Is disparaging parents a fashion in today's world?

Question

I have seen people competing with each other for hating their parents i.e. the one who hates them most is supposed to be "cool". Some of them are even ashamed to speak to their parents in front of others. Others proudly brag about how much they dislike their parents. I am not talking about kids but rather teens and people in their 20s.

This question is not about children who had a rough childhood or violent parents.

Answer 1

Ugh! I know what you mean! That can't be normal right? If you had a perfectly good childhood you hate your parents? My mom is one of my best friends, she and I are really close. (I'm in my 20's) And most my friends are similar, they have perfectly good relationships with their parents. But I hear all these twenty-somethings at work who just complain about their parents calling them or - God forbid - wanting to spend time with them!

And don't get me started on all the teenagers! "My mom wants to know where I'm going all the time! How rude is that? It's none of her business!" They'll ask ridiculous questions on this site and it's so hard for me to not reply "Grow up!"

What is with the self-entitled attitude of younger people today?

Answer 2

It definitely seems to be the trend. Probably has something to do with all of the spoiling and lack of discipline that most kids in the 90's were brought up with. Ever notice the lack of respect in general people this age (teens and early 20s) seem to have for just about anyone?

Answer 3

It's another symptom to the problem we are having in America due to the fact that there are so few parents actually raising and nurturing their children. Families with 2 working parents simply do not have the time or the energy that children truly need, and the few that do are not enough to stop, or slow the wave of negative emotion that the kids are expressing.

Answer 4

No it isnt but kids want to fit in and say silly things like that to seem cool or bad ***, so foolish they dont get it yet. And I agree with the above saying its the lack of parent involvement also to many parents dont discipline their children or act like there friend instead of there parent, also not you but the idiot that was stating both parents working have something to do with this is absurd and ignorance at its best, i cant stand ignorant biasis people that say that with their spoiled ungrateful children, plenty of adults i know had two hard working parents and turned out great, but my friends who had a mom at home at the hardest overbearing teenage years and were horrible and give no credit to there moms today for who they are they claimed they were bad and mom didnt see it, just cause you are home doesnt mean you pay more attention to your children than a working parent you assume your child is good, and plus dear its not the quantity of time you spend with them its the quality, pay closer attention to your kids, i can see you as being one of the ones that believes its never her kids fault you are in for a rude awakening..........

Answer 5

Yes, the bigger the lie...the person with the biggest imagination, stolen or assigned scenerios... seems to draw in the heap load of negative attention from spiritually lacking people or false prophets and eventually becomes learned behavior. This behavior isn't limited to teens and young adults. Fighting with and disrespecting authority/parents about things that don't exist is obviously self-fulling and they grow to waste their own life doing so while someone else drains their wallet. Then you have those who were or are truly abused. This causes nothing but chaos and confusion.

Then parents start picking at themselves wondering where they went wrong and being way too hard on themselves over things that aren't even real. They go to then begin to connect with the false prophets and are told their dealing with someone who is mentally ill or possibly a sociopath...for this they have no right to be angry and should seek guidance even if they are more confused by what is transpiring or has transpired and never stopped than anything - how ironic. What force continues to say stop living in the past while simutaneously refusing to suggest healthy method of learning from it and moving on? ~~~~Secularism and Dogma ~~~~ In the same sentence people with these beliefs preach not to talk about the facts past is being manufactured at the same time constantly bring past up in a twisted manner or their own version of someone elses past. The best remedy for this is not to loose focus on truth and allow confusion to intrude. It's pretty easy to figure out those pretending to be do-gooders are profiting from this mess that is diliberately intruding on families whether blended or not. These people believe that there would be chaos if there was love and harmony. This is not hippie talk folks ...if one has to take drugs they are not at peace. If one is using a war to take drugs and break the law they are not at peace within.

