Big Feelings

this what everyone wants, secretly? For another person to accept both the blame and responsibility for all our bad feelings? Maybe the adolescent struggle for independence is misguided. We grow up and fire our mothers, insisting their work here is done, before realizing we cannot hire a replacement.

One woman reported that her mother had shown her a few things like how to make salads and wash the dishes, but had taught her nothing about how to “do life”—how to have a conversation or relate to other people, how to manage her emotions, or anything important. Such mothers seem to have vacated the mentor role, or at the least to feel quite insecur

Every mammal feels instinctively that it needs and deserves full parental attentiveness. When a parent is only halfway attentive, the child notices and feels uneasy.

but “when painful emotions and unpleasant feelings are not picked up and handled by the parents, the infant, or child, is left with overwhelming feelings he or she is not equipped to deal with,