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Many of us spend our teenage years working tirelessly to avoid becoming our parents. But sooner or later, we discover that we didn’t stray quite as far as we thought. A few years ago, my colleague Faith Hill spoke with 17 parents who had the same disconcerting experience: They all noticed themselves doing something, big or small, that mimicked what their own parents used to do. “Some were genuinely happy to take after them,” Faith writes. “But most felt at least a little uneasy at the realization: Even people who had relatively happy childhoods, after all, can recall some parental shortcomings. Of course they don’t want to replicate them.”
The legacy of one’s parents can feel like a prophecy, Faith notes. But we’re not all doomed to repeat our parents’ mistakes, or destined to inherit their successes. Today’s reading list is a guide to taking useful lessons without losing your own way.
On Becoming Your Parents
How to Take Charge of Your Family Inheritance
By Arthur C. Brooks
You may be fine with becoming more like your parents or hate the idea. Either way, it’s something you can control.
The Parenting Prophecy
By Faith Hill
The way someone was raised often shows up in the way they raise their own kids—for better or worse.
Quaker Parents Were Ahead of Their Time
By Gail Cornwall
The nearly 375-year-old religion’s principles line up surprisingly well with modern parenting research.
Still Curious?
- The branch of philosophy all parents should know: Care ethics just might transform the way people think about what they owe their children, Elissa Strauss wrote last year.
- What workism is doing to parents: Public policy should assist families—but not by helping adults spend more time on the job, Lyman Stone and Laurie DeRose wrote in 2021.
Other Diversions
- 24 books to get lost in this summer
- The wrong way to motivate your kid
- Maybe Star Wars is better without lightsabers.
P.S.
I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. Elizabeth, from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, shared this photo of “the darkening day, the calm, the color, the scale of the ocean compared to the scale of me—of all of us.”
I’ll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks. If you’d like to share, reply to this email with a photo and a short description so we can share your wonder with fellow readers in a future edition of this newsletter or on our website. Send us the original, unedited photos from your phone or camera as JPGs—no cropping or shrinking is needed.
Please include your name (initials are okay), age, and location. By doing so, you agree that The Atlantic has permission to publish your photo and publicly attribute the response to you, including your first name and last initial, age, and/or location that you share with your submission.
— Isabel
The post What We Inherit From Our Parents appeared first on The Atlantic.