Take for instance, the divorce excuse given to kids... it's growth intrusive to teach any child that if their parents get or filed for a divorce in the past their own behavior isn't thier responsibility - that is false and I consider it emotionally abusive. I've watched that alone destroy children. Despite the fact that only the married couple knows what's going on and are responsible for their marriage or a divorce too many people try and write someone elses story which is wrong. The child is being spoiled by the entire family at that point. You wouldn't believe how much this goes on in families where divorces don't occur and it ruins things for people who do not behave like this...go ahead and keep giving the government and MH excuses to assign your behavior to others by projection it's not doing anyone any good. People that verbally enable children, teens, and young adults are projecting selfish childish behavior onto the child by preaching irresponsibility. The kids go back for more and it leads to even more lying that produces reaction from relatives and society. Either they ignore it or they flip out and respond irrationally to the lies. This obviously has caused even more divorces. Jeepers ...Why should anyone attempt to get along when nobody is responsible for their own behavior(irony)? Hey, that activity drives a child to wrath using a parent's marital status or not as an excuse to do so and they continue on with these episodes well into adulthood. It's the creation of the hippie era all over again and they placed a tremendous amount of stress on their families also. The authorities and MH backed that generation also and labeled it a peace movement(ironically) because they knew they would profit from all the chaos and they did. They are still profiting from it because many of them never grew up and so the curse continues. There are many to-date that still haven't figured out how used and using their life appears and intrudes on younger generations. Some of us make it out and some remain completely self-centered.

Bottom line is - the preaching of irresponsibility for *any* motive results in chaos and those that get a paycheck from these decisions are prospering from the spoiled spoiling by spoiling - seems to be a vicious circle doesn't it.

Answer 6

I've never hated my parents at all. I never get into fights with them. But these kids who think they're all cool because they hate their parents should know that with out their parents, there'd be no them.

Answer 7

I haven't really noticed this. I love my parents more than anything. My mom goes out on the town with me, my dad is great for conversation. And I've never heard one of my friends bad mouth their parents... and I'm in my twenties.

Answer 8

everyone disparages their parents at some point. it's part of the breaking away cycle we all go through on our way to adulthood. I'm not aware of any true competition to see who's cooler, but how cool can someone possibly be taking part in the world's lamest competition?

Answer 9

not all parents are cool. according to a survey 94% children think that their parents aren't cool. so do not think a lot. these things do not matter. you should remember they are your parents and don't try any silly thing

Answer 10

I am a parent of young adults in their late teens and early twenties. All of their friends would come to our home and spend a lot of time. I love all these young adults and enjoyed watching them grow and mature. The ones who came to my home and who had some degree or another of dysfunctional familes never complained. They often defended their parents and were always eager to give Mother's and Father's day acknowlegments. They often asked me what I would appreciate so they could do that for their folks. Many of these young adults had only one parent, usually a mother with an absent father. The dad was either deceased, like my biological and adoptive children's father's, or they were in prison, or off on drug and alcohol binges. These kids tended to yearn for better family relations and many had wounds in their hearts and souls. All of these young teens and now young adults experianced some degree of financial poverty. I often purchased clothing; especially around the start of the school year, to supliment their wardrobes. I also often purchased several hundred dollars more in food in order to feed them than I would have required were I just feeding my own eight children. Now, I didn't have eight children throughout the entire last twentyfive years. I had eight for about six years, then six for five years, four for five more years, (The last five years prior to their reaching adulthood) and two the first twelve years of my parenthood. I was a widow for twelve of those years. I have a solid relationship with five of those eight children. Only one teen friend had both mother and father at home.

My point is that these children who had such difficulties in life always appreciated what their parents were able to give and while they yearned for more they never disparanged them. They would sometimes discuss their homel ives with me and ask advice on why things were how they were, or cried while I comforted them. But, they never spoke truly negitive words about their parents. They often were embarressed by their parents, but that never stopped them from truly loving them and working hard to maintain some type of relationship.

Then I married a wonderful man and met his grown children. These young adults, who are in their mid and late twenties haven't a clue what it means to have a truly "bad" parent. They haven't a clue what it means to be raised poor, to go without even basic food and clothing. They haven't a clue what it means to be raised in poverty, to know their friends knew a parent was an addict or in prison. They never experianced parents down at the local bar making fools of themsleves and bringing home anything that walked to have sex with. They never experianced beatings, or emotional abuses. They never experianced intentional withholding of affection, or a parent who is incapable of giving any real degree of emotional bonding, attention or love.

