There really is no correct way to raise a kid

My head is full of a bunch of ideas, so instead of boring you 2 viewers out there with a bunch of paragraphs, I’ll just list everything.

• I was watching a video of me as a child over Christmas vacation at my parents’ place, and it was depressing. The kid, me, in the video grew up to be embarrassed about any childish activities he took part in, despite the activities being proper for his age. My dad had little tolerance of childishness, and I picked up on that early on. One of the first times I found out was my mom clued me in that he didn’t like it when I ran around in my underwear in the house. I think I was 6 at the time, and I never forgot that, and I wore clothes in the house forever after that.
• Dad lost his father when he was young, and probably grew up super quick, losing out on his childhood.
• Dad also expected a lot out of me, which made me push myself hard in school and get better grades than the average kid, even though maybe I was pretty average myself. I learned lots of stuff outside of class, and while I may not have been smarter than the average kid by the end of high school, I knew different stuff and could hold interesting conversations.
• Mom complimented me relentlessly and still does. Dad, not so much. I never cared that mom complimented me, but every time dad did it I loved it.
• I tried to please dad at every turn, but wasn’t sure how to do it. I think I picked up the idea that he liked mom, so I tried to look like mom, but was scared to death he might find out about it. Pretty confusing for me. I was a closet CD early on. So I went about it the opposite way, by doing fight scenes and action films. He liked these, but the other compulsion was always there.
• In an attempt to impress him with my intelligence I started studying economics and the like, which ended up working against me since he doesn’t agree with any of it. This is a fairly recent event, since I only picked up these ideas in the past 18 months or so, and I’ve noticed my CD tendencies have been off the charts. Rarely does he say anything nice about my views on economics, or say I have a good point, even when I debate him out of the room. This happened during Christmas too, and it was pretty disappointing.
• That’s when I came up with the plot for my movie, about the self-destructive guy who’s forever trying to impress his dead father and has no other real course in life. The store came out like someone opened a valve.
• I worry/wonder if my CD habits are going to start fading once/if this ever clears up.
• At least I wrote a kick-ass story.
• Maybe I’m totally wrong, because I come up with a new theory all the time. This one seems better than the rest, though.

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