Parents don't matter that much

I had an email exchange with JRH that was frustrating. Her endlessly reiterated point was, "you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear." Well, duh. But what about parents who try to make a sows ear out of a silk purse? THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN! you say, in middle-class horror.

Well, it does. Parents do all kinds of things to their children. They brutally put them down, suppress their kids, compete with them, and interfere with them. No names, but this happens.

JRH's observations about the importance of the peer group are pretty sharp. But her dismissal of parental importance vitiates her contributions. She's not a scientist. She's a yenta.

If there is a golden mean there are always exteremas. Of course, that kind of things happen, I happened before and will happen in the future. What is important - we are conscious about it, that meant we are albe to do something about it. Now it's up to us. And that's the point!