Would you ever straight up say to your son, ‘You are a disappointment’?

  • scarabic@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Never. My son is a person I could never have imagined. I don’t see what relevance my expectations of him are to anyone or anything. I’m not sure I ever had any.

    Why should I? Our children are not products we purchased or objects we crafted. They are new beings coming into the universe under our care but for a while.

    You discharge that responsibility on their behalf. That’s it. Of course that means setting standards for them to meet, but even this discipline you do for their own sake. You don’t get expect them to be anything.

    That’s negotiating with fate - about as pointless as negotiating with death.