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Henry Capobianco's avatar

This entry is exceptional - so many lines I want to share, I lost track, but...

"The question to be posed here is that 'If parents knew this was the deal, would they have bothered in the first place?' Spot on. I would not have. All around the world, in every language, there is a word for the kind of person who would continue to accept your unstinting kindness, care, assets and energy, long after they decided that they find you loathsome and worthy of nothing but contempt.

And yes, with this as the transactional standard, and with these obvious deficits in conflict resolution and loyalty, this will be repeated in the next generations.

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Tamara Lester's avatar

I tend to agree with Whitney's quote—that parenting is thankless. That my children do not or did not ever "owe me" anything, as I chose to have them, care for them, meet their needs through college and beyond, prepare them for whatever world they would be living in, to be able to make sound judgments for their happiness and wellbeing...I made it clear that they were not obligated to care for me as I grow older—as I wanted them to focus on living their lives and not be a burden to anyone. And, yet, as adult children, I expected mutual respect, compassion, empathy, understanding, which in its own way is transactional, just not monetarily.

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