End Corporal Punishment of Children

Where is corporal punishment of children illegal?

I am loathe to give the smug Swedes credit for anything, but there is this.  The United States is not on this list.  South Sudan, Congo, Guinea, and Zambia, yes absolutely, but not the US.

If you are over five feet tall and you find yourself beating another human being under, what, four feet tall, three feet tall, two feet tall? (pick for yourself), you should go to jail.

You belong in jail.

I could not care less what was acceptable for your parents.  Or your grandparents.  Or that times have changed.  There was a time when children were basically considered property.  None of these are sufficient arguments in favor of the practice.  My mother would not swat her dog on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper, but she had no problem beating her children.  Just imagine.

Parents strike their children for two reasons and two reasons only.  One because they are angry, and two, because they can (without consequence).  I have written previously on this topic.

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The Mental Health Divide

The family estrangement epidemic has unleashed a civil war in the mental health community



I never went down the therapy road.  Arguably, I should have decades ago.  But I did not.  Today, with family estrangement raging in the United States, what I see is that the mental health types tend to pick sides.  That is to say, some so-called professionals choose the parents with their we don't understand the problem attitudes.  And others choose the adult children and advocate for no contact.

In a way I am glad that I did not go into this system.  Of course it took me decades to arrive at and confront my own issues.  And alone, I have probably done this very late and rather poorly.  But I think it would have been counterproductive to have one of these all too common mental health professionals who take sides.  And let's be honest, these supposed professionals often bring their own issues to their clients' situations.

I noticed this early on when I started researching the topic.  Articles, books, videos, and even whole communities tended to come down on one side or the other.  This bifurcation did not really affect me as I read everything I could on both sides.  But today looking at the body of resources available, it is obvious, everything tends to be on one side or the other.

I would say, that's fine, as in a courtroom, the truth comes out in the adversarial nature of the process.  But in a courtroom, the jury hears both sides.  In this mental health conflict, it appears that each side only hears what it wants to hear.

Now I recognize that this may be limited to mental health midwits attempting to collect clicks and views on the internet.  I mean, we are not talking about Jordan Peterson or Steven Pinker here.  For the sake of general mental health and family dynamics, I certainly hope that is what is going on.  But it does seem pervasive.

Grok has more.

This cannot be good for families or for society.

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Mental Health and Estrangement

On differing sibling reactions to childhood experience

Last year I had a somewhat uncomfortable exchange with an older gentleman, concerning the growing family estrangement epidemic in the United States.  He said something like this:  If the parents have more than one child, I look to see how many of their adult children are estranged from them.  If it is only one, most often it is a mental health issue for that particular child.

I had to stop and think about this.  At the time, my response was:  If you are correct, what role did the parents have in the now adult child's mental health issues?  And was there some type of abuse that caused or contributed to these issues?

I am afraid that this was the end of our conversation.  But of course, this troubled me.  I have two siblings, and to my knowledge, both seem to get along with our parents just fine.

But we can see his argument:  If your siblings are not also estranged from your parents, most likely you are the problem.

But I would argue, using my family as the only example I have, that both the mental health issues suffered by adult children and the inflection point of an estrangement, are directly related to the degree of abuse they suffered as children.  Because I can promise you this, all three of my parents' children have suffered from mental health issues as a direct result of my parents' behavior and attitude when we were very young children.

So would the degree of abuse not explain the dichotomy?  I guess it is an open question.

My parents abused their children, all three of us, in several ways.  Primarily lack of concern for the development of self-esteem, and the never-ending and completely unnecessary beatings.

But, and I think this is the important point concerning my adult siblings and their relationship with my parents, my parents did become less awful in their role as time went by.

I have little doubt that my siblings just do not see it as bleakly as I do.  Simply because I was the oldest.  And their abuse was less consequential than my own.  Like so many, starting in my early twenties, I suffered depression and other problems that thereafter affected my every relationship and every endeavor.  And to be clear, I hold my parents directly responsible for this impairment and the damage it caused.

Now my parents and siblings may believe that this is merely an excuse for failure.  And perhaps they are correct.  While I cannot hold my parents, and the way they raised their children, responsible for my failures, I can credit them with giving me the prerequisites.

They can, and no doubt do, blame nature.  It is a convenient excuse which nicely displaces their responsibility.  It is a shameful excuse for their derelictions.  But whether or not nature played a significant role, in no way could it nor did it, outpace nurture.  Take some responsibility.

I am perfectly well aware that this sounds like an adolescent complaint.  And thus, I just lived with it for decades without a word about it.  But yes, now I am angry about it.

Unreasonable?  Unfair?  At one time not so long ago, I would have said yes.  But our now seven year estrangement has allowed me to reconsider my parents' behavior, the attitudes they had about their children, and the long term consequences.  Perhaps I can never be truly objective about it.  How could I be?  But the distance of estrangement has been clarifying.

The essays in this collection have been a sort of writing therapy for me.  And yes, I did have to weigh my parents' discomfort against my own salutary needs.  So did this process need to be public?  Yes, I think so.  My concerns would not otherwise be heard.  My guess is they are still not heard.  I accept that.  But I have no doubt that everyone involved knows they are here.  My concerns can be ignored or minimized, but they cannot be simply discarded or erased.

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The Narcissistic Appeal of Obsequious Children

When I was young, there was a type of parent, particularly in the south, who wanted nothing more than obsequious children.  These parents, and it was always the fathers, were easy to spot.  They were the ones who insisted, no demanded, that their children give them the Yes Sirs and the No Sirs, that more relaxed and confident, and most often more educated, parents knew to be unimportant, and in fact counterproductive.

