I’m not 50% of each of my pathological parents. That would make me 100% pathological, which I think I miraculously managed not to be.
I’m just me, with various fractions from various places that are impossible and degrading to quantify with math.
Accordingly, my kids are not 50% me and 50% their father. It’s arrogant and demeaning to think they are 1/2 either parent like property. This concept is used a lot in the world of parental alienation and it needs to die.
Acknowledging a pathological, alienating parent for their abuse and legitimately concerning pathology does not mean we are insulting 50% of our kid. This has become a twisted concept in the legal system and another way to abuse and silence the healthy, loving, devoted targeted parent.
If anyone had clued me in about my parents’ pathology, I may have been spared considerable abuse and trauma that I am now trying to deal with.
The 50% concept is also incorrectly used in the legal system for parenting time. It assumes kids benefit from 50% time with both parents, regardless of their capability as parents. Family courts state their mission as caring for the best interests of children. However, many of their rulings show otherwise.
In an ideal world, kids would only be with healthy, loving parents.
As Khalil Gibran eloquently describes, our kids are 100% themselves and deserve our utmost care. Having them and raising them with an aspiration to reach their full potential is a privilege, blessing and honor.
On Children
Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.