Tag Archives: understand

On Being a Parent

Becoming a parent is easy. Being a parent is the hardest job you will ever have. There are as many “shoulds” and “oughts” about parenting as books on bookstore shelves. What should you do? Who do you listen to?

Some say trust your instincts. I agree. After all we are evolved to procreate and raise children in the culture of our heritage. It should be as easy as it appears for the birds and the bees. But where are all those wise instincts we’re born with? For most of us, they are buried under layers upon layers and years and years of being told what to do, when to do it and how to do it. We’re taught if we don’t listen to parents and elders, we will be in trouble, maybe not be loved or accepted. Years of learned experience has set up detours and roadblocks tricking most of us away from our instincts to look in the wrong direction for the answers.

The answer is found in trusting yourself.

But first you have to believe that you Read more…

Roosters Need Understanding Too

Roosters need understandingI saw an exhibit of Art Spiegelman’s many years of brilliant comic work at The Jewish Museum in NYC. One comic strip caught my attention as brilliant parenting advice. I share it here.

The comic was Spiegelman’s fairy tale of a Prince who told his father, the King that he thought he was a rooster. His father laughed it off but the Prince kept up his belief. His father, of course getting concerned for his son’s mental health, dismissed and belittled his son’s fantasy. The more the Prince seemed convinced, the more his father rebuked him and the more the prince regressed into his roosterdom until he eventually spent all his time naked under a table crowing.

The King called in all the help he could find in his kingdom and soon there were long lines at the castle door of people hoping for the King’s favor when they helped the Prince. But no one could cure the prince.

Finally an old man with a long beard but no credentials arrived claiming he could help. The King was at the Read more…