While their mother and father had difficulties in their marriage and wound up divorced, they had stable homes with all the acroutments of an afluant lifestyle due to how hard their father worked to provide for them. They never lived in a Federal/State substadized apartment, or lived in a homeless shelter, or a foster home. The largest issue they faced while growing up was a mother who refused to disipline them, who tried to be a "friend" instead of a parent, and who undermined their father when he disiplined them. That is the major childhood issue they faced. All three were assisted in college, or had the opportunity to be assisted in college but declined to go. One is a college graduate who is a successful and well paid bank officer, one is a well paid LPN, who is working on her nursing degree. She had a child out of wedlock, and her father was the only one who stepped up and helped her out both financially, and with three years of childcare half weekly in order for her to continue working and keep her child. The other followed his father's footsteps into the automotive technology area and is a well paid technician for toyota. They are all healthy, vibrant upwardly mobile young adults with a supportive father and a college graduate mother who is currently a school administrator in the special education arena. Of these three children only the eldest shows any realistic views of her childhood and her parents, yet even she tends to be overly harsh in uncalled for manners. She has the least degree of self absorption and selfishness. I think she has had exposure to young adults who have had far less in childhood than her and her siblings. However, she still tends towards an unrealistic view in her expectations of her childhood homelife.

Two vastly seperate lifestyles, two vastly seperate experiances of childhood.

However, these pamperd, well off, spoiled, young adults are the ones who complain of their childhoods and don't visit with their parents, and who complain how they were raised.

I have to agree with the opinions of Mystery_Me, Carol B, and Tink. They are far more accurate than anybody else I read who posted here. I am glad the others have had a good relationship with their own parents, but from all I have seen in my forty five years of life, I have to wonder which group they grew up in. While there is a wide range of dysfunctional familes, there is also a huge gap between the have's and the have's not, both finacially and emotionally. I in no way am disparaging their experiances, or their lives, or their opinions. I am very pleased some young adults are not part of the spoiled, selfish, "it is all about me:, crowd.

I have been around friends of my husbands children and of his nieces, and nephew, and their friends too. It is not a small crowd. lol I noticed that those who come from the "best" families are the ones who complain the most. I am amazed at how entitled so many of these young folks feel. They take offense over issues which I would decribe as inconsequential. It simply floors me how self absorbed and selfish they appear.

Let me give a glaring example: One young woman who is twenty eight was shopping at Costco. She had her monthly coupons, which normally the cashier is suppose to have shoppers rip out, but this store had been lax about this for a period and finally was cracking down. This young woman, when confronted with a cashier, was outraged to have to give up her coupon. She was use to using it several times. Later, she told me she wanted to embarress the cashier by saying, at the top of her voice so other shopper's could hear, that "I am a poor single mother who only makes thirty five thousand dollars a year! How can you treat me so badly?"

I almost choked up my soda! She honeslty believes she is "poor" while earning thrity five thousand dollars yearly! This is when she was twenty seven years old and her earning potential will only increase because her father helped fund her RN license. I was blown away! Then and there I decided I would avoid going shopping with her. I would be humiliated if I were with her while she conducted herself so abominably.

So, I do believe those who have been raised in the middle, uppermiddle, and upper classes tend to be spoiled, self absorbed, and have a narrow mindset on what they should be thankfull for.

Now, I don't, not for one moment, believe all young adults raised in such homes behave in this fashion. I do however believe that a great many do.

It is not only about finacial ignorance. It is also about our current sociatal views on childrearing. We had, and still have to one degree or another a serious problem with child abuse. Children were, and still are, abused in horrific manners. We, our society, needed change; we needed and still need to protect our children.

However, whenever change occurs we often go from one extreme to another before we finally reach a middle ground. Due to this our laws and our practices swung from complete indifference to yanking the legs out from under parents in ability to disipline children. Parents want to change, they wish to do things differently than their parents did. However, while we are struggling to undo generations of belief that children should be seen but not heard, that to spare the rod you spoil the child, laws and practices are removing children from homes in record numbers. In many states it is illegal to spank a child. While I agree change must occur, we need to stop and take a clear look at the results of depowering parents and mistakenly empowering children in innapropriate manners.

Children should have a voice, they should have their thoughts, feelings, and needs acknowleged and taken into consideration. This raises self esteem, and enables children to grow strong and competent, with an assertiveness which will help them achieve their goals and dreams.

However, when a child knows all they have to do is go to the school counselor and make a false claim of child abuse; lets say due to her anger over a curfew she feels is unfair and is angry so she wishes to strike out, without any real understanding of the consequences of such actions, we have disaster for familes and we have children ripped out of good homes and subjected to the foster care system. Once a child is in the "system" is is nearly impossible to extract them. Especially when we have overzealous child protective service workers or those on power trips.

