Andy R":3gmn0aby said:
Isaac_AG":3gmn0aby said:
Tonight I tried to talk to my 20 yr old son and I felt he thought I was an embarrassment
How do you get on with your oldest?
Alison
C'mon Alison, surely you know that's just 20 year old boys? - getting more than a couple of words out of our son at that age was like trying to get blood out of a stone. He'll be a far nicer person by the time he gets to thirty - our son has changed a lot in the last three or four years (he's 32 now) and now he's a pleasure to be around. In fact, we were out for a three hour bike ride on Saturday morning. I think it helps if they leave home when they get to 18 or 20-ish though and they don't want to be living with their parents at that age anyway.
Agreed with that - I left home at 20, my brother a couple of years earlier, for him, as he went to uni. And I think it's a good thing to stand on your own two feet. Makes you appreciate your parents more, too. I think when kids live with their parents for longer, that teenage lack-of-appreciation sort of perpetuates a lot longer than it should.
Andy R":3gmn0aby said:
We haven't been perfect parents (who has?) but we tried to bring our children up to be thoughtful, caring and compassionate and, on the whole, that's how they've turned out to be - the credit goes to them though, not us.
That's where I'm going to disagree - well at least partly. Some kids mature into nice, decent adults, very much
despite their parents - although perhaps somewhat rarely. In my experience, most grow up into nice, decent adults, at least, partly,
because of their parents.
I think it's truly a rare thing to find perfect parents. But those that care, and have done their best, I truly believe very much deserve a reasonable amount of credit for their children that have matured into decent adults. If we can place some blame on parents for kids that grow-up wrong 'uns, then by the same token, parents that have tried and done their best, also deserve some blame for when their kids grow up to be decent adults.
