Nurturing and guiding.
Happy meals and TV.
Orphanages produce such as well as many foster parents.
Denial, denial, denial.
Irony being, made a thread asking a question, then deny an answer without justification.
Yeah, you’re probably a fuck up parent. Don’t be alarmed, most are.
Interesting
And your response is typical of a denier.
Keep up the good work.
Your children will appreciate it, as they surely do already.
“Some is good, so it is all good.”
“Some is bad, so it is all bad.”
“The difference is in the small part that I have seen and liked.”
But not detached orphanages and detached foster parents. These are even worse than detached parents.
I stick with my statement, care is what makes a parent, I’d even say that in this context parent is already predefined as ‘a good caregiver’.
Too much care is bad parenting though. Good caregiving means showing that care with moderation. I think that task is to help children care about themselves in a way that is responsive to reality, so that they can actually take care of themselves while continuing to truly care for themselves. A delicate task.
Joe, I do believe you may be in need of a hug!
“He used to be such a nice boy.”
“I know. But did you realise what happened to him?”
“No.”
“I don’t fink he did eva.”
“No one said he did. I heard that was Jimmy Smithers.”
“He got a conditional discharge. His brief said he was worried about is sister.”
“He’s a kind boy at 'art.”
Parenting is perhaps the most precarious duty a sentient organism can take on. I agree with you I think, only I might suggest replacing the word ‘care’ with ‘chaperoning’ or ‘provisioning’ or something similar (because ‘care’ lends itself too readily to equivocation, or just confusion). A fundamental part, as I think you’re getting at, is allowing the child to experience failure, and when you allow the child to fail – when you limit the extent to which you shield the child from its environment – you do so out of care for (attention to) the child’s future independent functionality, and that care stems from your care (love, compassion) for the child itself. I agree with you otherwise.
FC, I think we are not seeing detached the same.
Loving parents and caregivers invest part of themselves, they attach to that child for life. At least that is how I see it. A detached parent or caregiver does not do so. They parent and care for the child properly but, no permanent attachment forms.
That’s a very good point though. It reminds me of one incident I witnessed in particular. I was standing at a lake with a friend of my girlfriends father, watching his baby girl wander around near the edge of the rocks surrounding another, deeper layer of rocks a couple of feet below. It constantly looked like she was going to tumble over the edge, and I was looking at the father sitting back in his lederhosen and about to ask if he wasn’t worried when he told me that she was made of rubber, the early years - that she had to make all the mistakes she could before she wasn’t made out of rubber anymore.
I would agree that ‘chaperoning’ fits that kind of parenting better, and I really liked what I saw. It was a child acting with real freedom, and of course she didn’t fall in.
I guess children are often much more resilient to their reality than their parents are.
I thin that’s what I said. It’s what I meant to say anyway.
I know two guys adopted from Colombia in the late seventies, one with essentially detached and another with truly attached parents. The first guy went back Colombia, miraculously found his real mother, got confused in whole new ways and where the hell he is now, I have no idea. The other guy is driving some kind of hitek business after having graduated from a pretty hardcore beta study last I heard, and he’s trustworthy with the opposite sex, which says a lot about good parenting.
Interestingly the first family took great care to make an issue out of family-hood and protection, while the second family has a father who professionally uses psychedelic drugs and writes about his experiences while stimulating is children to push their boundaries.
Grew up as an orphan and currently at the ass end of a losing child custody battle. Shrugs
I can tell you what I think a parent should be. Of course the problem with that is that the energy of parents is sapped from elsewhere entirely now that modern life makes it almost impossible to be a proactive parent.
Right now in our era, the state is doing everything to strip parents of their rights to their own children.
If they had it their way the state would become the parent of your child where you just remain as the caregiver for the state concerning your own offspring.
You are battling your child mother for custody while proclaiming the end of society… that sounds like the Joker.
You should take a steamliner to Europe. Freedom for the taking.
Nobody’s perfect. Not even me. I’ve never claimed to be perfect ever on this forum or anywhere on the internet for that matter.
It might come to some people’s absolute shock that the internet persona known as the Joker on the internet has his own troubles in life.
Yes, this puts a human face on things, doesn’t it?
I want out of the United States badly. I’d resign my own citizenship now if I could.
Unfortunately, I’m a felon for another three years… I can’t even leave my state without asking for permission let alone leave the country.
It will take about six years to clear my record and background not mention that long to save enough money to leave this national dump.
Okay, well I’m not going to harbor a convicted felon, but if you make the jump after you sit it out I can help you get settled, or you could start looking for places to live right now and use three years to take care of business in Europe through the internet so you have a place to stay, some friends to stay with across Germany including job prospects. I assume at least that’s where you want to go since you said your roots are there. It’s a good place with a strong economy and a lot of jobs for english speaking people, unlike France.
Well you did manage to conceive a child and apparently you even care about it, so you can’t be all fuck up.
Two and a half years I’m thinking that I’ll be able to leave the country. That’s when my travel restrictions end.
We should stay in contact. 
I’ve always wanted to go to Munich. I have extended family there from my grandfather’s side that I’ve never met.
Don’t know much about my grandmother’s family within the Lorraine region of France.
I speak English and some French. I don’t know much German however…
I’ve always thought about the French Foreign Legion also. At least I get to go around killing people in a mercenary fashion.
Instant E.U. citizenship afterwards also. About four years of service I believe.
The trick to that is surviving the most extreme shitholes on earth and the conflict zones they send you in.
A high stake gamble for sure concerning personal risk.
Yes, I do care about her. She is of my blood after all.
Unfortunately they’re raising her and I get very little visitation.
I have no choice about anything in her upbringing.
I worry about how she will turn out as she ages under their care.