Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

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The More I Appreciate Being A Parent, ...

Barnhouse Napa Brews, Napa, California, USA

September 5, 2023



"The more I appreciate being a parent, the more I appreciate my parents." ... Laurence Platt posting to Instagram

"The Earth is like a spaceship that didn't come with an operating manual." ... Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller

"My Family is like a spaceship that didn't come with an operating manual." ... Laurence Platt riffing on Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller

"You may not be upset by what they said. You may be upset by what you made what they said mean, and then assumed it's what they said." ... Landmark Forum Leader
This essay, The More I Appreciate Being A Parent, ..., is the companion piece to What You Made What They Said Mean.

It is also the twentieth in a group of twenty three on Parents: I am indebted to my parents Andee and Manfred Platt who inspired this conversation, and to Mark Spirtos who contributed material.




I've discovered this for myself. I'm not claiming it's "the-truth", rather that it's worth trying on for size to see if there's any free-ing truth in it. It's threefold:

1) to the degree to which my relationship with my mother is incomplete, I'm incomplete with all women;
2) to the degree to which my relationship with my father is incomplete, I'm incomplete with all men;
3) to the degree to which my relationship with my parents as a unit is incomplete, I'm incomplete with living and with Life itself.

I made three originating judgements about my parents when I was young, before my early teens in fact. It took me years to locate them, 'fess up to them, own them, undo them, and complete them. They're "originating" judgements because they originated / became the foundation for all judgements I made about my parents from then on. Not realizing at the time that doing so was just nailing my foot to the floor, I held all three as indubitably  accurate. There was never one shred of doubt in my mind that my three judgements were accurate. Yet there was one problem with not doubting that they were accurate: when judgements of a relationship (any relationship actually, but even more so in the case of our relationships with our parents) are not accurate, trouble and confusion are sure to follow - and they did. These are the three originating judgements I made about my parents, which I held as indubitably accurate:

1) I assumed they knew everything there is to know about parenting, so I blamed them when (in my bratty, childish opinion) they didn't act accordingly.
2) When they didn't show me they loved me in ways I'd determined they should  show me they loved me, I made it mean that they didn't love me at all.
3) As I (privately) became my own person, I chided them for not embracing who I was becoming - even though they had no way of knowing who that was.

Now that I'm a parent myself, I get to deal with (often to my own chagrin) exactly the same things in my relationships with my children that my parents had to deal with in their relationship with me. Now, the more I appreciate being a parent, the more I appreciate my parents. I've gotten clear that nobody gave me the job of judging, evaluating, critiquing, and criticizing my parents' parenting skills. It was just one more of the things I took on unquestioningly, bravely hanging on even with one foot nailed to the floor, being right, avoiding being dominated. And now that I'm a parent myself, I've discovered that:

1) Surprise! I don't  know everything about parenting (I learn more and more about it every day as I go along ie I'm learning in the process of Life itself).
2) I love my children totally, unconditionally, and sometimes I don't express that fully in the heat of the moment with the imposition of the circumstances.
3) My children are surely growing into becoming their own people. Whether I know who they're becoming or not, I support them - no matter who that is.

In the light of what I've realized being a parent myself, my parents did a simply amazing, stalwart, sterling job raising me. Looking back at all the chapters of my life-history, my parents have never not supported me. All my erstwhile judgements of them have ceded to admiration, appreciation, love and respect.



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