On Parenting

[debka_notion]

azpuchaz, aka my mom, on parenting: "Mothering and fathering are hard: you know you're fucking them up... And you do it anyway."

Comments

[thevortex.livejournal.com]

2 points for azpuchaz. Sadly, though, it isn't just parenting for which that is valid...(for example, see arib's lj)

The Vortex

[danablanks.livejournal.com]

Oy!
I seriously do fear for my kids though. I heard that the children of psychologists end up with issues. sigh.

[belu.livejournal.com]

I didn't know you had kids! Congratulations!

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Kids in general end up with issues- I'd doubt kids of psychologists really have more of them- probably just a slightly different assortment.

[jessebeller.livejournal.com]

yeah, i still like the old 'dentists kids have the worst teeth.'

then i met a girl whos dad was a dentist. she had really nice teeth.

[jessebeller.livejournal.com]

as thevortex implies
my first though was: thats a pretty fitting observation on live in genral

On fucking them up

[chaos1015.livejournal.com]

Well, as both a parent and therapist I have to disagree with azpuchaz and offer solace to danablanks. This idea of fat people become diet specialists and therefore children of (fill in the blank) somehow "get there kids" is the wonderful stuff of clinical vignettes, but not reality in general. I firmly believe that parents and children co-evolve, each creating themselves and the other. It is therefore easy for something to go wrong. However, the normally neurotic, and which of us isn't, especially if otherwise healthy and with a similarly healthy spouse, generally self-correct (as all complex adaptive systems do) to approximate some generally conceived of sense of normalcy in their offspring. In fact, I would argue that more often than not, specialists do a better than average job in their area, and it is the exceptions that get noticed and underlined, in some sort of hideous need to find fault with "specialists". Anyway, I heard a funny neurotic story today about an otherwise very successful and well adjusted uncle, the parent of 3 well-adjusted children. Seems he insists on loading his dishwasher with the utensils needing to be grouped by type in the machine. Another person loaded his dishwasher at the end of a party in an effort to help clean up. Unfortunately, he mixed the silverware up willy-nilly and was roundly criticized for not following appropriate protocol. Well, I digress, and therefore, end.