RICK ON THE DIALOGUE ABOUT ANGRY MOTHERS - NO RESPONSE FROM PL

Heres Rick:

"As my Uncle Tony (Of course I would have an Uncle Tony!) would always say, "When you point your finger at someone, there are always three more pointing back at you." showing me with his big sausage fingers sculpted from decades of eating well and manual labor....
I agree with taking a look at myself before claiming anything. Sometimes I am dead wrong, usually because of ignorance and sometimes I am right on because of direct experience or the facts as I know them.

As far as wives blaming others for their lot, I think you can put husband/son/daughter/mother/father/alien/penguin etc in their place. I don't think wives have a lock on blaming others. I find some merit to your overall point. You do a great job of articulating the potential barriers we all have in attaining a peace within ourselves. This is just another example. Why you chose to zero in on wives does nothing to help your point. I though you could have started with wives, then moved on to the rest of us.

Now, the fact that you claim the reason you are such a good parent is because you do what you really want to do. Can you reconcile the irresponsibility of doing what you really want to do and the obligation you have to the children you are helping to raise? As a " contractual" husband to a wonderful wife and biological parent of a curly haired toddler myself, my own needs and wants are sometimes in conflict with those of the ones I love. You are a product of the 60's "Me" generation and I don't fault you for that attitude because it may work for you. I wonder what impact that attitude has had on the three children you have raised or are raising?

For me, I guess your point is still true. I am doing what I want to do and that is the "care taking" of my family. I don't resent it nor am I bitter because of the sacrifices I must make. My own belly has grown a bit, I lose sleep and I do not want to go out and shovel my damn driveway and street every storm, but I don't resent it. I see the positive result of those very sacrifices and they are much more valuable to me. What would your assessment be of this attitude? Remember, I don't do what I want to do, I don't resent it but need to make sure I fulfill my duties just as you "organically" fulfill yours.


I read "Suzanne's" post and your reaction to it. I do not sense the anger in Suzanne's post as you do. But rather a simple calling you out on some details. You're right in that she didn't address your main point, but how could she when that point was skewed. I and others, have called you out too but I didn't think they were from a point of anger but rather of "is he serious in trying to sling this BS at us?" That BS that we presume is because of the very angry tone you sometimes use(You're stupid!") or, as I have written before, the I am right you are wrong attitude so prevalent in your posts. You are usually better on the responses after you reflect.

I, and I think Suzanne, am not minimizing your role as a "parent" or as a "husband". You took it that way and maybe there needs to be some exploration as to why you have reacted so. I just think clarification is warranted particularly when you say how involved you are as a parent. Your posts come across as though "parenting is a piece of cake, I still serve myself first + how come everyone isn't as good at it as I am?" You may not mean it that way but that is how it reads. Will you grant your readers, who are full-time parents, that's 24-7, 365 parents, that your role as a parent is very different and much less demanding than theirs? Could you still do whatever you want if you had those children 24-7, 365 and their was no other involved father?

If my wife and I didn't have our child every other week, there would be much more time for ourselves simply because of logistics. If you were a single parent and had an infant 24-7 who needed to be fed every 2 hours, would you not feed it because you need your sleep? When you decide to become a parent, you also are obligated to care and raise that child at sometimes tremendous personal expense. Not everyone can do this. I'm sure in your practice, you can attest to the damage those parents who have that "take care of me first" attitude have had on their children. Something's gotta give. Now you're professing the same. Need to explain that one "little buddy" :-)

Criticism isn't taken easily by most of us. You are no different. Why else would you make that "editor's note" in which you write you had to fix typos and grammar? I grant you the need to "change the names to protect the innocent" but what good does it serve to note one's spelling and grammatical errors? Again, clearly those words are defensive + condescending in nature and further proves that whatever point was criticized, you couldn't easily counter it because there are holes in your arguement. How would you characterize my responses if within them they contained name calling and picayune statements that have nothing to do with my point like, "Hey by the way, PL didn't even edit Suzanne's spelling and grammar properly"(It's true, but has no relevance). If I ever do that, please send me to my timeout chair and then to my room without dessert.


ps. Hey Loff56. To further hammer your point, that the 18 Billion in bonuses on Wall Street actually equals 61 million to each citizen! I wouldn't even need that much! 1 mil would more than do it for me!!!!"