Here're my thoughts for the day:
1) Do not turn to the internet for parenting advice for it will reaffirm your reasons for feeling guilty and make you wonder if it would be better if you were dead (don't google "which is worse for kids, divorce or death?" because I can tell you the interwebs say divorce. Hmm. Well that's not reassuring.)
2) This poem is by Philip Larkin and it sums up parenting research tidily:
This Be the Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
3) Assuming it is too late (you have kids already) and you are doing something generally considered bad for your children (like, for example, leaving your spouse, their other parent, and moving out of the house), expect unexpected moments of empathy with society's other Wrongdoers. Today, I'd be in a good frame of mind to befriend all kinds of folks who have Done Wrong, just to see how they deal with it. So: if you're reading this and you happen to have killed your mother and then eaten her, or if you happen to have on purpose killed a beloved family pet (or sibling), or if you have a habit of leaking high-level security documents to the press, please be in touch.
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