Interesting perspectives on opium

Plenty of contemporary evidence should make us wonder about the nature of the parent-child/ren relationship of our times. I certainly think I have a less artificial, more straight-forward and rational relationship to my puppy than what I see in most parents scrambling around, excusing themselves to their children. Take the local commuter train from Copenhagen Main Train Station to Tisvildeleje and you'll witness one little fascist after the other chastizing freaked-out parents. Or the worst ones: a pedagogy-parent softly respecting every utterence of the little freak as he/she raionally tries to guide the absolutely self-conscious monster to some worthy perspective. Interesting socio-cultural dimensions suggested on these links. Where historically children were little more than an inconvenient free work force, methodically abused, then, migrating towards children being a sort of middle-of-the-road sub-part of realizing the facade-parameters of successful petit-burgeois existence, rather unconsciously and preferably in the suburbs, we now seem to have ended up in the opposite ditch: parents completely morphing their selves and lives into around the clock subservience. Spurred on, perhaps, by collective guilt over what is perceived as the indifference of the past (i.e., 'we know so much more now of child development and have the books and dr. phils to guide us') , and hence, not least, by the massive terapeutical industry which, sadly, does not alleviate higher education from responsibility.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10395006/Children-are-the-opium-of-the-masses-says-Rory-Stewart.html

The worship of children brings only misery | Suzanne Moore

http://gu.com/p/3jz2y