Good Parents Myth

Feb 16th, 2005 10:55:02 pm - Subscribe
Mood: sane

Just because people have child/children doesn't automatically make them good or even adequate parents. Screwed up people will be screwed up parents, the biology of having a baby doesn't make people better, in fact it usually makes things worse. So let's quit pretending that motherhood or fatherhood automatically bestows wisdom and caring. It doesn't. And bad parenting remains bad parenting unless an effort is made to change old patterns. And how many people do you know will actually make that effort, especially if their lousy parents are still alive and interfere in order to ensure their crappy ways of parenting continue? Any change to the way "They did things as parents" is a direct threat to them. Lousy parents are lousy parents at 20 and at 70. Parents don't deserve respect by virtue of simply reproducing. Anybody can, and does, that. Parents and children both get respect from each other by earning it. Nobody is entitled.

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