And yes, I've tried explaining these things to family before, but excuses are always made for my parents.

So tell me...is it normal for family to gloss over the reality of a situation, just to make everyone--of course save for us--look good?

Yep. NTs do it all the time.

Espcially for the dead.

I once told my father nobody else could have done a better job of raising me, but I was actually just trying to let him off the hook a bit by saying nobody else could have done any better. People "gloss things" for all kinds of reasons, I suppose. The thing that bothers me the most, however, is the accompanying fact of nobody seeming to ever want to learn from the past in order to try to make improvements for those who follow.

Is it normal for a family to gloss over the reality of a situation just to make everyone look good?
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Yes.

Families do it for free.

If one is a celebrity or a politician, then all of that is handled by well paid publicist hired to spin everything into a good yarn to make the celebrity or politician look good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publicist

There's a lot about our parents that we never know, and other people will assess strengths and weaknesses differently to us.

I think a critical facility is lacking, not just regarding themselves, but in most areas truth is hard to find.

Eulogies for the dead are a hoot