What I noticed about these men is that they all seemed to come from low prestige, low education backgrounds.  They got little or no respect in their work and social lives.  The logger may get no respect from his colleagues, customers, banker, or wife.  But by God he could demand respect from his children.  And so he would.

As if genuine and legitimate respect can ever be demanded.  Real respect does not arrive with a feigned Sir.

This requirement also seemed big with formerly enlisted men of not the brightest variety.  As they were taught in the military, respect is given whether deserved or not.  These men were not smart enough to distinguish between respect for the rank, which is given, and respect for the man, which as always and as ever, must be earned.

My father was one of these men.  He was a bit different, as he was not in a low prestige job or social standing.  Though he did like to think of himself that way.  And certainly his cronies were; and he needed and wanted their respect.  This requirement was also big with my grandparents and my parents' siblings.

As an aside, my father once came into possession of an actual logging company.  One of the principals could not pay his bills, or some such, and my father ended up as one of the owners.  Thereafter he relished telling people that he was a logger.  Particularly on any formal application, he loved filling in employment with logger; rather than the attorney he was.  It gave him a man-of-the-people vibe that he so wanted to project.  It was both true and a complete fraud at the same time.  And he loved it.

So early on, my parents were big on the Yes Sirs and No Ma'ams.  It fit their view of themselves, and importantly, who they wanted to project themselves to be.  Far from the worst of their behavior, but quite telling about their attitude.  Their attitude about their children and their attitude about themselves.

This went on until I was ten or eleven, maybe as late as twelve.  I do not remember the exact age, but I absolutely remember the event that ended this nonsense.  We were visiting our neighbors; the husband was my father's business partner.  This was back when they were still partners, and friendly if not exactly friends.  And it just so happened that this couple also invited another set of their friends to this occasion.  I cannot remember if they were other friends or some of their family from out-of-town.  It doesn't matter for this story.

In any case, this other couple also had two or three children and the father, too, was big on this Yes Sir/No Sir business.  Except he took it to an extreme that made my own parents seem downright relaxed.  The guy was a Nazi.  These men, yes I have met others, are always so proud of themselves, and even more proud of their children's unreserved submissiveness in front of an audience.  Yeah, they love that.

And by the way, I'm sorry, but I just have to add:  How does a father insure this level of submissiveness from his children, in front of an audience?  Tell me?

I will tell you.  He beats them.  No exceptions.

Anyway, later, when we got home, I remember asking my father what he thought of this guy's parenting style, particularly all the Sirs?

Here let me just say that I am still surprised I asked, and even more surprised by my father's response.  He said, yes it did seem like he, this other father, was demanding a level of obsequiousness from his children.  Of course, I had to go look up the word.

Peak irony.

But after that the strict Yes Sirs and No Sirs came to an end.  It was obvious, even to my father, that this would not and could not produce the kind of children he wanted.  This was not for the elite college bound children he envisioned, but rather for future enlistees who would never make it past corporal.

Also this:  If you are demanding obsequiousness from your children there is something seriously wrong with you.  It is shameful.  You are welcome to demand respect however you see fit.  But I can promise you this, ultimately, you will have to earn it.

Instead perhaps, just act the part responsibly.

So I'm not letting my parents off the hook for this nonsense.  These were smart, highly educated people who should have known better.  And if they had bothered to give it any real thought at all, would have known better.  But they let their desire to impress their families and their contemporaries get the better of them.  And bonus, it fed their narcissism.  Even if the Sir was insincere, it demonstrated their absolute power.  And I guess they needed that.

It was only this event, this slap in the face, that broke the spell.

That is no way to be raising children.

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Thou Shall Not Be Left-Handed at the Dinner Table

Absolute control and domination

My brother is left-handed.  And when we were very young, before our parents thought that it was appropriate to teach table manners, he held his fork in his left hand.  As all left-handed people do.

But this, our father just could not abide.  So as our parents introduced table manners and etiquette more generally, one very strict rule was that we eat with our right hand.  Our father was absolutely fine if the kid was left-handed in every other way.  But by God, that kid was going to eat with his right hand.

And we were even given an explanation, of sorts, as to why this was so important.  You see, when my father was a boy, he and his brother sat next to each other at the dinner table.  And as his brother is also left-handed, the two of them banged elbows at every meal.

And in his wisdom, my father's solution to this intolerable problem, is that everyone must eat with his right hand.  Problem solved.

Well, it is problem solved if you do not mind being a tyrant.

It was only years later that I asked myself, I wonder why his parents, my grandparents, did not simply allow their two sons to switch seats?  In fact, why did they not insist on it?  Surely that would have been the simple solution, right?

Yet, not only did my grandparents not do this, but this solution was also lost on my father.  Can you just imagine?

So even today, my brother eats with his right hand.  And of course, at this point it is no big deal.  I'm sure his wife must think of it as a charming family idiosyncrasy.  But she will never know the coercion involved.

Anyway, the point of this decades old story is, why?  My parents are not stupid people.  There can be no doubt whatsoever that they knew the obvious solution of switching seats.  Same with my grandparents; they knew.

So why did they not have their two boys switch seats?  And a generation later, why did my parents insist on their children only eating with their right hand?

It would be different if we were talking about really stupid people.  Or perhaps superstitious people.  Or people with some silly long-held tradition.  But none of that, or anything like that, applies.  Surprisingly enough, they were not adhering to some ancient hadith of Muhammad.

No, this was a choice made by highly intelligent and educated people.  And one must ask why?

And the unfortunate answer is this:  Absolute control and domination.  You will do it my way or else.  Their mantra was:  Because I said so.  It was a power trip.  Can you imagine being so insecure that you forced your left-handed child to eat with his right hand in order to satisfy your own narcissism?

