The Conscious Parent

in general. Indeed, he couldn’t have been more different from the
fantasies his parents had of him had he tried. Although Anthony, his
father, was a star tennis player and a bicycling enthusiast, Sean hated the
outdoors, was terrified of insects, and preferred to play video games or
read in his room.
Exasperated by his son’s idiosyncratic personality, Anthony belittled
him daily. Tina, his mother, a high powered attorney, believed that men
should be strong and dominant, which meant she was irritated by her
son’s tentative ways. Trying to “man him up,” she wanted him to work
out at the gym, wear cooler clothes, and talk to girls even though he was
terrified of them.
Homework and examination times were peak periods of stress and
strife. Sean couldn’t cope with the demands of mainstream education—a
fact his parents wouldn’t accept. Though each of his parents had a
different approach to handling their son, both were abusive, calling him
names and yelling at him, ridiculing his inability to learn basic math, and
not allowing him to eat until he had mastered a concept. When I talked
with them, they kept emphasizing, “Our son isn’t retarded. He doesn’t
belong with ‘those’ people in special education.”
Fights were a daily occurrence in this household. If it wasn’t Sean and
his father fighting, it was Sean and his mother. Anthony and Tina
reached such a state of despair in trying to parent their son, they stopped
acting as a team, slowly coming to resent each other and inevitably
drifting apart. When they announced they had decided to get a divorce, it
was no surprise to me, and neither was the reason they gave: “We can’t
take Sean’s behavior. He’s driving a wedge between us. We can’t deal