From our friend/overlord at Politico Playbook:
BROOKS, on his students at Yale: “For 20 percent of my kids, the parents love them and want to hone them towards success and shape them and, ‘Here’s what you do. We’re going to help you, we’re going to drive you.’ And when the kid does what the parent wants and things lead to success, the beam of love shines bright on the kid. When the kid tries to do something the parents don’t approve of, the beam of love gets dimmer. And so, for a number of my students, they’re plagued by conditional love, and if they take a job their parents don’t want, do a major their parents don’t want, the love is withdrawn.
“They live thinking they only deserve love if they’re doing what their parents want, and they are terrified that they’re going to lose their parental love and that just churns them up inside and they live in fear. So I think we have an epidemic of conditional love. The first thing I’d say to parents is watch for that tendency in yourself — because you’re pressuring your kid, you want them to do well. But you’ve got to love them unstintingly, no matter what.”
Are you in the 20%? Well, at least Handsome Dan loves you unconditionally.
PS: You can get Brooks’ book here.
PPS: Apparently this book is called The Road to Character. I wonder what it’s paved with?