TODAY"S QUOTE!

"What an extraordinary difference there was between a body full of person and a body that was empty. And the difference, the thing that had gone out of the stinking Mexican bandit, was greater than all of Mexico."
Ian Fleming (via his character, "James Bond") reflecting on the magnitude of the soul in his book, "Goldfinger."

TODAY'S QUOTE!

"As long as you have fear, it is sometimes inevitable that you experience what you fear in order to lose the fear. If you desire health in a spirit of fearing sickness, you prevent health. If you fear the aging process, you prevent eternal youth. If you fear loneliness, you prevent real companionship. If you fear companionship, you prevent self-containment. So it goes on and on. If you fear poverty, you prevent abundance."

From the Pathwork Guide lecture: "FINDING TRUE ABUNDANCE BY GOING THROUGH YOUR FEAR" 

YOUR HUSBAND SLEPT WITH THE NANNY? PL: "THANK THE NANNY!"

Emily Yoffe in her "Dear Prudence" column today responded to a reader who wrote in that her husband had a two year affair with their 20-something nanny. I couldn't resist responding in a comment to the exchange.  The question, Yoffe's reponse and my comment follow:

Q. Stopping Former Nanny From Sleeping With Other Dads: My children attended a wonderful preschool until they turned 5. When our youngest child left the preschool my husband and I hired their favorite caretaker, twentysomething Kate, to be their part-time nanny. Over the past three years, Kate has practically become part of our family. Last year, I wrote her a recommendation that helped her gain entry into a prestigious special-education college program. Last week, I found out Kate and my husband have been carrying on an affair for two years. I don't know yet if my marriage will be salvageable, but Kate is no longer working for us. I know Kate wants to continue to work as a child care provider. I think that if most moms and facilities knew about her past, they wouldn't give her the time of day. I'm also worried she'll betray other families the way she betrayed mine. I'm not sure how to make sure she doesn't work in a child care setting without going down a seriously psychotic path, like mass-emailing every day care in our city. Should I do my best to forget about Kate? Or is there a sane and justified way I can keep her from hurting other families?

A: How horrible to find you've brought such a viper into your home. The pain of this infidelity is magnified by the intimacy Kate has been granted to your family, and by finding out you are living the most tawdry of domestic clichés. You have a lot facing you. You must deal with this betrayal, decide the future of your marriage, and look out for your children's emotional well-being. That means there's no room in your life for Kate. (Remember the real miscreant here is your husband. He either initiated the affair or came hither in response to her come-hither glances.) Of course you'd like to have a disclaimer follow Kate for life: "Hire her and she'll screw your husband." You'd probably like to see it posted on the entrance gates to her college. But you need to focus on what you can control, not how to exact revenge against the babysitter. However, if she works her way through college by working for other families, and one happens to call you for a reference, you can succinctly explain the reason you had to let Kate go.

PL: Oh please! I'm a grown-up, sexually vibrant 50-something man and I can't imagine carrying on an affair with a 20-something nanny. You know why? Because my 50-something wife and I have worked on ourselves and worked on our marriage throughout the years to keep it thriving. We have a great sex-life and a high level of open communication that would make it absurd for one of us to have an affair - in our own home, no less! - without the other knowing. Stop using words like "betrayal" to create the illusion of victimhood when the people in question, mainly the older married couple, are clearly not taking responsibility for what's amiss in the relationship. The nanny did them a favor.
Peter Loffredo, LCSW 

HOW FAR HAVE WE (NOT) COME? TODAY'S "ATTACHMENT PARENTING" QUOTE!

"Questions like whether to breast-feed or bottle-feed, or at what age to introduce solid foods, though still important, no longer carry the same urgency. Attachment theory suggests that babies thrive emotionally because of the overall quality of the care they've experienced, not because of specific techniques. A bottle-fed baby whose mother is sensitively attuned will do better than a breastfed baby whose mother is mechanical and distant."
(Psychologists Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby, FOUNDERS OF THE ATTACHMENT PARENTING METHOD!)

I don't know, she doesn't look "mechanical and distant," does she?!

"REPUBLICANS, GET IN MY VAGINA!"

Now, THIS is not only funny, but it hits the nail right on the head as only humor can when exposing the preposterous truth!

Enjoy!

TODAY'S BEST MIXED MESSAGE AD PICTURE!

Yep. This is from an ad by OREO COOKIES that ran in South Korea with the caption: "Milk's Favorite Cookie!"

I didn't make this up. GO HERE to read the story.

