Let us talk about raising children, and about compassion.
A psychological spoiler: I do not think you are going to like this.
The bottom line is that a good-enough parent has to absorb two things about compassion while raising their children.
One: know that children desperately need compassion. Give it to them.
Two: you must absorb that compassion is not enough.
Let us start with the easier material. Children need compassion. Most of you already knew that perfectly well before any tedious text of mine.
The thing is that compassion is an essential commodity in a household not only because our children are weaker and more vulnerable, but mainly because from the moment they hatch they are subject to an enormous, long and largely invisible process of becoming an adult.
Parents who have just left the maternity ward have taken on a completely unskilled employee with vast potential.
And now the second half, which is the one nobody wants.
I am obviously talking about boundaries, but not only about boundaries. Definitely not only. I am talking about our willingness to frustrate the child.
Do you want it in blunter terms? I am talking about our willingness to cause him measured suffering now, in order to save him from catastrophic suffering later.
And for that you have to put compassion aside for a moment — only for a moment — and put on a hard face.
Why the theatrical recommendation? Because no child has ever yet had a frustrating demand placed on him and responded with how moving it is that you are attending to my psychological integrity. The child will say: I do not want to.
And you will say: that is how it is.
Know always that it is all right to be a firm boss, even a slightly unpleasant one. And please — do not run to share the pain in every available forum in order to receive validation.
The wisdom of crowds will flatten you towards the lowest and most mistaken common denominator — my prince, my life and so forth.
You have to absorb for yourselves that you are all right, that you are fine as you are, and that there is no benefit whatever in wallowing in guilt.