While we need a way for people to report suspected child abuse, we also need to institute a way to ensure it is not abused. I have seen far to many people make that call not because of suspected child abuse but as a means of exacting revenge or otherwise harming others. We also now have children who, while not understanding the consequences, have power they shouldn't be wielding, and parents who are afraid to disipline their children.

There is also a natural flux of growth in suceeding generations as we become more enlightened and our perceptions of children's roles in the family alter. It was not so long ago that children were seen as much needed free labor. Familes who worked farms and other extremely physically demanding lives found children helped ease the burden. The more hands the lighter the load, and the more proserous the family could be. The children often grew up to build on their familes lands and continue the tradition of farming or ranching. The mortality rate for the young was very high, and so parents tended to not allow themselves to get too attached for fear of the pain of loss. Children were loved, but differently than they are today, and mostly were viewed as little adults. If you look at old photos you see the children dressed as adults. However, I don't wish to get far into that as that is a whole other topic. A related topic, but one which there really isn't room here to get into. Suffice to say times have changed and our perceptions of children has changed with it.

As our progression in how we perceive the role of children in families change, our ideas and ideals of how to deal with those children changes too. However, as I said before, when change occurrs we often go from one extreme to another.

We now have parents who don't know how to parent, they try to be their children's friends rather than a parent who institutes bounderies. Studies have shown again and again that children thrive with rules and bounderies, yet parents still are struggling with how to balance this ideal against the new harsh rules disallowing any real disipline. I don't agree with corpreal punishment, but there are times a swat on the behind can get a child's attention in a manner no other way would. When children do not listen to parents their very lives are at risk, not just their personal growth and developement.

For example: If we have a child who has learned their parent won't stick to rules and bounderies, that child will no longer take that parent seriously. That child will disregard the parent and not listen to what s/he says. So, what happens if a parent sees a child run out into the street after a ball and yells out for that child to "STOP!!"; but the child does not stop? What happens when a housefire occurs, and the parent tells the child, "Lay on the floor", or a robbery at the local store occurrs and the parent tells the child to "get down" as bullets fly, and the child not only disregards the parents commands but begins to argue with the parent?

We can't be our children's "friends". It is that simple. We need to be supportive role models who have established basic solid rules and bounderies and stick to them, not vaccalate. A child gets confused if a parent doesn't stick to the rules intituted or is arbitrary with them. Bounderies have to be like fenses, which are there for the wellbeing of the child and the family as a whole. A chld has to respond to a parents command without question or argument. Many wish to believe we live in a civilized world, but all we have to do is watch the news to know this is not true, it is a fantacy, a mirage, and an image. It is an ideal we may reach one day, but until we do we need to be parents first.

Children need to be heard, I can calm a child having a fit simply by mirroring the child's emotions. I can do this without giving in to the child's tantrum. A child has a tantrum because s/he is not feeling heard. The best method of dealing with a tantrum is not ignoring the child. That is the worst thing a parent can do, but this has been the advice for my generation. Ignore, ignore, ignore, and the child will stop. Sure the child stops, until s/he is a teenager who rebels at not feeling heard or validated, and goes into the steets, or into gangs where s/he will feel validated in the worst possible manner. Why do people think teens and young adults gravitate towards communes? Because the commune takes the effort to make the person feel validated and heard. They may not love the person and are using that person for all they can get, but they do it by providing what parents failed to provide despite their best efforts, validation and feeling heard.

To help a child past a tantrum you mirror the child's emotions. Doing so is not mocking the child, regardless of how it appears. When a parent gets down to a child's level and repeats what the child is saying exactly the way the child is saying it, this helps the child feel acknowleged and heard, to feel validated. That is mostly what the child wants, besides the item or act s/he was after. This can be done without giving in to the child, without allowing the bounderies to bend. If a child is screaming, "I want that!", over and over again, or crying and screaming "that isn't fair!", you mirror that childs words and emotions. Of course you don't do it as loudly, but you do raise your voice. It isn't yelling at the child, it is expressing to the child his frustration and angst is understood and heard, thus validating the child's emotions and experiance. Once the child understands that the parent gets what s/he is expressing the child will calm down and the parent can then offer alternatives, such as directing the child to a toy when she wished to go outside, or give hugs instead of buying that candy in the check out counter area that stores put out to get children to throw such fits in order to pressure parents into buying the items.

It takes practice to valadate a young child. At first it feels akward and silly. But it works. It is as simple and as powerful as that. Once a child feels validated and a parent sees how well the child responds, it becomes easier.