PL ON WHY I LOVE KIDS, BUT NOT PARENTS!

In case the implications of my positions expressed in many posts on this blog over the last few years on the subject of parenting aren't clear, in case I haven't directly said where I think things must lead if human beings are indeed evolving towards that "Highly Enlightened Society" mentioned in the "Conversation With God" books, let me state it now for the record, as such:

Parents are the least qualified of all adults to raise children.

Now, of course, I am saying it in that way somewhat for tongue-in-cheek impact, but here's what I genuinely and specifically mean - getting pregnant requires no further act beyond having sexual intercourse, maybe even only once, during the time when a woman is ovulating. That's it. Period. And once pregnant, if a decision is made to take the pregnancy to term and have a child, parenting does not have the prerequisites in our society's 3-dimensional value system and sensibilities that things like getting a job does, or that even driving a car does. In fact, you don't need a degree in anything, nor do you need a license or to have passed a test of any sort to become a parent. You do not even have to be of sound mind or body to become a parent; you don't have to be mature or wise or educated, including in sexuality or contraception, anatomy, child-development or child-rearing, and you certainly do not have to be self-actualized to become a parent in our society. All you literally have to do, then, to become a parent is fuck somebody, get pregnant and have the baby. Voila! Instant parent.

In Conversations With God, the "radical" statement is made that in a Highly Enlightened Society, the young would bear the children and the elders would raise them. Think about that! Really! 

You see, as both as a seasoned parent and as a psychotherapist and expert in childhood development, I can tell you that a young parent (i.e. - under 40) has only youthful energy to offer a child, as in the ability to play soccer with them, which is basically no different than what a child can get from its own peers. On the other hand, a self-actualized older adult has wisdom to offer, experience, groundedness in life, and the ability to actually guide a child through some of life's mazes, something, in other words that a child can't get from its peers.

And PLEASE, don't use the "L" word with me! I have seen way too much abuse and exploitation of children by biological parents, and even more narcissistic, vicarious acting out through children by biological parents, all who claim to "love" their kids. I know too much to be fooled into thinking that love for a child is biological and restricted to "natural" parents. 

Nonsense. 

Love is a universal force that comes through someone who has opened that channel, and it comes in greater quantities as a function of sincere self-work and self-actualization, not from genetics or "blood."

Some who've read my strong opinions on these subjects over the years have tried to suggest that I just don't like children. Quite the contrary. I love children. That's why I am so vociferous, see? 

It's parents I don't like.

Why? Because almost none who become parents do so because they are actualized and gratified in their well-lived lives, so in love with their romantic partner, and so loving of themselves, that they experience the calling of another soul wanting to come through them and be born into this world and go with that flow from that place. That would be quite beautiful, wouldn't it? 

You see, a parent starting from that place, doesn't idealize and project and transfer onto a child. That parent allows love to flow through them to the child, but that parent also knows that raising a child is a job that requires as professional an approach as their career, with as much clarity and focus and planning, and with as much time away from the job as necessary to replenish oneself. A common and sure sign of dysfunctional parenting is when you hear the pseudo-superdedicated Park Slope-type parents talk with sighs about how their sex lives are on on hold because they have kids. 

UGH!

Too bad for those kids, huh?

Okay, folks, I think I'm done for now. I hope I've made my positions on the matter of parenting a bit clearer, and thank you and congratulations to all the adults among you that have chosen to express your generativity by giving back to the world in ways other than adding to the population.

CAN YOU CALL A 9-YEAR-OLD A PSYCHOPATH? CAN YOU CALL AN EXPERT AN IDIOT?!

Below is a letter [edited] I wrote to the NY Times in September of 1999... twelve and a half years ago! I was very chagrined at the time by the way the media and people in general would respond to the horror of shootings of children by children, such as in the infamous Columbine and Scottsboro killings in the 90's. The typical story line would be that these killer kids were otherwise normal, just "shy" or "quiet" until they inexplicably turned murderous.

"Nonsense!" was my position. Apparently, this position of mine was so radical that I got a call from one Barry Farber, a nationally syndicated conservative radio host and author, asking me to be on his national radio show. On the show, I basically said that psychopathy and its lethal subdivision, sociopathy, are not subtle disorders, nor difficult to diagnose if one really wanted to look. A psychopathic character structure in progress is already being formed by the age of 4, and is certainly discernible to any astute parent or clinician. [My version of the Psychopathic Character Structure chart can be found HERE.) The numbness to pain, the cold sadism, the disconnectedness from emotions, the lack of tears, etc. Barry was so impressed by my supposedly avant garde "theory" that he proclaimed on the air that I should head a President's commission on the subject!

