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Parents can make us distrust ourselves. To them, we seem always to be works-in-progress.

Frank Pittman

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Frank Pittman
Age: 77 †
Born: 1935
Born: January 1
Died: 2012
Died: November 24
Psychiatrist
Psychotherapist
the United States of America
Parents
Seem
Progress
Parent
Seems
Make
Always
Distrust
Works

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The secret to having a good marriage is to understand that marriage must be total, it must be permanent, and it must be equal.
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A man doesn't have to have all the answers children will teach him how to parent them, and in the process will teach him everything he needs to know about life.
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When the masculine mystique is pulling boys and men out into the world to growl manly noises at one another, the only power with astronger pull on the male psyche is maternally induced guilt. The guilt is quite necessary for our moral development, but it is often uncomfortable.
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For most people, a life lived alone, with passing strangers or passing lovers, is incoherent and ultimately unbearable. Someone must be there to know what we have done for those we love.
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Happy people learn that happiness, like sweat, is a by-product of activity.
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Fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man.
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Men who have been raised violently have every reason to believe it is appropriate for them to control others through violence they feel no compunction over being violent to women, children, and one another.
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. . . in the end, there is nothing a man can do that a woman can't, except be a father.
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If fathers who fear fathering and run away from it could only see how little fathering is enough. Mostly, the father just needs to be there.
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Parents have subtle ways of humbling you, of reminding you of your origins, perhaps by showing up at the moment of your greatest glory and reminding you where you came from and demonstrating that you still have some of it between your toes.
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In considering the ledger equal, understand the greatest gift you have given your parents is the opportunity to raise you. The things a child gets from parents can't compare to the things a parent gets from raising a child. Only by experiencing this can you understand the degree to which children give meaning to parents' lives.
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Character, not passion keeps marriages together long enough to do their work of raising children into mature, responsible, productive citizens.
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Each generation's job is to question what parents accept on faith, to explore possibilities, and adapt the last generation's system of values for a new age.
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There are great advantages to seeing yourself as an accident created by amateur parents as they practiced. You then have been left in an imperfect state and the rest is up to you. Only the most pitifully inept child requires perfection from parents.
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Parents have to get over the idea that their children belong just to them children are a family affair.
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Infidelity flows from a belief that women have the power to make you feel like a man if you only find a woman that thinks you're perfect if you can only find a woman that you haven't hurt or disappointed yet.
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