What is Most Important and Yet Most Absent from Parents

Many, many fathers and mothers carry a particular problem into their parenting, and they don’t know it. It affects the way they think about the task that has been assigned to them. It affects the way they view their children. It shapes their responses in all the hard moments that parents face. It determines what they will say to themselves as they begin their day or as they crumble into bed, exhausted once again. It leaves many parents feeling unprepared, unable, and discouraged. It causes many parents to wish that they could just quit, when they know in fact they can’t.

It tempts…