I can still see my brother, sitting there at the end of the table, with no one to his left.  Even now, all these decades later, I wish I had the courage to say:  The kid is left-handed; leave him alone, you absolute bully.  But I would have been beaten for such an outburst.

While this episode is far from the worst of my parents' behavior, it does illustrate a childhood dynamic between my brother and myself:  Thank God it is not me ...this time.  I can only wish that we had gone down a different path and been more supportive of each other.  Maybe we could have been close; maybe we would be friends today.  Same for my sister.

Here, for lack of a better place, I want to make two points concerning my siblings.  One, as the oldest, my memory extends further back than theirs.  And two, my parents did become relatively better (less awful) at the burden of childrearing as time went by.  That is to say, my siblings did not suffer as much as I did.  Thankfully.

Perhaps this explains their forgiveness.  I too forgave our parents for many years, so it is certainly understandable.  But the consequences of our parents' misbehavior have been unevenly distributed.  I never expected my siblings to follow my path; but I had hoped that they would acknowledge the reality of our childhood and at the very least affirm it.

I still hope for this.

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Reluctant Parents and Child Abuse

This is a follow-up to my previous post.  I just had a few more questions for Grok.

For people who do not really want children, or who are ambivalent about having children, why do they then have children anyway?

People who are genuinely strongly childfree, that is, I never want children, full stop, very rarely end up having them intentionally.  When it does happen despite that stance, it is usually due to extreme external overrides, contraception failure plus refusal/pressure against abortion, religious/cultural mandates that forbid contraception/abortion, or very controlling family/partner dynamics.

Far more commonly, the people who didn't really want kids / were ambivalent / weren't sure and then had them anyway fall into several overlapping categories. These are drawn from personal accounts, sociological patterns, psychological studies on parental regret, and common real-world reporting.

Here are the most frequent reasons:

1.  Partner pressure or relationship compromise

One partner, usually but not always the woman, is lukewarm/against, the other really wants kids, then the ambivalent/reluctant one concedes to keep the relationship/marriage.  Many people view having kids as a non-negotiable part of a lifelong partnership in their social circle.

2.  Accidental pregnancy plus it's too late to terminate

Contraception fails, they discover the pregnancy relatively late, or they go back and forth until past the point where abortion feels feasible, emotionally, legally, logistically, or morally for them.  Once the baby is born, abstract I don't want kids often turns into concrete love/attachment to this child.

3.  Societal/family/cultural/religious expectations

Strong pronatalist pressure:  You'll change your mind, Who will take care of you when you're old?, parents/grandparents begging for grandchildren, religious communities viewing childlessness as failure or sin, or simply it's just what people do.  Many people absorb this so deeply they override their own ambivalence.

4.  Ambivalence itself plus why not? reasoning

They are not strongly against children, they are neutral/fence-sitters.  Life progresses (stable job, house, age pressure, friends all having kids), so they think maybe it won't be so bad, everyone says it's different when it's yours, or I don't have a better plan for my life.  Biological clock anxiety or fear of future regret, What if I regret not having them?, often outweighs the current reluctance.

5.  Change of heart after the fact; sometimes genuine, sometimes post-hoc rationalization

A meaningful minority do report that once the child arrived, their feelings shifted dramatically and they became glad they did it.  Others say they love the child deeply but would not choose parenthood again if they could rewind.

6.  Lack of access to reliable long-term contraception or abortion

In many parts of the world, and increasingly in some U.S. states post-2022, people who would prefer to remain childfree simply cannot prevent pregnancy reliably over decades, or cannot safely terminate if it happens.

Regret rates among parents who were ambivalent or mildly opposed beforehand appear substantially higher than among those who actively wanted children from the start.  Studies and anonymous forums show recurring themes of burnout, loss of identity/autonomy, financial strain, and resentment, especially when external pressure, rather than internal desire, was the main driver.

In short:  Very few people who are truly certain they never want children end up as parents by choice.  Most of the cases you notice are people who were somewhere between meh and probably not rather than a hard no, and then life, love, pressure, accidents, or inertia tipped the scale.

Are the people who really did not want children, or even ambivalent about it, more likely to engage in child abuse?

Abusive Family Dynamics and Childhood Fear

Let's chat with Grok about child abuse

In families with abusive parents, is it common for the children, years later as adults, to have little or no relationship with each other?

Yes, it is quite common for adult children from families with abusive parents to end up with little or no relationship with their siblings, though it is not universal — some siblings become very close as allies against the abuse, while others drift apart or become fully estranged.

Several well-documented patterns explain why estrangement often happens in these families:

• Conflicting narratives about the abuse — Siblings may remember or interpret childhood events very differently.  One might recognize the parent's behavior as abusive and choose to distance themselves (or confront it), while another minimizes, denies, or rationalizes it to preserve a relationship with the parent.  This frequently leads to dueling family narratives, where parents encourage siding with them, pitting siblings against each other.  Research and clinical observations show this is a major driver of sibling estrangement, often as collateral damage when one sibling estranges from the abusive parent(s).
  
  
• Parental favoritism, scapegoating, or triangulation — Abusive or dysfunctional parents commonly favor one child, the golden child, while scapegoating another, or they triangulate by playing siblings off each other for control.  This breeds resentment, jealousy, and division that persists into adulthood.  Favoritism is repeatedly cited as one of the top causes of adult sibling estrangement.
  
  
• Trauma responses and coping differences — Growing up with abuse can lead siblings to adopt different survival strategies.  Some become enmeshed with the parent or repeat dysfunctional patterns, while others seek healing and distance themselves from anything reminiscent of the toxic environment — including siblings who remain tied to it.  This can result in emotional disconnection, even without overt conflict.
  
