Raising Saints, Not Sociopaths: The Parent’s Real Job

A subscriber writes, “Your Substack came highly recommended, so I signed up, but the more I discover about you, the more disturbed I become. You seem not to like children at all, which pretty much discredits you as a parenting expert, in my eyes at least. You often call children ‘little criminals,’ for example, which is nasty. Children are born inclined toward doing good. That inclination is often corrupted by bad parenting, but it is a child’s natural bent. We should love them. They are the future.”

Well, I completely understand how someone who thinks children come to us as semi-divine beings (I’m being purposefully snarky) would be offended by my rather contrarian point of view…which I shall now explicate and hopefully cause you to come to your senses.