On Sat, 17 May 2008 21:55:13 -0500, Mueen Nawaz wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Ah, well, when I want someone to give me an object lesson, I'll ask for
>> it.  I think I know a damned sight more about Ken's friend's family
>> situation than you do.
> 
> 	Out of curiosity, did your wife feel that way only with regards 
to his
> mother, or towards both of his parents (regarding not hugging...)?

As I recall (and it has been a while), what the friend said was 
specifically about his mother, not about his father.  How demonstrative 
his father was I could only guess at (our larger experience was with his 
mother, as she's the one who drove him to school every day).

It did (and does) just completely boggle my mind as to how a parent could 
think that not being demonstrative of their love for their child was a 
good thing.  In S's behaviour, it was pretty easy to see that his parents 
placed very little in the way of limits on him, and after seeing how his 
mother treated him (in particular), it seemed that it wasn't something 
that was specific to him (his brothers were treated similarly) nor was it 
that they felt the kids "needed" their freedom/privacy, but rather that 
they were just inattentive to the kids' needs.  The father is a scientist 
and spends a lot of time out of the home as a result of his work.  The 
family was set up pretty much as "father = breadwinner, mom = stay at 
home and raise the kids", except that mom was never around either because 
of her social life - that was pretty clearly always her priority, and 
anything the kids needed was pretty much an afterthought.

Like I said, kids as fashion accessories.

Sorry if I sounded a bit aggressive the last time around - I generally 
don't take kindly to people questioning my wife's judgment.  She's a very 
good judge of character, and for her to get to that point with someone is 
not something that happens at a whim.  $DEITY help me if I ever get on 
her bad side, though....

Jim

Post a reply to this message