GavinH said:
We can agree to disagree on the conflation between work and the home. I believe that the home sets the stage and should train children to become valuable members of society. Once you leave home the world is filled with things you have to do without question (many of those are at work) .... pay taxes, drive on the correct side of the road etc.
GavinH, with all due respect, I think this reasoning is a little bit like arguing that you can teach a child to swim by throwing him into the middle of the sea.
When you swim in real life, you have to know how to maintain your head above water long enough to breath, how not breath when you are underwater, how to hold your breath for a controlled amount of time, how to float or how to move while floating. Swimming in real life is swimming in the current, amongst real waves crashing around you, in deep water, without an immediate place where you can stand.
Yet, if you would "teach" a child to swim by confronting him to "real life" conditions, your child would drawn.
The same way, I believe work is an environment where you have no safety, where you must work for survival (to earn money to eat), where you cannot afford a mistake (depending on which mistake), where the people in control have no love for you and no incentive to care for you other than to get your productivity. It's not a safe place. It's not a learning place. It's not a place where you can be yourself and learn by mistakes.
It's not a place where you can get unconditional love and acceptance.
But it's also not a place meant for children. It's a place meant for adults, with a fully grown, developed and matured brain.
Just like the sea is a place meant for fully ready swimmers who are in shape and who know already how to swim.
If you want to prepare a child for swimming, you need to build trust; prepare scaffolding (i.e., go in shallow water with your child, take it small step at a time, teach each separate component like putting your head underwater, holding your breath, moving, etc). It's also critical to teach a child to swim in a calm and non cohesive way, so that they learn to like to swim, so that they do not develop a fear of water or a distaste of it, and so that they acquire the self confidence they will need to swim easily in harsher conditions.
I believe that child rearing is like that.
IMO, Home should have <I>
nothing in common</I> with a work environment.
It should be fun, safe, loving, warm, understanding, open, nurturing. It should have relationship between family members that are driven by care and love, not by interest or productivity.