The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
Interpretation
Fathers often desire their children to reflect positively on them, instead of allowing them to forge their own paths.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell highlights a significant issue within parental relationships, particularly between fathers and their children. He argues that in a competitive society, many fathers place undue pressure on their children to succeed in ways that reflect well on the fathers themselves. This desire for children to be a 'credit' can hinder the child's personal growth and independence, as they may feel compelled to meet their father's expectations rather than pursue their own passions or identities.
In practice
In a speech about parenting at a local community center, one might quote this to discuss the importance of supporting children's individuality.
St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
I think when you become a parent you go from being a star in the movie of your own life to the supporting player in the movie of someone else's.
There is no word for feeling nostalgic about the future, but that's what a parent's tears often are, a nostalgia for something that has not yet occurred. They are the pain of hope, the helplessness of hope, and finally, the surrender to hope.
It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
A Mother who radiates self-love and self-acceptance actually VACCINATES her daughter against low self-esteem.
A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.
There are three degrees of filial piety. The highest is being a credit to our parents, the second is not disgracing them; the lowest is being able simply to support them.
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