You always want what you didn't have, and no one is perfect, but I do think that you make people (not just kids!) around you better and stronger when you model goodness and strength.

I'm not in favor of being a bad person to teach people how to deal with bad people. Chances are, despite your best efforts, you'll do plenty of bad stuff anyway.

Where logic and emotion come into this is anyone's guess, but showing some affection is a good idea in a household, as is showing how to deal with negative feelings.

There is a funny Simpsons scene where Marge and Homer don't fight in front of Lisa and Bart. Instead they go into the car and argue/fight, because they thought that fighting in front of the kids would be bad.

Instead of protecting them from it, the kids started to freak out whenever the parents went to the car.

The moral is: you can't protect your kids from anything, and overthinking it rarely works. There is no such thing as perfect parenting where you protect your kid from all problems. Just do your best and things will work out.

> Then one day my aunt told me she was mad at her father for being "too logical" when raising her because it gave her unrealistic expectations.

> If a parent never misbehaved is a kid going to be thrown for a loop when they meet emotional teachers?

I would teach/explain to my kid(s) that not everyone is like me or you, or anyone else. Some people prioritize emotions over logic, even to their own detriment. Not everyone is like that, most people make decisions based on emotion, but stop short of hurting themselves too badly. Etc.

I would also give them the opportunity to discover this for themselves, not have it be a surprise when they go out on their own for the first time. I'm a scout leader, I have the kids interact with adults when we go places instead of myself. They need to build confidence and ability to work with people in other age groups.

If that's the worst your aunt experienced, sounds like she had a pretty good upbringing to me.

The whole identical twins separated at birth thing makes me believe environment is the only thing a parent can provide.

Children do not listen to their parents for very long.

A decent school, technology like a laptop, and maybe an awareness to dissuade bad friends. That seems like all you can do.

I've thought about this a lot. The evidence seems pretty strong that as long as you are a reasonably decent parent (IE, maybe anything short of child abuse) your kid will probably turn out as their genetics and the large-scale culture predetermine in a lot of important ways: IQ, income, educational achievement. However, good parenting can make the journey more pleasant for everyone involved, even if the destination is roughly the same. If I let my son watch a ton of TV instead of actively playing with him it might not affect his adult IQ much, but I do think it would make both of us worse off and less satisfied in ways that would be hard to quantify. Of course, that may just be how I justify doing what my culture tells me is good parenting even though there's not much data in support of it.

You might be interested in reading Maria Montessori (of Montessori school fame). Her stance is very much towards molding the environment rather than the child. She basically says that you can't mold the child, but you can become an obstacle to their development.

> Children do not listen to their parents for very long.

I disagree with that. I listened to my dad growing up because I respect him and think he is a good person. I probably would have gotten into more things if that hadn’t been the case.

I don't know that I "listened" to my parents very well, but I did watch them a lot. Their actions influenced mine quite a bit.