I think the major difference between the young adults who complain of their childhoods when they really don't seem to have much to complain about is mainly due to feeling invalidated, unheard, and unimportant. Their parents did the best they could. Well, most of them. Most parents love their children and really want to do right by them.

However, in this flux of change we are going to have children grow up without proper bounderies, without validation, and this is where I believe most of the complaints come from. I also agree with the individual who wrote that familes simply don't have enough time to devote to their children. However, many familes from past generations were busy too. However, the major difference is they were busy while in the company of their children, working side by side, and this gave an ability for fathers to teach their sons how to be men, mothers the ability to teach daughters how to be women, and provided the means for parents to comunicate with the children. They provided examples and lived those examples day in and day out. Were they perfect parents? Of course not, but the children had the attention they needed just by the proximity of the parents. It wasn't just the parents either, but often grandparents and aunts/uncles and cousins. The extended family is vital, yet we find outselves in a society spread across the nation, and thus children are growing up isolated, and many never even meet first cousins until they are grown, if then.

The two most important changes we need to institute right now are to: 1. Teach our young parents that it is vital they not try to be their children's friends, to institute strong, firm but loving bounderies and to validate their children. 2. To ensure our Social Services department takes much greater care in the removal of children from their homes. To ensure the reporting of child abuse is not abused as a tool for revenge or for children to use as a tool against parents.

These both of of vital importance, but the balance between ensuring only the children truly at immenent risk of physical and emotional abuse and neglect be protected, and not allowing at risk children to slip through the cracks; yet, simultanously not ripping children who may be in dysfunctional homes to one degree or another, or children who make false claims are not ripped from their homes, breaking apart familes and irretrevably scaring children and breaking the child/parent bond is difficult at best.

In conclusion, I strongly believe those young adults who seemingly compain for little or no reason are simply adrift in the inability to pinpoint exactly what it is they really feel they were robbed of. While I sincerely believe they haven't a clue to real abuse and neglect or the reality of poverty, they do have a real beef. Theirs however is much more ellusive, filmy, and difficult to see or explain. I also believe they are spoiled, selfish, and self centered, caught in the current enviroment of the "me-me-me" culture. Our society teaches number one is self. While I agree we each owe it too ourselves to care for oursleves, we currently are at an all time high of selfishness and self-centeredness. These young adults are scarred in their way too, and their emotional, moral and ethical bankrupsy will have a huge impact upon their children.

Children who are abused and neglected tend to chase after the love of the parent who has withheld that love for whatever reason. Abused children cling to their abusers and yearn for the love they crave, that they were denied. These are the young adults who will defend their parents to the end, who will usually not speak very poorly of their parents. Sure, they sometimes discuss their abusive childhoods, but they still will defend their parents. It is OK for themselves to discuss the parent and to perhaps speak harshly on occassion, but won't allow anyone else to. It is rather sad.

Children from rather good homes, affluant homes, but who were still neglected emotionally, starved for attention and time tend to speak out much more harshly against their parents and will even abondone those parents. This is so unfair. These are the parents who usually tried the hardest to be "good" parents, to provide better homes than they themselves had and who deeply love their children. However, I also believe most of these young folks will work through their unresolved and truly unknown grudges against their parents as they grow and have familes of their own.

When you feel in your heart and soul that you were somehow rob of something vital, but you just can't put your finger on what that is, it is easy to search for and find unreasonable items to latch upon and use as examples. Often these children will latch onto one or two events in childhood, memories which are not very strong, and therefore easily confused and easily grown in a mind into some huge issue, to use as evidence of unfair treatment or some type of offense the parent committed. While they are searching for that ellusive offense they will talk down their parents with their friends and aquantances. This is more in a search for an answer, a search for what it is they know they missed out on or didn't receive than any vindictiveness towards their parents.

I agree with what the one poster said about how with both parents working out of the house there simply isn't any real ability to give children the time and attention they need while growing. I also don't agree with those who say large familes are fine because even if there isn't a lot of financial wherewithal, there is always enough love to go around.

I don't agree with that at all, and I have first hand knowlege and experaince to back it up. An individual only has so much time, energy, and emotional ability to give. When you have to divide that between an increasing number of children and/or other dependants/adults in the home, children and other family members are going to go without.

