Emotional Preparation (Parenting)

Those who know me well understand I am very hard on parents in general, and as one that includes myself.
I have my list of things I feel all parents should have before they consider having a child and I will support people who are unsure about having a child waiting every time. When it comes to having children if in real doubt, don't.

My opinions here have been strengthened by the fact my son is Asperger's and I have had to work hard to prepare him to deal with emotions he simply doesn't naturally understand but in fairness I have held these beliefs for a long time.

I tend not to go in for sob stories and the below is not a cry for sympathy, it is the life I had and the lessons I learned from it.

My gran was my gran and of course wonderful, to me at least. My mother had a different view of here and some of the things she said I felt were too horrendous to be true until in her later years the barrier between my gran's brain and her mouth started to collapse and I realised where a lot of my mothers issues came from.
Bringing someone up to believe they would only become worthwhile once married and their sole purpose in life was to be a wife and mother and dreams otherwise were worthless is unforgivable and I have heard the 'times were different' argument too many times to accept it. Point out the obstacles and things that would need to be overcome of course and help your child overcome them, don't simply state they will be a failure before they even get a chance.
My grandfather was brought up to be tough, not violent just untouchable and was taught as many are that emotions are for the weak. Ironically it is the genuinely strongest who are most connected to their emotions. This along with an abusive relationship with my gran where as my uncle declared after her death he hit her several times but never struck the first blow, meant he was a classically cold and by appearance heartless man. He had one relationship after divorcing my gran which lasted far longer, to the day he died he was too scared to tell her he loved her, asking my mother to do it for him. I admire him for many things but if this fact doesn't prove that truly tough guys are those who don't need to hide their emotions nothing is.
My father's parents died before I got time to know them enough to even remember them. I do know however that had his mother lived he would have a shape remarkably similar to her boot in his buttocks for the way he was with me when I was younger. His aim was to be husband, father and bread winner with wife at home bringing up his children. My mother was desperate for a way out of home so they were married and I became living proof condoms don't always work some months later. After some persuasion my mother abandoned the idea of an abortion which as a future parent of an unwanted child who felt she wasn't ready for such a responsibility. I know she was young and scared to lose the only person she had in her life who was offering her a life she preferred to being at home, but by this time she had done 2 things I don't agree in, married without really knowing the other person assuming that would be for life, and had a child she knew she didn't want.
They divorced a few years later when the love they declared was shown to be an illusion. In fairness when you haven't been shown a lot of this in your youth it's hard to know if you have it when older, I don't know what love my father was shown but my mother was shown practically none, so while I think she made stupid decisions, I understand why and this is part of why I am harsh on parents.
My father went on to find another wife who was content to play housewife and mother for him and the plan was for him to get custody of me too. At this time the courts were heavily in favour of mothers, likely still are, so when my mother fought for custody she got it. I have discussed this with her, pointing out I wasn't wanted, she declares that by then she felt too much love for me to simply let me go, I will take her at her word on this, but like many who hadn't been brought up to understand emotion she never expressed this to me in any way a child could understand.
With the new family and bad blood between him and my mum most of my memories of my father are of broken promises to come and see me. While I understand he had his other family, this is still not acceptable, if you aren't going to be there don't say otherwise. It hurt me less when he said nothing than when he told me he would and didn't show up. This got to the point where I remember him telling me he would be there on Friday and I asked which one and walked away unable to face him.
One question a number have asked is how I could possibly know I was due for abortion, after all no parent in their right mind would tell a child something like this. As with many who have lives they can't handle my mother hid away in various bottles of alcohol, this lasted my entire childhood in fact it was only in my twenties when I realised I'd had to give her present real thought instead of simply buying a bottle for her that I reflected on how long this had been the norm. She was sober in the day time in order to be able to drive and work but every evening was time for a bottle or more. When I was a lot younger there was very little money in the household so this was generally a solitary of small group affair. When she married my stepfather and he funded her starting a business there was enough money to have frequent celebrations at our home. As the nights wore on the alcohol would mean things she wouldn't ordinarily say became normal. On one of these evenings she declared before a group of people we knew that I was only born because my father wouldn't let her have an abortion. In a very un-Hollywood manner I didn't cry or leave the room I simply smiled and shrugged it off, by that time I wasn't hiding feelings anymore, I had genuinely stopped feeling anything at all, a sign of just how weak I had become out of necessity.

So I am the result of parents who showed me no love or emotional support because as far as I can tell they had none from theirs. After doing what most who are born after abortion is decided against do by attempting suicide a few times and failing so mentally painfully the final time when I realised that no matter how much you want to die your body will over-rule you and make you able to do things you wouldn't believe possible to achieve this, I felt I was the most worthless loser on the planet, doomed to always be.
Forward over a decade and after a lot of work which involved hurting a lot of people who didn't deserve it, I finally figured out how to start allowing emotion back into my life and that being hurt is worth it for the times of feeling good.
Forward even further and I found out I was going to be a dad and was determined above all else that the chain of not showing love or preparing for emotions was going to stop here. My wife's story is infinitely worse than mine so she was totally behind me in ensuring our son understood how precious he is to us, and would understand that anything is possible if you are willing to make the sacrifices. He doesn't like all of this of course, because no child likes being told, yes you can do this but in order to do so you have to sacrifice playtime to prepare for it, and there are times when he is angry with me and genuinely hates me at that time so doesn't want to be reminded that I do love him, but I do it anyway.
Preparing him for an emotional life is becoming harder as he gets older and the situations he encounters become more socially complex. So we work harder on it and when he lashes out emotionally because it was too much we often take the battering, that's just part of the job. Refusing to do this would mean him growing up the same sort of mess as his previous 3 or likely more generations and I will not accept this without at least trying to prevent it.

A parents job is to prepare the child(ren) for a life where we are no longer there, because in most cases that will happen at some point. I see far too many who seem to feel their children should suffer anything they have because that's how they did it. My son knows he is better than I was in every possible way and this gives him pride and confidence because he sees what I have been able to achieve despite my failings so knows he will be able to do far more, if he chooses to. He also knows that he will have our support regardless so is able to make choices based on what he truly wants to make a priority in his life, and understanding what gives his life meaning and how he feels is a valuable part of this.
This is not the softly approach of making out the world will be handed to him on a plate just a way of saying things may be hard work for a long time, but we will be right there with him. This goes for everything including relationships with others.