Reply to Do some parents just have bad luck in the kid department?

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[quote=Anonymous]I was the quintessential "good as gold" kid, a joy to teach, mature for my age and all that.  My mother was so proud that we were (in her own words) "terrified" of my father, who would berate us mercilessly, call us names, mock us and scream at her, particularly when he was drunk,which was often.

From the outside, what people saw were EXTREMELY well-behaved kids, perfectly dressed, straight A's.  My parents were literally invited by our Catholic church to help teach the marriage preparation class because they supposedly had such a great marriage.

You literally never know what kind of dysfunction is taking place in someone else's home, and lots of kids can overperform academically as a type of compensation ("If I get straight A's,  maybe I won't get attacked and mocked.")  The idea that everyone who turns out well has "great parents" is patently false.  And I suspect the opposite is probably equally true.

I had a lot to work through when I had kids -- since what I had learned was that all that matters is the final product.  It doesn't matter how you get those perfect kids, as long as you get them, right?  Part of me literally believed it was probably okay to make up mean nicknames for our kids as long as it got them to perform.  If you were lucky enough to grow up in a functional home with mature parents, you have a huge step up in life, but don't assume everyone has that.[/quote]

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