There is only so much time, attention, and emotional stamina one individual can bring to the table. Each individual is different in how much of these precious resources s/he has. When you have to spread these out among several children, a job, a spouse, elderly parents, and other commitments, each person who has a need is going to feel bereft and robbed. We, as individuals, must take stock of what we have to give and then build out familes accordenly. I think more than three children is stretching it thin for most anyone. Especially when we have broken familes where one parent has to try to provide the attention of two. A part time parent just doesn't cut it for children.

When we add to this mix the materialitic nature of the boomer group, and how that has spawned materialistic children and young adults who are on the cusp of repeating this new cycle, we are really in trouble. When parents place more importance on accumulating finances and "stuff", we find absent parents. Parents who spend far more time out earing money while their young become latchkey children. Usually these children are emotionally neglected, and often raise themselves. Of course they have issues. Especially when the majority of these familes could easily get by on much less. It would be a sacrifice, but isn't that what we do when we choose to have children? Sacrifice for their wellbeing? Well, many parents are choosing to not do that. So, of course these children and young adults have issues.

If you look closely at many of these young adults who seemingly are complaining over a seemingly blessed childhood you will probably find they are from an affluant but broken home, either raised with step parents, or their parents simply were unavailable due to jobs and career choices. Many view their complaints as silly, and childish, yet their hurts are real. They too were deprived in an emotional arena where children need vast resources to really grow healthy and happy. I know many children from familes with much less financial resources but who were there emotionally for the children and these children do the best as young adults, and these are also the children closest with their parents.

All parents make mistakes. Young adults need to look at the big picture and see that their parents are people first. They weren't born parents, but are just the same as anybody else, with weaknesses and streangths.

I went on far to long here and I apologize for that. I need to write shorter answers! lol

This was a great question and it really makes one stop and think about how society is today, how we got here and what can we do to make it better. Thank you for asking it and I look forward to more questions.

I wish you a great day and a superb week.

P.S. Amy states that just because a parent stays home doesn't mean they are a "good" parent. This can be true. However, it doesn't mean all parents who stay at home instead of choosing to contunue a career don't pay attention to their children. That is an illogical statement. She also states that having both parents work have nothing to do with how well they parent children, that it isn't the "quantity" but the "quality" which matters. I don't agee.

I believe it matters a great deal how much time is spent with children. Sure, even a stay at home parent is not perfect. It is silly to believe that just because a parent stays at home they won't make mistakes. Sure they can, and they do. After all, parents are not perfect, regardless of how much time is spent with the children. I firmly believe "quality" without, "quanitity" is a half measure. It is the same if there is only so called "quality" without, "quantity". Both are only half measures. There must be an equal mesure of both for a balanced, healthy and happy child. Anybody who thinks an hour a week of "alone time" with a child is enough is just mistaken. I think they mean well, but it is still just not enough. Even if you spend an hour a day of "alone time" with a child, it is till not enough.

It is important to spend a lot of time with a child in many different cercumstances for a parent to truly know that child. Children need to know that they are fully loved for themselves as a complete and whole person, rather than just seen in one light or another. Children can easily maintain a facade for an hour a day. They then feel fake, that they have fooled their parent, and are left with the idea that if that parent "really" knew them, saw their "bad" sides, that parent's perception would change and they wouldn't be accepted for who they really are.

We can only truly know somebody by spending time with the individual. All relationships need time. Relationships are only viable and healthy when each party knows they are truly "known" for who they are, and are loved for the whole person they are, the good and the bad, the positive and the negitive. We love our loved ones for the good in them and in spite of the bad. Nobody can truly feel accepted if they don't feel they are truly known, are not truly intimate with the other. That leaves a feeling of emptiness, and a hole in the relationship, a fakeness which is damaging.

An hour a day does not a relationship make. Yes, parents can both work and yet know their children. However, you have to decide how many children two full time jobs, housework, yardwork, errands, and all the other small demands on ones life can still fully provide a child or children with the degree of attention they need to feel known and nurtured.

Our demands do take us from our families. To say it doesn't is to be naive and unrealistic. I am not defaming anybody, we can agree to disagree. But, simply put, we must pre-determine how much of us we have to give over a child's lifetime. This is difficult so isn't is best to err on the side of caution? To ensure we only have the number of children who we can truly meet the needs of? I think so. The person who winds up paying the ultimate price are the children who only have a portion of their needs met, and whom never truly feel their parents know them and love them fully and unconditionally.