Past

In the past in this blog I have said some things about my mother and that we do not talk and I like it that way.

While that is still true and I am not calling her anytime soon. I have been watching a new TV show and the family is a mess and the father a raging alcoholic. The children are all on their own, they are paying the bills and buying the food. I don't feel pity for them, but proud of them, they have been forced to be resourceful. I can see that people like that, when they grow up will not want for anything. They will know how to take care of themselves.


Isn't that what parents are supposed to teach? Isn't the purpose of having kids, to train them to responsible adults? Not to have them hanging around the house at 30 without a job and no motivation to get one.

I'm not suggesting that parents give kids a hard time just to see if they come out on top, but that self-esteem is not the most important thing. In recent surveys American kids are doing horrid in their studies, but all have great self-esteem. They don't know they stink at math. The Asian kids think they need to improve in their math, but have great scores. The insecurity is driving them to keep working, while the American kids are in denial.

What is interesting to me is that every once in a while these theory's come around. Be kind to your kids, don't keep score at games. It sounds a lot like the things Dr Spock said. Funny thing about that, he recanted on all of that later in life. He admitted he was wrong and he raised a generation of brats. No one listened to him when he said it wasn't a crime to discipline your children, all anyone remembers is if you spank your child it will stop them being the genus they should be.

My mother was hard on me and it did help me be a better disciplined person. The reason I am no longer close to her is that it did not stop, there was never a time when she said I did well. Trying to gain her approval was like chasing windmills. I had to leave that in the past.

In the present I can be happy that I am organized and that I am the person I want to be. Sure there are things I still need to work on, but for the most part I feel better about myself, compared to how my mother made me feel. I don't hate my past, I do try to draw on the good qualities it made in me.