I listened to discussions today on TV about the impact of alcoholic parents on their children.
I would not wish to minimise this impact.
Or the impact of  parents who gamble; or are drug addicted; or lazy; or unemployed; or low intelligence; or have no taste in clothes; or are anti-social; or are shy; or are over-confident or........
And so I could go on.
The truth is that, on cursory examination,  there are very few people who have the credentials to be good parents. Â
To be fair, many potential parents do worry about this. So they rush out to buy books on the subject, hoping to learn how to do it.
My message to them is simple: stop worrying.Â
Do the best you can, given all the circumstances in which you find yourself. Do not focus just on your children; carve some time for yourself and you will be setting an example to your offspring that they should do the same.
Human beings do not exist to be just incubators. If there isn't more to life than that, what is the point?
However good a parent you are, your children may have very unhappy lives. You can console yourself, if you have done your best  in your parental role.
Last thought. It is not a good idea to blame yourself for how your children turn out. Leave them to do that. They almost always do.
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