  
• Ripple effects from parent-child estrangement — Many cases of sibling estrangement stem indirectly from an adult child cutting off, or being cut off by, an abusive parent.  The sibling who maintains contact with the parent may feel pressured to align against the one who left, or loyalty conflicts make ongoing contact too painful.

Broader context shows family estrangement, including siblings, affects a significant portion of people — some surveys suggest around 27% of Americans are estranged from at least one relative — and abuse or severe dysfunction is a frequent underlying factor.  In abusive homes, sibling bonds can be complicated by additional layers like sibling abuse, which is surprisingly common and often overlooked, or simply the lack of a healthy model for conflict resolution and emotional support.

That said, it is not inevitable.  In some families, siblings bond tightly over shared survival and remain supportive into adulthood.  Outcomes depend on factors like birth order, personality differences, the severity/type of abuse, and whether any siblings pursue therapy or recovery work.

Regarding "Conflicting narratives about the abuse" is the problem that different siblings deny the abuse or is it that they deny the long term effects of the abuse?  Also, what about the problem that one sibling may have been abused more than others?

The Satisfaction of Estrangement

Wallowing contentedly in our self-indulgent satisfaction

Even if estrangement is well-deserved, and I know it often is, no one is happy about it.  I have read hundreds of pieces on estrangement from all sides involved.  And I have been somewhat surprised to learn that it is a bit of an epidemic in the United States.  Which of course means that sometimes there are good reasons, but more often than not, the reasons are, what?  I suppose questionable.

But here's the thing, good or bad, there are always reasons.  No one up and decides, nope I'm done with the family, time to cut them off, for no reason.  And further, the estranged must believe that their reasons are unresolvable.

So we have estrangement.  And there are unresolvable issues behind it.  And we are not happy about it.  Of course we are not happy.  Losing your family is not a happy ordeal or ongoing experience.

But if we are only unhappy, we could and would attempt to fix it.  Why be unhappy?  Why be unhappy, when we can do A, B, and C, to make ourselves happy, or a least less unhappy.

So why don't we?

Because it is not the question of happiness that sustains and maintains estrangement; rather, it is satisfaction.  We may not be happy, but we are satisfied.  We are satisfied with the status quo because the status quo ante was so much worse and we see no hope for a different or new status.

And notice this, everyone involved is satisfied.  If there is but one involved person who is dissatisfied, that person will work for reconciliation.  They may do so openly, or they may do so discreetly.  But they will make the effort.  It is only satisfaction that inhibits this.

So estrangement is a state of unhappy satisfaction.  Personally, I think that is so much worse, and more hopeless, than mere unhappiness.

We are all wallowing contentedly in our own self-indulgent satisfaction.  Many of us lack introspection and self-reflection; the worst of us are smugly complacent about the whole thing.

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Parental Comportment

Be careful with children

If you cannot bring the necessary level of care and comportment to the mission and responsibility of raising children, best not to attempt it.

I really have no patience for anyone who says, Well times have changed.  Or parenting has changed.  This is just common sense.  If you do not want to behave properly with children, fine.  Just don't have them.

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Damage

Consigned to a solitary existence

Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime.

Thus far in my writings on this topic, I have focused on description and history.  For me, these writings have served as a sort of alternative therapy.  Long delayed and avoided, but finally engaged.  And they have helped me; the writing process has helped me.

But given the fact that I did not really start this journey of self-discovery until after the age of fifty, there were decades where the internalized and suppressed damage affected everything I touched.  Education, career, marriage, all other relationships, just everything.

Now, my family will argue that, with these writings, I have failed to take responsibility for my own actions and decisions.  Let me put that to rest here, in what I hope will be my final essay in this series.  Yes absolutely, I am responsible for my failures and shortcomings.  All of them.

I was unprepared and incomplete, and ultimately I am responsible for these shortcomings.  I should have and perhaps could have addressed this at a much earlier age.

I certainly could have distanced myself from my parents decades earlier.  It was a relationship that often appeared healthy and normal, but only because I forgave their past transgressions.  I thought that was the right thing to do.  I once read that becoming a healthy adult starts with forgiving your parents.  So I did that.  For more than thirty years.

It was a mistake.

In the long run, I struggled with the expected, my parents' expectations, which I never met, and they devalued me for it.  Their's was a conditional love.  The disapproval and disappointment and depreciation built up over the decades until it all inevitably burst.  By this time, I was fifty-two years old.

And that was just the start of my journey.  I still remember the date, Wednesday, 29 May 2019.  That was when, finally, belatedly, I asked...Why?  The writings in this collection have been my attempt to answer that question.  But by this age, the consequences were insurmountable.  So while my mental health has improved, I struggle everyday with the consequences.

I addressed the expected consequences in The Shadow, the very first essay in this collection.  It is the most important piece I have written on this topic, even though I have never been completely satisfied with it.  I never felt that it adequately captured the damage.

Maybe that is simply not possible.  I cannot fully elucidate the damage; it is just too bleak and depressing.  But my life today is a simmering synthesis of it all.  And today, my family looks down on me for my struggles and my failures.  My parents enjoy complete impunity for their unacknowledged derelictions.  As I have written previously, parental impunity is the hallmark of our family.

My siblings have shorter memories and benefited from marginally more reasonable parents.  This helped them meet the required parental expectations.  So their family unit remains intact.  Such as it is.

As a child I was consigned to a lifelong solitary existence.  And to this day, I struggle with depression and underdeveloped self-esteem and deeply-seated latent anger, and all of the failings I first described in The Shadow.  This is the answer to my Why.  These damages are still present, but at least today I recognize them for what they are and where they came from.  But they have cost me everything.

