They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
— This be the verse. Philip Larkin
A kid came to our center today for emergency counseling. Within seconds, before they even left the car, it became apparent that the mum was the problem. Anger, bitterness and resentment radiated from her almost perceptibly. If auras existed hers would be an enervating darkness. She saw the world as an enemy, and her son was in the crossfires. But I wasn’t their therapist… nor was I qualified to label. I simply recognized another ruinous outcome of poor parenting.
The boy tried to kill himself three times. It’s what brought him here. For most of the encounter he sat clenched like a wound spring close to breaking, his hands clasped tightly between locked knees, eyes downcast, shoulders slouched. Next to him his mother raged against the wind, the commute, the parking, the building, the dirty carpet, the inconvenience of her son’s despair.
He was so young… too young to bear the sins of his mother and father.
Is it not baffling that we license people to drink, to drive, to kill, but not to bring life to this world? There is no test of competency, no measure of adequacy. We bring children to this world, shaped them after our misery, and doom them to a life of death and desolation.
Woe. Woe is life.
I wish I could tell you that it gets better kid, but some baggage you carry forever. And the world has very few fucks to give. We all live not because of our mums and dads, but in spite of them.
#00117F 