Nature vs. nurture and blame
So, if a kid is particularly athletic or musically talented, say, no one says…ahh, what a great job of parenting that child those parents did. They say the child was born with that talent. When a child has no talent, say, at sports or languages, people attribute it, again, to the child’s genetic traits. But when a child is, say, quick to anger or perhaps not the most smooth at social skills rarely does anyone—parents, teachers, neighbors—say, oh that child has an in-born challenging personality. They say, what did the parents do? How’d they mess up that child? What did they do to that child? And sometimes, that unspoken and sometimes even spoken criticism and judgment gets old.
Paul R said,
March 18, 2008 @ 8:04 pm
The other side of the coin is: how important is it to take credit for raising a emotionally healthy, creative child?
What would you do with that credit? Would it make you feel prouder than raising the child in the first place?
Vivian said,
March 19, 2008 @ 5:20 pm
I agree with Amy R. When my children were growing up, I always felt that they earned the praise and I deserved the blame. It’s a good system for the kids, not so wonderful for the parents.
Now I find that I take responsibility for both the good and the bad — but that’s easy, since there’s so much that’s wonderful and so little that’s defective in my offspring.