Cut to today, Mother's Day, 2012, and guess what? I'm not living in Washington, D.C., but still shaking my head at parents and the so-called experts in my profession. But as is so often the case, years later, the experts are starting to catch on. Yep. There is a featured article in the NY Times Magazine section today entitled: "Can You Call A 9-Year-Old A Psychopath?!"

Here's a funny excerpt:

"Currently, there is no standard test for psychopathy in children, but a growing number of psychologists believe that psychopathy, like autism, is a distinct neurological condition — one that can be identified in children as young as 5. Crucial to this diagnosis are callous-unemotional traits, which most researchers now believe distinguish “fledgling psychopaths” from children with ordinaryconduct disorder, who are also impulsive and hard to control and exhibit hostile or violent behavior. According to some studies, roughly one-third of children with severe behavioral problems — like the aggressive disobedience that Michael displays — also test above normal on callous-unemotional traits. (Narcissism and impulsivity, which are part of the adult diagnostic criteria, are difficult to apply to children, who are narcissistic and impulsive by nature.)"

Whatever!

Here's my rather neutered letter from 1999: 

"The Shooting Spree Next Door"

Published: September 19, 1999

            

To the Editor:

As a psychotherapist who works with people afflicted with psychopathic disorders, I was disheartened by your implication that it is a kind of wishful thinking on the part of society to believe that shootings like the one in Fort Worth, Tex., can have a discernible psychological pathology, and therefore, a possible cure (editorial, Sept. 17). Rather, you say, ''there is only one overriding pathology, and it is guns.''

In fact, the psychopathy that can lead to such shootings is generally understood by mental health professionals to be a psychiatric disorder marked by a lack of empathy for other living beings and a numbness in general to feelings, combined with paranoid and grandiose delusional thinking that, unlike typical psychosis, can be hidden from the untrained eye behind a seemingly appropriate, acceptable facade.

Requiring mental and emotional evaluations as often as we require physical exams for school-age children would be a lot more practical and appropriate than focusing on eliminating guns through the legal system.

MORE ON WHY YOU SHOULD GET A DIVORCE!

Over a year ago, I wrote a piece for the FPL blog entitled, "HAVING CHILDREN? GET A DIVORCE!" It spun off an article by Elizabeth LaMotte, LCSW, called, "DIVORCE'S LITTLE SECRET", in which she outlined the benefits to parents of being in a divorced situation.

Today, in the Huffington Post, there is a piece entitled, "Divorce And Kids: 5 Ways Divorce Benefits Kids", by Shoshana Bennett, Ph.D., in which Dr. Bennett outlines divorces benefits to children.

Both of these articles are worth reading, folks. Really.


The point is, and my regular readers are very familiar with my observations on these matters, most people's reasons for getting married and having kids are at best flawed, generally suspect, and motivated by the compulsions of character structure and ego, so of course, marriage and parenting as we've institutionally constructed them are disasters. If the goal of marriage is to enhance love, Eros and sex between two people in love, and if the goal of parenting is to facilitate the self-actualization of growing human beings, then by even the lowest bar, marriage and parenting are abject failures. 


None of the traditional, structured aspects of marriage and parenting support healthy development or selfhood. If they did, we would have a lot of happy adults running things instead of the psychopaths, crooks and liars we currently have, and healthy, happy, joyfully expressive children would populate our schoolyards instead of the hyper, depressed, medicated version of kids we currently have, right?! 


And don't be fooled - none of the supposed "non-traditional" approaches to the above, such as stilted variations of polyamory, where "puppy piles" pass for actual openness and intimacy, or the nearly psychotic concept of hip parenting currently in the news, "Attachment Parenting," support growth either, because they are merely disguised ways to mask massive schizoid disconnection and rampant co-dependence.


There are no substitutes for the real things in life, folks. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not only our inalienable rights, they are the road to creating a world where peace, prosperity and harmony rule, but you cannot get there by avoiding the self-work necessary to clear away the mental and emotional debris of your character structures... and everybody has a character structure... unless you were born on another planet.


Meanwhile, if you're married or have kids, and are still refusing to do the self-work, at least think about splitting up. If you're not married with kids... well, you get it. I hope!

SCENE FROM "CITY ROCK" EPISODE 5: "FATHER'S DAY" OF CITY ROCK!

EXT. GRAMERCY PARK PLAYING FIELD - DAY

It’s over. Bird is packing up his gear on the bench. Two hot chicks - one black, one white - are waiting for him nearby. The rest of City Rock is milling about the parking lot.