It was only after I began this journey that I was able to form just one altogether healthy relationship.  My wife's unconditional love sustains me.  It is all I have.  It is no exaggeration to say that she saved my life.  But my death would give my parents a final out.  They would say, as they surely do already, well he was always troubled.

No, I was not troubled.  I was damaged.

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Nails and Leaves

A short story

I remember once, in my early forties, I went to visit my parents, for the weekend.

This was before I was willing to admit what my father was.  I remember telling my sister, at some point, that our parents were terrible to their minor children, but decent to their adult children.  And pretty much, this was still my view that weekend.

There was nothing special about the time we spent together that weekend; I don't even remember it.  I only remember my departure.  I was gathering my things, loading them into the car.  My father was sort of waiting outside.  I come out, ready to go, and I find him picking up leaves in the front yard, one at a time.  No rake, no leaf bag, nothing.  Just one leaf and then another until he had a handful which he threw off to the side of the yard behind a retaining wall.

"Should I fetch you a rake?"  The garage was maybe twenty feet away.  He did not say anything.  We were waiting for my mother to come out to see me off.

Finally he said, "I once had a client..."  I don't remember the name he gave, but it was a name I had heard before.  So for the sake of this story, let's call him Charles Smith.

He continued, "Charlie once told me about an afternoon when he was visiting one of his construction projects."  It seemed Charles Smith was an extremely wealthy, self-made man with a portfolio of real estate assets.

Anyway, Charlie was visiting a construction site, and the workmen were finishing up for the day.

But Charlie was lost in thought, and one of the younger workmen, says to him:  "Mr. Smith, there's really no need for you to be picking up nails like that.  You are a busy and wealthy man, surely you know that we'll take care of that for you."

Now remember, I am standing in my father's driveway and he is in the front yard picking up leaves, one at a time, while he is telling me this story.

He continues, "Charlie only smiled at the young worker, but did not say anything."

It was only later when recounting this story to my father that Charlie added, "You know Reuben," my father was also Reuben...

"I just knew that the young man could never understand my thoughts."  Charlie was, after all, an intellectual, a man of the world, and very successful, and the young worker was just a young worker.  So while Charlie was picking up nails, one at a time, he was lost in thoughts only God knows.

The point is, Charlie did not want to explain this to the worker, maybe even could not explain, or maybe even thought that the young worker had no thoughts of his own.  Certainly nothing of substance.  In any case, the young worker could never understand a man like Charlie.  Obviously not.

But lost in his own ruminations, I doubt Charlie thought about any of this in the moment.  I would guess it was sometime later that he considered his encounter with the young worker.  Maybe only when he shared the story with my father.

The young worker just saw an old man shuffling around picking up nails.  And reacted accordingly.  Charlie did not correct him.  Why bother?

I mean, what does Warren Buffett think about while he's out walking his dog?  And what do the rest of us think about?  The answer to the second question anyway is:  Something less.

Now some people are smart enough to realize that this is not necessarily true.  Buffett could be thinking that it's cold in Omaha and his dog has yet to do his business.  And others could be thinking about their recent cancer diagnosis.

There's a smugness at the heart of Charlie's thinking.  Yes, Warren Buffett may be thinking about what to do with his real estate sales empire in the age of a mature internet.  And the rest of us are probably not.  But we all have our concerns.

So we are standing there, my father and me.  And my father is picking up leaves, one at a time, and telling me this story about Charlie and the young worker who could never understand.  Charlie, it seems, had the good grace, not to share his thoughts about the young worker with the young worker.  If for no other reason, I don't believe that Charlie had yet had any thoughts about the worker.

But by picking up leaves, one at a time, and telling me Charlie's story, my father was simply putting his own smugness on full display for my benefit.  As if I, like the young worker, could never understand the vastness of a great man's thoughts.  And further, I could never understand why someone would busy themselves picking up nails or leaves, one at a time, while lost in such vast contemplations.

It would be another ten years before I finally cut ties with the man.  I still remember the day, it was a Wednesday afternoon, two days after Memorial Day.  By then I was in my early fifties, thirty years too late to have any sort of meaningful impact.  And what kind of impact was I looking to make anyway?

No, I cut contact because I was just tired of it.  I had had enough.

See, mistakenly, I had forgiven my parents for the childhood abuse, and their active and willing, and ultimately successful, attempts to rob me of my self-esteem, at the age when it really matters.  The beatings and the humiliations.  And the shadow this casts over a lifetime; the depression.  It was unearned forgiveness; forgiveness without responsibility or remorse.  Because no one wants to lose their family.

But that smugness, that is what finally ended our relationship.  To return to that weekend's departure, was my father pondering some great question?  Or was he simply thinking about a quirky story one of his wealthy clients told him about distractedly picking up nails?  I will never know, but Charlie's understated hubris would have appealed to my father.

So at that late date, ten years after that weekend and one month short of my fifty-second birthday, I was finally willing to admit what my father was:  A smug brute who fancied himself an intellectual.

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Six Rules for Parents

Articles on parenting often include rules for children.  That's fine, and so they should.  But here's a list of rules for parents.  These are absolute.

1. If you do not want children, do not have children.  Think about this in advance.
   
   This is the first rule of parenting and is far and away the most important.  It is certainly the most important rule my own parents ever taught me.  The problem here is that most people do not think about this in advance.  Ask yourself two questions:  Do I want children?  And, what kind of parent would I be?  Do be honest.
   
   
   
2. Do not hit your children.  Do not even think about beating them.
   
   If you would not swat a dog, how can you believe that beating a child is okay?  This is baffling to me.
   
