The Ego

ego (noun) : part of one's psyche that realizes there is an outside world is full of idiots; see also: id
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The ego gets a bad rap because of people like Donald Trump.

When in fact, the ego keeps us in check. It's not the ego existing on immediate self-gratification (see my last post), and it's not the ego existing on guilt. The problem with the ego is that the world is a tough place in which to mediate one's own existence with everyone else's existence.

That doesn't mean those whiners in my old group therapy sessions were right about the world (and it doesn't matter). It means that when trying to negotiate life in a world filled with other people who, for the most part, aren't aware of their own issues or the problems those issues cause for them or others, it takes a strong ego to get through it. And a strong ego is tough to develop when all that self awareness is lacking in those other people.

Which brings us right back to those unaware people who raised us, doesn't it? (I warned you that it always comes back to the parents.)

Reparenting - part 2

reparenting (verb) : 2. the act of telling one's parents that they sucked
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Apparently the need for reparenting isn’t new. Look at the fairy tales – Cinderella (her father remarries horrible woman who later mistreats his daughter and he doesn't notice), Hansel & Gretel (their father abandons them in the woods at direction of their mother), Rapunzel (her parents give her up to the witch next door out of fear) – all those kids had rough childhoods and were in need of reparenting.

But they don't ever get that, do they? They may seem to get the 'happily ever after' at the end of the story, but we don't know what happens after that. Do you think Cinderella spent much time after her wedding being nice to her mean stepmother? How long do you think that Hansel and Gretel went before they began to resent their father for what he did and that they gave him all their riches when they escaped and made their way home? Ever wonder whether Rapunzel searched for her birth parents? We don't get hear the end of those stories.

There are many proponents of reparenting but it does make you wonder whether it really works. I'm not sure why Lance Armstrong has embraced this, but I see that his website promotes reparenting as well as a 'Self Esteem Seekers Anonymous Program Manual.'

http://www.livestrong.com/article/14706-re-parenting/

Since I had incorrectly assumed that self-help books had cornered the self esteem market, look for my 'Reparenting Through Fairy Tales Self Help Manual' next summer! I'm hoping it will help defray the costs of my therapy over these past ten years.

Reparenting - part 1

reparenting (verb) : 1. the act of rewriting one's own history and experiencing different mistakes than those one's parents made (see also, "Family of Choice")
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I don’t know anyone who had a happy childhood.

Those people that talk about the wide open spaces and the freedom to roam and play unsupervised when they were growing up neglect to mention that their father never showed up for their soccer games or that their mother got drunk in the middle of the day (not that there's anything wrong with that, except when she packs you and your cousins into a car and drives down a highway going the wrong way).

see - http://celebrifi.com/gossip/Diane-Schuler-Photo-Taconic-Crash-Drunk-Mom-710989.html

(For those of you wondering, 'denial' will be another blog entry.)

Even parents now raising their children don't seem to notice that they are contributing to unhappy childhoods. When those kids can't go out and play without a formal 'play date' or go anywhere without turning on the GPS on their mobile telephones for parental tracking, the modern parent simply chalks it up to the times in which we live. No wonder therapists thrive.

I'm not sure that there is such a thing as a happy childhood. Perhaps all children need reparenting when they become adults, much in the way that Eric Schmidt of Google says they need new names and identities upon adulthood - each of us recreating ourselves when we turn 25. (BTW, since when did 25 become the new age for reaching adulthood?).

Maybe this would eliminate the need for therapy since this time around, we would be breastfed, born first, and not named after a piece of fruit.