【推荐2】Adnan, a 56-year-old father, wants to make it clear that it's not just mothers who can feel like failures in their home life. “I had the fairytale of what I'd be like as a dad,” he says. “When our first child was born, I had images of all this stuff we'd do together. It didn't include pictures of sleepless nights, or every item of clothing being covered in snot and yoghurt.”

He also says it doesn't get any easier with more children, because each child will have a different personality requiring different methods of parenting. “There's a fine line between child management, focusing on health and safety, and being a present dad, trying to listen to all their voices,” he says.

“No one explains that you're their protector as well as the person meeting their hygiene (卫生) factors, feeding them, listening to playground politics and building their confidence. You're the person who is the narrative in their head about how great they are.”

Adnan says that though he doesn't compare himself with other parents, he still finds it hard to shake the fairytale that is firmly in his head, compared with which he always comes up short. “The continuous refereeing (调解) and the delegate decision-making go beyond anything I've done in the workplace,” he says,

“I keep asking myself' Am I equipped to deal with this?' I'm a father, a counsellor (咨询师) and a coach. There's also something about being a parent in your 50 s: you don't have the physicality of your 30s.”

【推荐3】Don’t teenagers hate being treated like children? Shouldn’t we accept that they are growing up? Yes, of course, they are growing up and may want to change things about their habits or activities, but parents trying to be “supportive” and encourage these changes often do more harm than good.

For example, you and the rest of your family are heading up to the mall for hours. Your teenage daughter Laura has shown resistance to being seen with you in public recently, so you decide not to persuade her to come with you. This seems like a very respectful thing to do that takes into account her feelings and opinions, but when you return she is upset. What went wrong? Well, many things could have gone wrong while you were away. She could have been caught up in friend drama, boy drama, or any other kinds of drama. Or she could be feeling hurt. Maybe she really didn’t want to go to the mall with you, but maybe you should have at least talked with her about it. Even knowing that you wanted to spend time around her probably would have felt good.

Some people say that this is an unreasonable expectation for parents to be “enabling” their kids to demand constant attention and validation (确认). I say, spending 30 extra seconds to make sure your children know you care about them is only “enabling” them to have a part of the self-worth they are so lacking at this time in their lives.

Expecting them to be removed and emotionally distant from you only re-enforces the idea that they should be. Always give them the choice to be an independent teen or your baby girl. When they need a break from the high school soap opera, you will both be glad you didn’t close that door.