   
   
3. Self-esteem is a vital part of a child's development.  If you disregard self-esteem, it is the worst form of child abuse.
   
   Parents who place self-esteem above all else are misguided.  But parents who completely disregard self-esteem do not attend to the most basic responsibilities of parenting:  Raising strong, productive, and mentally and emotionally healthy adults-in-the-making.  These people have no business raising children at all.
   
   
   
4. Do not have children to serve your own vanity.
   
   Your children are not a scorecard.  If you seek some form of reputational advantage for yourself because of the accomplishments or behavior of your children, you are not doing your job.  Further, see number two; but if you beat your children in front of others, in order to maintain or enhance your reputation, you are a monster.
   
   
   
5. In the age-old debate between nature and nurture, a parent should take the position that everything is nurture.  Short of physical illness, you are responsible for everything.
   
   Parents let themselves off the hook by blaming nature.  Take responsibility.
   
   
   
6. If your children fail to live up to your expectations, you are one hundred percent responsible for this failure.
   
   There is no room for debate on this.  Either your expectations were misguided or you failed to provide your child with the proper tools to meet those expectations, or both.  Maybe you even hindered your child's success by violating the above rules?

I think this list is particularly relevant for parents who have estranged children.  Before you blame your child or external factors, you should ask yourself:  Did I violate one or more of these rules?  And even if you disagree with these rules, as irresponsible parents most certainly will, you should still ask this question.  It might shed some light on your situation.

Now a list of rules for parents could be endless.  But every additional rule that comes to mind seems to be derivative of one or more of these six.

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How to Break a Seven-Year-Old

It's time to talk about Pascal

Round about the time I was twelve or thirteen, my parents decided that it would be a good experience, for our family, to have a foreign exchange student come live with us for a year.  And since we three children were all relatively young, they selected a much older, eighteen-year-old, recent high school graduate from Belgium.  He would attend our local high school and simply repeat his senior year.

Now for myself and my younger brother, age eleven, having an eighteen-year-old in the house was a new and exciting experience.  He was older and foreign and cool, and we pretty much worshiped the kid.  Well you would at that age, right?

However, our seven-year-old sister had a vastly different experience.

The problem was really two fold.  First, my sister was a bit chubby and struggled with her self-esteem.  This problem was heightened by the fact that my parents did not give two cents about the self-esteem of their children.  They never did.

Second, this eighteen-year-old was an arrogant narcissist of the most cruel sort, and he mocked and belittled our sister at every chance he got.  This, in itself, was a problem, but it was not the problem.  No, the actual problem was that our parents never, not once, put a stop to it.  You know basic stuff, for instance:  Pascal, we do not speak to nor about a member of this family in such a way.

And the kid was relentless.  Looking back on it, the proper course of action would have been to stop it, and if it could not be stopped, to send him home.  This should have taken mere weeks.

But this was not done.  In fact, nothing was done.  So our sister suffered this bullying from within her own family for a year.  And I think it is only fair to confess, that eleven and thirteen-year-old boys will mimic whatever an eighteen-year-old does in their house.  So instead of contending with just one bully, my sister had to live with three of us.

Now, my brother and I were no where near as bad as Pascal.  We knew our parents would step in if we were.  But we were bad enough, and I'm sure my sister would say we, the three of us, were all the same.  Remember, she was seven.

I don't think my sister ever got over it.  Maybe she has, but we have never discussed it.  But what I know for sure, is that we have never had a good relationship.  Sometimes it has been better than others.  But it has never been normal.

As smart as she is, one mistake my sister has made over the years is that she has always blamed the eighteen-year-old and the thirteen-year-old and the eleven-year-old.  And I'm very sorry for the part I played in this.  But to my knowledge she has never held my parents accountable for their inaction.  Parental impunity has always been the hallmark of our family.  This is their legacy and our long term tragedy.

In any case, my abnormal relationship with my sister is not one hundred percent Pascal's fault.  I would say, perhaps not even mostly his fault.  It primarily stems from the way my parents raised their children.  In an abusive family, the kids either come together, fiercely loyal to one another, or they become divided.  For us, it was the latter.

My theory is that when an abused child is not the current target of abuse, he cannot help but be relieved.  That is, if abuse is bad enough, a young child is simply grateful that it is not him...this time.  It becomes every kid for himself.  This degrades trust, and does nothing for long term family cohesion.

Pascal just fueled this preexisting dynamic.  But he was a monster, and it was something else our sister had to endure.

The internet reports that he died during early Covid.  Naturally, no one in my family shared this with me, even though he died over four years ago.  So-called experts speciously advise estranged families to cut all lines of communication and information; one is simply in or one is out.  This is the choice they have made, as if I am the one responsible for our estrangement.  Somehow they seem to believe that they hold the moral high ground, when I have done nothing but recoil from their behavior.

Anyway, I learned about Pascal's death yesterday.  At the time of his death, he was fifty-nine years old.

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Thanks for Letting Me Know

A short story

The phone rings, which is somewhat strange because no one calls me these days.  It takes me a minute to realize that it is actually the phone making the noise.

I answer:  “Yes?”

“Hey man.”  I hear my brother’s voice.  I have not spoken with my brother in years, so this can only be bad news.

We’re long past small talk.  “Mom died this morning.”  He tells me.

He had emailed me a year earlier, telling me that she had developed some type of cancer.  Then he would occasionally email me one-line updates, but that stopped after a couple of months.

I remember the last time I saw my mother, the year before that.  And the last thing she said to me was that she loved me.  They had come to see me for some reason or other, but did not stay long because they could feel how unwelcome they were.  My father did not say a word the whole time.

