I think it's reasonable for a person to be proud of raising the sort of child they wanted to raise.
I needed to be clearer, there. I don't think it's bad for a person to be proud of raising the sort of child they wanted to raise: "It's natural for a parent to rejoice at the success of a child and be sad at their child's failures."
But I still think that "the measure of success of a human being who has children must be composed of more than that human's perceived success or failure as a parent." Congratulating yourself as a parent for raising a child that goes on to take actions you approved of is ok. But I feel that congratulating yourself in front of a crowd of tens of thousands of people for raising your son the way you wanted to raise him, and having tens of thousands of people congratulating you back for raising your son the way they and you think he should have been raised, is a little odd. When I think of that kind of sentiment being expressed in a group of any size, it seems to scale more to the wedding-day-toast-size group than the "mega rally" size group.
Continuing on to imply that unspecified people are trying to retroactively take away her pride in her having raised her son as she thought was right seems strange. How could such unspecified people remove such a thing, especially after the bulk of the raising has already been accomplished?
I might congratulate her if she'd raised a son who became a peace activist, even if she herself felt unsatisfied with that.
I don't disagree with you: "If he'd decided to support an institution or ideal she did not agree with, would she then reject identical accolades from those who told her that she must be proud to have raised such a courageous, self-aware, self-sacrificing child, because the institution or ideal he decided to support was something she could not support?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
29/8/10 22:47 (UTC)I needed to be clearer, there. I don't think it's bad for a person to be proud of raising the sort of child they wanted to raise: "It's natural for a parent to rejoice at the success of a child and be sad at their child's failures."
But I still think that "the measure of success of a human being who has children must be composed of more than that human's perceived success or failure as a parent." Congratulating yourself as a parent for raising a child that goes on to take actions you approved of is ok. But I feel that congratulating yourself in front of a crowd of tens of thousands of people for raising your son the way you wanted to raise him, and having tens of thousands of people congratulating you back for raising your son the way they and you think he should have been raised, is a little odd. When I think of that kind of sentiment being expressed in a group of any size, it seems to scale more to the wedding-day-toast-size group than the "mega rally" size group.
Continuing on to imply that unspecified people are trying to retroactively take away her pride in her having raised her son as she thought was right seems strange. How could such unspecified people remove such a thing, especially after the bulk of the raising has already been accomplished?
I might congratulate her if she'd raised a son who became a peace activist, even if she herself felt unsatisfied with that.
I don't disagree with you: "If he'd decided to support an institution or ideal she did not agree with, would she then reject identical accolades from those who told her that she must be proud to have raised such a courageous, self-aware, self-sacrificing child, because the institution or ideal he decided to support was something she could not support?"