JASON (O.S.)
You must be Bird.

The big man turns around to see the reporter. Bird just sniffs at him.

JASON (cont’d)
My name’s Jason Lamb. Maybe you heard of me?

Bird sniffs again.

JASON (cont’d)
Reporter for the Post. Anyway, Bird... can I call you Bird? Anyway, I’m doing a story on this... softball craze for Father’s Day, so I thought maybe I could interview you. Might even get your picture in the paper.

BIRD
Ain’t got no father...

JASON
Uh... oh... well, still...

BIRD
(brightening slightly)
But I got kids. You could put their picture in the paper.

JASON
Oh... yeah, that’s a great idea!

BIRD
I was gonna bring ‘em to the game for Father’s Day.

JASON
You got it! Great!
(taking out his pad)
So let me ask you a few questions...

RICK (O.S.)
Hey, you’re from the Post, right?

They see the ever-wired Rick come bounding over.

RICK (cont’d)
Jason Lamb, right? Man, I LOVE the way you HATE the Yankees.

He shakes Jason’s hand too vigorously.

RICK (cont’d)
Rick Berg. Copy Editor at Playtime Magazine. You writing about City Rock?

JASON
About the softball thing, and I’m gonna feature Mr. Bird here.

ELI (O.S.)
On BIRD?!

They all turn around to see Eli, City Rock’s resident macho rooster, strutting over.

ELI (cont’d)
Not taking anything away from the big guy, but no story on City Rock would be complete without a little coverage of their star pitcher... who also happens to be the owner of the best Cadillac dealership in Sunnyside, Queens!

Eli looks to his young nerdy sidekick, JEFFREY, for validation.

JEFFREY
Yep. That’s our Coupe De Ville right over there!

ELI
(incredulous)
Our Coupe De Ville?!

JASON
Oh... yeah, right. And you are?

ELI
Eli. Like I said, owner of...

JASON
The best Cadillac dealership...

ELI
In Sunnyside, Queens.

JASON
Ah.

ELI
You got that right.

STILL DEBATING THE G-SPOT?!

Come on, guys! Do some field research, will ya?!

HERE is another article on the "existence of the G-spot" debate!

REALLY??!!

WHEW! A REVISITING OF ANGRY MEMORIAL DAYS PAST!

I just did a search to see what I've written on Memorial Days past and found a trove of angry posts. I was a little surprised because I don't feel so angry this year about the lies and ludicrousness of this particular flag-waving holiday in America (i.e. - 18 veterans PER DAY commit suicide, and more have died from suicide in the last decade than have died in the Afghan and Iraq Wars combined, and yet during the administration that started those wars, funds were cut for medical benefits for veterans. See how easy it is to get angry?)

I guess I'm not that angry, though, because I've traveled so far in the past year vibrationally. As a result, 3D reality, where war and conflict are still the favorite pastimes of young souls, has become a distant and fading drama. You see, the way to eliminate war is never going to be through politics, left or right, but rather by leaving the lines of reality where war is being collectively created. In other words, by shifting to a world where war already doesn't exist. That is what The Wave is that I often speak about. It is the shift to 4th Dimensional consciousness that is sweeping through the lives of so many on Earth right now.

The reality already exists, folks, where there not only is no war, but where you are healthy, wealthy and wise, and happily pursuing life, liberty and happiness. So, celebrate today by declaring that war is over... for you... and jump on The Wave!

LOFF56 on: "CELEBRATING CHILD ABUSE ON THE COVER OF TIME!"/PL RESPONDS!

Here's Loff56: 

Yeah, I agree with you on this one PL! Absolutely ridiculous. Although technically "Attachment Parenting" is not so much an oxymoron as it is a "be careful what you wish for" statement. If your goal is to have a child that is completely attached to you, (physically and emotionally), quite literately for the child's entire life, then "Attachment Parenting" is the answer! I just hope you're prepared to go to school with the child, go to college with the child, go to work with the child, etc. etc. for the rest of your life because that child will NOT be able to do any of that on their own! 



Here's PL:


Thanks, L56, for your rational position. It gives me hope that adults like yourself might come to understand that child-bearing and child-raising require different sets of skills. (Jamie Lynne Grumet should have quit while she was ahead, say in the first 6 to 18 months.) In a more enlightened society, the younger adults would do the former and the elders would do the latter. Looking forward to that day!

TODAY'S QUOTE!

