*

Western parents don’t feel

that their children already

are who they are – they feel

it is their job to make them

who they should be. 

They treat their children

more as objects than as

individuals who already

are themselves. 

Children feel this as a

burden….  A pressure. 

And they develop an

armor to guard against it. 

[Their] anger is a reflection

of that armor…. 

All the energy is going into

the resistance….

But inside, the child feels

empty. 

They don’t know who they

are or what they want. 

They can’t feel their own

desire; they know only

anger. 

The anger that comes

from being treated as

an object.

~ Mark Epstein, Open to desire (2005).

*

All advice that pertains to raising

children betrays more or less clearly

the numerous, variously clothed

needs of the adult…. 

Among the adult’s true motives

we find:

~ The unconscious need to pass

    on to others the humiliation

    one has undergone oneself.

~ The need to find an outlet for

    repressed affect.

~ The need to possess and have

    at one’s disposal a vital object

    to manipulate.

~ Self-defense: i.e., the need to

    idealize one’s childhood and

    one’s parents by dogmatically

    applying the parents’ pedagogical

    principles to one’s own children.

~ Fear of freedom.

~ Fear of the reappearance of

    what one has repressed,

    which one reencounters in

    one’s child and must try to

    stamp out, having killed it

    in oneself earlier.

~ Revenge for the pain one

    has suffered.

Since at least one of the points

enumerated here is present in

everyone’s upbringing, the child-

rearing process is at best suitable

for making “good” pedagogues

out of its objects…. 

When children are trained, they

learn how to train others in turn.

~ Alice Miller, For your own good (1990)     

*

*

For grandchildren:

If nothing is going well, call

your grandmother.

~ Anonymous

Everyone needs to have access

both to grandparents and

grandchildren in order to be

a full human being.

~ Margaret Mead

When grandparents enter the

door, discipline flies out the

window.

~ Ogden Nash

A child needs a grandparent,

anybody’s grandparent, to grow

a little more securely into an

unfamiliar world. 

~ Charles and Ann Moore

Grandparents are the best kind

of grownups.

~ Unknown

For grandparents:

An hour with your grandchildren

can make you feel young again.

Anything longer than that, and

you start to age quickly.

~ Gene Perret

You make all your mistakes with

your own children so by the time

your grandchildren arrive, you

know how to get it right. Plus,

once you turn 50, you kind of

stop giving a shit what others

think.

~ Liz Fenton

A mother becomes a true grandmother

the day she stops noticing the terrible

things her children do because she

is so enchanted with the wonderful

things her grandchildren do.

~ Lois Wyse

The very old and the very young have

something in common that makes it

right that they should be left alone

together. Dawn and sunset see stars

shining in a blue sky; but morning

and midday and afternoon do not,

poor things.

~ Elizabeth Goudge

Grandchildren are God’s way of

compensating us for growing old.

~ Mary H. Waldrip