Other than that extremely brief visit, I had not seen them for three years.  Not since they had asked me to help them with a house they wanted to buy.  During their long search, they had asked for my advice and I gave them the best counsel I could from a distance.  But the house they ultimately selected was only about forty minutes from me, and I could actually get involved.  I did not seek out involvement in this affair; they asked for my help.

It did not go well.  Oh they got the house and all.  But they behaved shamefully.  Mind you, not towards the seller.  No, shamefully towards me.  I will spare you all the gory details.  But the worst of it was that they decided to put the house under contract for cash, when in fact they did not have the cash available.  That's bad enough.  But they blamed me for the consequences of this bad decision.

Well, that's not actually the worst of it.  The worst of it was their attitude, which was belligerent and condescending all the way through.  Venomous is a better word.  As if I was the one preventing them from doing what they wanted, however irrational it may have been.  Had they not been my parents, I would have withdrawn from the transaction.  As it was, I felt an obligation to see them into the home they wanted.  So that is what I did.

It only cost whatever was left of our relationship.

About three weeks after they closed on the property, they showed up at my house – Uninvited, unannounced, and unapologetic.  I think their goal was to put the bad blood behind us and simply move on.  But there was no explanation and no apology.  Nothing of the sort.  When I complained about their attitude and behavior, all I got was, We’re sorry you feel that way.  That was my mother.  Again, my father did not say a word.

But I was having none of it.  By this time, I did not need an explanation.  I knew who they were.  My parents, with typical self-righteous impunity, tied their supposed love (well, our relationship anyway) to their irrational expectations, including my acceptance of their betrayals and their lies, and of their sheer nastiness and spitefulness and venom.  That is who they were.  That is who they always have been.

Sure my parents loved me.  But it was a conditional type of love.  Conditional on what?  Well, whatever it was they expected at the time.  And if I did not meet their expectations, well there was a price to be paid.  There was always a transaction on the table.

But by this time, I had the strength, or rather the experience, to say:  Oh no you don’t.

You see, by the time they bought that house, I knew unconditional love, belated though it may have been.  I had met someone who would later become my wife.  And in my mid-forties, she became the first person in my life to love me unconditionally.  And now that I had experienced unconditional love, I simply would not tolerate anything less.  Certainly not from people who happened to be my parents.

The effect was explosive.

I had to accept my parent’s conduct and bad faith for what it was:  A termination of our relationship.  No doubt, they would argue that it was not a termination because they still wanted to fix it.  My mother even said:  You may have given up on us, but we've not given up on you.  But words are easy.  There is a level of maltreatment that indicates that you no longer value a relationship and that you have no expectation nor desire to maintain it into the future.

Let me say that again:  There is a level of maltreatment that indicates that you no longer value a relationship and that you have no expectation nor desire to maintain it into the future.

Surely we, all of us, can expect some minimum level of goodwill and behavior.  We owe this to ourselves.  So I just decided that it was time to make their decisions irrevocable.

That was very difficult for me.  But conditional love is all they knew and all they were capable of.

And for my parents?  Well they have other children.  And their own comforting self-righteousness.

Now my parents love their other children conditionally as well.  Like I said, it is the only kind of love they know.  But my siblings are more willing to indulge it than I am.  And no doubt it helps that they have certainly done a better job at meeting parental expectations.

Without my wife, I would still be trying, and failing, to meet their expectations... their conditions.

The transaction on the table.

Their table.

So my wife and I crafted a new table.  And around our table, there is only unconditional love.

A Father's Contempt

What kind of father has contempt for his children?

Contempt, thy name is father.

From the very first post in this series, I have struggled mightily to understand.  To answer the question:  What kind of parents treat their children this way?

I am still struggling with it.  But at this point, I think it comes down to contempt.  Sheer contempt.

My father always had contempt for his children.  And I do not mean for his adult children, although, at least in my case, that certainly followed.  No, I mean he had contempt for his children from the day they were born.  Sounds crazy I know, but I think it sprang from contempt for neediness and the burden he was forced to bear.  Which of course begs the question:  Why have children at all?  Children are so obstreperous.  And ever so needy.  Burdensome.  Expensive.  Whiny.  Smelly.  And embarrassing.  It's all just so...contemptible.

Later, I think he had contempt for his children's affluence.  Ironic of course because he was the source of it.  But I think he was contemptuous of what we had and how we lived...I suppose compared to what he did not have at our age.  Most parents want to give their children a better life than they themselves had.  My father never suffered from this delusion.

Finally and most importantly, I think he was contemptuous that his children did not measure up to the standards of his vanity.  Certainly I never have.  He's never been one to brag about his children.  But when asked about them, vanity demands that he is able to outdistance and/or outclass the accomplishments of his interlocutor's children.  I suppose it's a pre-digital form of humblebragging.  But even if not asked, he wants to feel superior.  He's perfectly happy to be quietly superior.  In any case, this contempt continues to this day.

The real irony here is that if you want your children to excel in this way, in a way that truly allows you to feel smugly superior, if that is what you need and what your vanity demands, you must first, and always, treat them well.  Responsibly.  If you do, your children are as human as anyone else, and they may still disappoint you.  But if you treat them badly, they will struggle and most likely let you down.  This is no one's fault but your own.  And your contempt is misplaced.

Imagine what it might mean for children if their father holds them in contempt.  Little kids.  And later adolescents.  Of course, if you hold something or someone in contempt, it allows you to justify and excuse any of your own bad behavior towards them.  In the extreme, you don't even recognize it has bad behavior.  Simply put:  Contempt gives you license to treat someone badly.  If you add lack of consequence, you have a recipe for real damage.