If we do what we can to eliminate the presence of ego in our performance, it'll increase our chances of truly becoming a vessel of expression, stemming from a source not known to man.

REPOST: "ADDICTED TO INTENSITY INSTEAD OF SATISFACTION?!" READ ON...

HERE'S A LINK to an article by Therese Borchard called: "Intensity is not the same thing as intimacy."

In the article, Therese quotes one Craig Nakken, author of "The Addictive Personality." Nakken repeats several times in his book that "The addict has an intense experience and believes it is a moment of intimacy."

Then, Therese goes on to say:

"It's only been in the last two years of my recovery from, well, just about everything, that I've come to appreciate that mistake. I suppose part of my brain is programmed to pursue the thrill, no matter how many people I hurt (myself included) to get it. I chase the adrenaline rush, the dopamine high, that is akin to the buzz I get from smoking an entire cigarette in three puffs after staying away from lung rockets for a year or more. It treats my bruised insides the same way Kids' Tylenol does my son's leg cramps. The addictive object dulls the blunt emotions with which I experience most of life. I crave drama, even as I know it's not good for me. And I create turmoil although I recognize that it obstructs the serenity I'm after."

PL:

I talk about this dynamic often with patients and readers.

Intensity is what we crave when our normal routes to pleasure have been blocked or numbed through our various character defenses.

Over-eating, substance abuse, sexually compulsive behavior, crashing from one personal crisis to another, even too much focusing on one's career or kids, all can be attempts to regain the feelings that have been dulled by our internal defensive operations.

The reason excess is so intrinsic a part of this is because there really are no substitutes for the real thing, for real pleasure. Having a big dose of sugar, or cocaine, when what you really crave is genuine ecstasy (pun intended!), will always leave you unsatisfied and jonesing for the next fix. Having sex ten times with ten different partners you don't really know or love will never gratify the true desire to make love with someone you're in love with. Etc.

A Pathwork Guide lecture on this subject is quite excellent, must reading if you're an intensity addict. Great title, too: "INTENSITY AS AN OBSTACLE TO SELF-REALIZATION!"

Hey, I don't mean to interfere with your holiday partying. Just tapping into any feelings of confusion or remorse you might be having now that you're hung-over and wondering why you did whatever it was that you did.

ENJOY!!

REPOST: "THE PLACEBO EFFECT!" (THIS SHOULD CHANGE EVERYTHING, TOO!!)

About half of American doctors in a new survey in the British Medical Journal say they regularly give patients placebo treatments - usually drugs or vitamins that won't really help their condition. And many of these doctors are not honest with their patients about what they are doing, the survey found. Scientists have long known of the "placebo effect," in which patients given a fake or ineffective treatment often improve anyway, simply because they expected to get better.

Okay, stop, breath and listen to it again: patients given a fake or ineffective treatment often improve anyway, simply because they expected to get better.

I taught about the placebo effect in my classes on creating reality and on health. This is one of those things, you see, where if it's true at all (and it's been a known medical fact for decades), it changes everything. It's your beliefs that determine your health. It's not the application of any particular treatments by a doctor, but rather your belief in the treatments that heals you. The medical establishment has been making billions of dollars doing things that only work if you believe they will. This is not New Age mumbo jumbo - every medical doctor knows this. It's been taught in medical schools since the 1950's! GET IT?! Modern western medicine is an elaborate hoax, mainly offering useless or toxic drugs and procedures that cost a fortune, when it is in fact nothing more than hypnotic suggestions that actually make you well.

Here's an excerpt from an amazing MUST READ BOOK by Jane Roberts (channeling "SETH"), called, "THE WAY TOWARDS HEALTH:"

“Your health is an extension of your creativity. Your body is an artistic creation, formed and constantly maintained at unconscious levels, but quite in line with your beliefs about what and who you are. The miraculous constant translation of spirit into flesh is carried on with inexhaustible energy by the inner portions of being, but in all cases the inner self looks to the conscious mind for its assessment of the body’s condition and reality, and forms the image in line with the conscious mind’s beliefs. So - once more - you form reality through your beliefs, and your most intimate production is your physical body."

Perhaps you might want to think about what you believe in before you shell out more money for your high blood pressure meds or Viagra?

ANOTHER WOMAN WRITER AGAINST MOTHERHOOD!

In her piece, "TYRANNY OF CLOTH DIAPERS," one Madeline Holler writes in support of Elisabeth Badinter's "The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women," whose quote I posted a few days ago. 


Not saying I agree with it all, folks, but I'm glad that the "sanctity" of motherhood, just like marriage, is being challenged.

