I Hope You (Fathers) Have a Happy Fathers' Day

I have theories about parenting.  A lot of people do.  But I have to actualize my theories.  There are two groups of people to whom my theories about parenting are important.  Those are my offspring and my patients.  If you're not my offspring, and you're not my patient, then you don't have to care what I think about parenting.

Both my offspring and my patients have heard my theories about parenting many times.  And here's my theory:  It is the job of children, from as soon as they're old enough to start doing their job, to become capable and independent, including independent of their parents.  It is the job of parents to permit, and even encourage, capacity and independence, including independence from parents, in their offspring .

Parents provide support and encouragement, and they set an example.  Parents who are doing their jobs as parents do not dominate or control, or leave their children with the impression that the children know nothing, and can't do anything, and only their parents are reliable.

This means that parents encourage their children to think through situations, consider various angles, and make their own decisions.  Parents permit, and even encourage, if reluctantly and with apprehension, their children to do things the parents wouldn't do.  They tolerate mistakes their children make, knowing, or even just assuming, that children will learn from their mistakes, just as the parents learned from theirs.  Parents watch children make mistakes the parents already made, and wouldn't make again, because children making, and learning from, their own mistakes is worth vastly more than relying on parents to tell them what to do.

And I tell parents, and "children" (most of whom are adults), that if they have no other way to think about this, they should realize that if everyone gets his and her wish, the offspring will outlive their parents.  If offspring are not capable and independent by then (when they're in their 40s, 50s, 60s, or maybe even 70s), they're in very deep trouble when their parents die.

The conspicuous, and legendary, times when children declare their independence are times like "the terrible twos," when two year olds rebel, refuse, and say no, and adolescence.  (This most definitely includes hearing from one's children that they hate their parents, who are the worst parents in the world, and certainly worse than their friends' parents.)  But children spend their childhoods (if we're good parents) establishing themselves and their autonomy, and figuring out what works best for them.    It's certainly not necessary to want, or hope, that children go in directions that are different from the directions their parents took, but inclinations and decisions like these should be welcomed and supported by the parents.  Sometimes, children's/offsprings' decisions to follow in the footsteps of one or another parent, in the same profession, and the same office/practice/firm, can appear adaptive and successful, but can camouflage a failure to be independent.  This can work, if it gives the adult offspring at least a fiscal basis for independence, but there's an unfulfilled component about it.

My offspring are very capable, and very independent, including independent of me.  So, I'm quite satisfied, and I pat myself on the back for having raised them the way I think they should be raised.  They don't need me, and they shouldn't.  (One will be 43 in two months, and the other is 40 1/2.  And the younger one is married and has two children of her own.)

I have said to my offspring, I say to my patients, and I will say to you, the day one's parents die should be a sad day.  It should not be a tragedy.  If it is, the parents failed.

So, I hope you succeeded, and if you did, and you're a father, Happy Father's Day.