Thought of the Day 03.31.10

I was at a friend’s church recently, and he was talking about how parents who give things like affirmation, encouragement, unconditional love, affection, and respect will produce well-adjusted children who grow up to make good spouses. He then asked the audience how many of us felt our parents had given us these things. I was the only one who raised my hand.

Now, obviously his point was for us to realize we all have handicaps bequeathed to us by less-than-ideal parents, and I suspect some people didn’t raise their hands because they sensed his point. But even so, I was flabbergasted at the nearly unanimous declaration of bad parenting.

Not because I think it’s false, but because it forced me to realize how incredibly lucky I’ve been to have had parents who may have done some things wrong but who did all the major things right. Because I never realized how rare this is, I never stopped to think about the burdens other people live under. When you grow up in a wealthy home, it’s so easy to not realize what poverty is like and what it can do to people.