"FRANCES" RESPONDS TO PL LOVING KIDS BUT NOT PARENTS! PL RESPONDS!

Here's Frances: 


"Love your article. As a woman who chose not to have kids unless I knew myself and my partner had grown up enough and had the appropriate resources for parenting... I couldn't agree more!"


Here's PL: 


Glad to know you're out there, Frances. And thanks for commenting.
PL

THE LATEST FROM sycicWALRUS: "RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"

TODAY'S QUOTE! (PL COMMENTS!)

"The best parts of aging is thoroughly knowing yourself, truly not caring what others think, and enjoying the confidence and courage that come with decades of practicing life and finding out, remarkably, it mostly turns out okay."
Anna Quindlen, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and author of six novels


PL: 
Well, I would amend Anna's quote above and say that "knowing yourself, truly not caring what others think, and having confidence and courage" can come at almost any age if one has done the work necessary to become self-actualized. Conversely, for many that have evaded the work and self-actualization, the aging process is not much fun.

TODAY'S QUOTE!

“The baby is the best ally of masculine domination.”
Elisabeth Badinter, author of "The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women"

The book is described in the Daily Beast as "a vehement polemic against the over-parenting tactics of a new generation of young mothers, which loudly proclaims that French mothers were at risk of turning into what were essentially Park Slope mommy tyrants, coddling, co-sleeping, obsessing about organic diapers, breast-feeding into the toddler years—and in the process, tethering themselves to the home in a way not seen since the 1950s."

Nicely done, Elizabeth!

[NOTE: The above quote, including the reference to "Park Slope mommy tyrants" was not mine, but straight from the Daily Beast piece.]

"WITMASTER" RILED UP ABOUT "THE CONFLICT!" PL RESPONDS!

Here's "WITMASTER:"

Um...not sure why this woman gets a round of applause...She seems to see children as tools of patriarchal oppression...Um & she is weirdly against The La Leche League???...who advocate breast feeding. Um...whats her beef there? Anybody who is a fanatical anti breast feeding activist always appears to have some serious early childhood issues to work out. Of all the issues to march against???? 
Badinter just sounds like somebody who had to make do without getting her early narcissistic and body needs met....TOTALLY repressed them....Blamed her own baby self for having them...Grew up & became an accomplished, schizoid intellectual....and now she thinks all babies should toughen up & not burden their Mommies...Just like she did & just like she was taught. Furthermore I dont see how breast feeding should be lumped in the same pile as some of the other "trendy" Park Slopian Mommy obsessions. Badinter seems from my reading to view motherhood thru her own particularly narcissistic lens: Any CHILD seems far less important than making sure that women have TOTAL freedom from any kind of "domination" which, if you take it to its logical extreme, means never being forced to be there for oh...lets say...A CRYING BABY BOY! After all we can't ever allow any MAN to restrict a woman's rainbow of options and or choices can we? Even if said "man" is a male infant of 3 weeks old she CHOSE to bring into the world?? 
Motherhood AND Fatherhood require a certain level of narcissistic relinquishing dont they? And if someone doesnt want to suffer under the iron fist of such oppression there is a simple easy way to keep children from "holding you down"...um...DON'T HAVE THEM!!! 


Here's PL:


Well, first of all, Witmaster, I didn't read anywhere in her piece that Elizabeth Badinter is against breast-feeding, but rather, as she put it, against "an obsession with breast-feeding well into toddlerhood." Very different things, and while witnessing a mother breast-feed an infant is a beautiful, natural event, watching a woman breast-feed a toddler is very disturbing, and I am saying that from the perspective of both a parent and an expert in childhood development. Secondly, with the right wing War on Women being waged today, including the movement to stop women from having access to birth control, I would say that we are far from women having the "TOTAL freedom" that you decry. Not all men, but certainly the throw-backs in the Republican Party, want women to be pregnant and powerless as they were politically in pre- 1970's America. Thirdly, the best mothers/parents are - across the board - the ones who put their own self-actualization first. We're not talking about narcissism here, but preparedness. Parenting is one of the most important and difficult jobs in existence, and most women, and men, enter into that critical "profession" without a clue, without being mature enough, wise enough or gratified enough as adults in their love and work-lives to do much more than rely on their children for ego gratification. Finally, where we agree, Witmaster, is that a good solution would be for women to stop having so many children, and for our culture to stop instilling in women the belief that bearing children is an essential role they must play to be women.
Glad we could end up agreeing and thanks for writing in.
Best,
PL