And imagine the damage.  The physical and emotional abuse.  While the physical abuse quickly heals, the emotional damage lasts a lifetime.  Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime.

But that is perfectly okay because they're contemptible.  Contempt justifies bad attitude and behavior which yields failure and disappointment which produces yet more contempt.  My parents produced three emotionally damaged, even broken, children.  Who later, naturally, became emotionally damaged adults.

And my parents could not care less.  They take no responsibility for the damage.  They were entitled to their attitude and conduct.  Even today, they retain their self-righteous impunity.

Contempt allows for it.

In fact, I think it is only contempt that makes this possible.

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The Waiter Rule

In the last twenty years much has been written about the Waiter Rule.  I have mentioned it in at least one previous post.

Let's state it here:

If someone is nice to you but rude to the waiter, they are not a nice person.

Or more formally:  One's true character can be gleaned from how one treats staff or service workers, such as a waiter.  This is so obvious that I simply don't have anything further to say about it.  But if you are interested, have a look at the above Google search.  Or read this management article from USA Today in 2006.

My father is horrible with wait staff.  Always has been.  For many years my mother indulged him, tolerating his completely unnecessary rudeness.  But even she got to the point where she could not take it.  These days, she will not allow him to even deal with wait staff or pay the bill.  But it took decades.

If you put the question to him, and I have, he would say that in a restaurant, the only way the customer has to deal with bad service is through his interaction with the waiter.  Whether it is within the waiter's control or not, this is the customer's only recourse.

If you choose to skip dealing with the manager, I guess this seems logical.  But it is a lie.  My father never chose to deal with the manager.  No, the reason my father treats wait staff so shabbily is that he is simply not a nice person.  He's mean and miserly.  If left to him, he will gladly leave a zero tip on each and every occasion.  This business of bad service is merely an excuse.  Believe you me, he'll find some bad service.

This became clear to me in my twenties.  I was having dinner with a middle aged couple.  The man's silverware, on the table when we arrived, had not been properly washed.  However this might have happened, once he noticed this, he simply and gently asked the waiter for a new set.  This seems totally innocuous and of course it was.  But it made a huge impression on me.  Further, he went on to treat the wait staff with tremendous respect and left a generous tip.

I knew immediately and devastatingly that I had been raised improperly.

Imagine that feeling.

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Cheap Elevated to Cruel

What kind of mother does not buy milk for her children?

She would have to be desperately poor, right?

She would first have to sell the house.  And then the furniture.  And then her wedding band.

She would demand that her husband buy milk; or threaten to divorce him, taking the children, and filing for alimony and child support.

Wouldn't she?

Or...she could make the entirely reasonable decision to not have children.  Perhaps she cannot afford children.  Or perhaps she does not want children.  Either way, the decision to have children is just that – a choice.  And if you make the decision to have children, at the same time you make the decision to take care of them properly.

Or...she may not give any thought whatsoever to whether she wants children, or whether she is well-suited to parenthood.  She certainly does not consider whether the man she married, a truly angry and contemptuous soul, would make a good father to her children.

Ultimately she has children per customary expectations, and perhaps for her own selfish vanity.  Certainly for her husband's vanity.  And yet she decides that providing milk for them to drink is a bridge too far.  An expense she is unwilling to bear.

When I was a kid, there was always beer and wine and Scotch whiskey in the house.  But there was never any milk.  This was not neglect; it was a conscious decision.  It was simple and genuine miserliness.

It was cheapness elevated to cruelty.

By any standard, my parents were incredibly affluent...

I am five feet six inches tall.

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The Transaction on the Table

Finding Unconditional Love After Forty and the Explosive Outcome

I met Mira in 2011.  We fell in love.  Nothing unusual about that.  I will save our story for another post, but the experience was new for me.

Prior to Mira, the people who "loved" me, loved me conditionally.  You might even call it transactional love.  But I think most people understand it as conditional love.  If they think about it in those terms.  And of course, most do not.  But most people do understand unconditional love.  And because of that, they can infer what conditional love must be.

Of course, it's not really love at all, is it?

Anyway, conditional love was all I had known.  This certainly includes my parents and later friends and girlfriends and later still my ex-wife.  Yes, they all supposedly loved me.  But there can be no mistake about it, it was conditional.  Conditional on what?  Well, whatever it was they expected.  And if I did not meet their expectations, well there was a price to be paid.

After all, there was a transaction on the table.

So Mira was the first person, ever, to love me unconditionally.  And this experience, this continuing experience, gave me the strength to say to all the others, primarily my parents:  No more.

See, now that I have experienced unconditional love, now that I know what real love is, I will not tolerate anything less.  It is sad that it took me so long to get here, but there it is.

Several years later, my parents, with typical impunity, tied their supposed love (well, our relationship anyway) to their irrational expectations, including my acceptance of their betrayals and their lies, and of their sheer nastiness and spitefulness and venom.  But by this time, I had the strength, or rather the experience, to say:  Oh no you don't.

The effect was explosive.

So be it.

I belatedly accepted their conduct and bad faith for what it was:  A termination of our relationship.  Which has been very hard for me.  I still have trouble dealing with it.  But for my parents?  Well, they have other children.  And their own self-righteousness.

Now my parents love their other children conditionally as well.  It is the only kind of love they know.  But I guess my siblings are more willing to tolerate it than I am.  And no doubt it helps that they have certainly done a better job at meeting parental expectations.

Me, I have always been a bit of a black sheep.  Even more so after depression set in almost immediately after completing college.  Thirty years later, I am finally coming to understand it all.

But without Mira, I would still be trying, and failing, to meet their expectations... their conditions.

The transaction on the table.

Their table.

So I crafted a new table.  And around my table, there is only unconditional love.

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