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May 2025 | Maggie Appleton
May 2025 | Maggie Appleton
Being on the other side, I now realise there was no calculation or algorithm or pro/con list or financial spreadsheet that could have helped me understand what it would feel like. Nothing that would do justice to the emotional weight of holding your sleeping baby that you made with your own body. Of watching them grin back at you with uncomplicated joy. Of realising you’ll get to watch them grow into a full person; one that is – at least genetically – half you and half the person you love most in the world. Of watching them trip out as they realise they have hands.
I can now say with certainty I am evolutionarily wired for this. Perhaps not everyone is. But everything in me is designed to feel existential delight at each little fart, squeak, grunt, and sneeze that comes out of this child. Delight that is unrivalled by any successful day at work, fully shipped feature, long cathartic run, or Sunday morning buttery croissant – the banal highlights of my past life. When I think back to my pre-baby self, trying to calculate herself into a clear decision, I wish I could let her feel for one minute what it’s like to hold him. And tell her I can’t believe I ever considered depriving myself of this.
·maggieappleton.com·
May 2025 | Maggie Appleton
Review of ‘Adolescence’ (2025) ★★★★★ by Zoe Rose Bryant
Review of ‘Adolescence’ (2025) ★★★★★ by Zoe Rose Bryant
you’re given the opportunity to work with kids before they’re thrown to the wolves they’ll encounter throughout the rest of their days in public education and shape them at the start of their most vulnerable and impressionable state in life. you’re with them eight hours a day, five days of a week - something their parents can’t even say at this age.
it’s a profession where you’re provided with more power than you’ve probably ever had; but with that power comes tremendous responsibility and obligation as well (sorry to crib from spider-man, it was unavoidable). of course, you’re there first and foremost as an educator. but you’d have to be blind not to see the start of some of the biggest problems facing society today simultaneously.
when faced with such sights, you can either bury your head in the sand and stick to your “lesson plans” or pursue the path that goes above your paygrade and confront these conflicts head on, before they blow up in a bigger way a decade down the road.
kids truly are sponges at this age, soaking in everything you do and don’t want them to. they see everything, they hear everything, and though they may not know everything, they’re savvier at connecting context clues than one might initially foolishly assume.
don’t submit to the self-fulfilling prophecy - be the author of another.
·letterboxd.com·
Review of ‘Adolescence’ (2025) ★★★★★ by Zoe Rose Bryant
‘The Interview’: Dr. Lindsay Gibson on ‘Emotionally Immature' Parents
‘The Interview’: Dr. Lindsay Gibson on ‘Emotionally Immature' Parents
I just started watching “The Sopranos” for the first time. If you listen to the dialogue, they completely nailed it, because everything always comes back to the viewpoint of the emotionally immature character. It’s always all about them. Another one is the lack of empathy. The parent just doesn’t get it. They say, “Why are you so upset about this?” Or, “This is not a big deal.” They cannot enter into the reality of their child’s emotional truth
The broad definition of emotionally immature parents is parents who refuse to validate their children’s feelings and intuitions, who might be reactive and who are lacking in empathy or awareness. But can you give me examples of emotionally immature behaviors?
how do people distinguish between normal, flawed parental behavior and behavior that’s detrimental enough to rise to the label of “emotionally immature”? If you think of emotional maturity and immaturity as being on a continuum, all of us have a spot that we tend to hang out on. It doesn’t mean that we stay there. If you’re tired or you’re sick or you’re stressed, you are not going to be as emotionally mature as you could be when you’re rested and well and not stressed. However, if you’re in one of these compromised states, you may do some things that look immature, but it’s going to bother you. You’re going to think about what you did. The emotionally immature person, it’s like: “That was in the past. Why are you wallowing in it?” The more emotionally mature person would get why you’re still upset, and they’re going to do something that indicates that they have felt for the other person’s experience.
‘Isn’t labeling someone’s parent “emotionally immature” a kind of pathologizing? You could argue that. There’s no way of getting around that you’re boiling down this person that they love into a set of traits, and it calls them a name. It’s pejorative. But when you say “emotionally immature,” it’s not from the diagnostic manual. Although it is a way of categorizing them, it has a more explanatory tone. If you say, “Your father is narcissistic,” I get an immediate caricature of a narcissist. If I say, “Your father sounds like he may be emotionally immature,” there’s a little grace in that.
If somebody goes to their parent and says, “I think you were an emotionally immature parent,” how would a parent ever disprove that? If they would only say, “Tell me what you mean by that.” It would be the curiosity and the caring about what their child was expressing. Emotionally immature people shut the door because they know they don’t handle emotional things very well, and their best defense is to not get into it and to point the finger back at you.
When is estrangement the best option? That is something I start thinking about when they start having physical or emotional problems directly associated with their contact with their parents. Say, a woman who had very demanding, egocentric, emotionally immature parents, and they expected her to come at the drop of a hat, help them out, do something for them. They were as needy as her own children and also entitled, so she was exhausted because when they pulled her into these interactions there was no exchange of energy. It’s like, they need more, and she’s a bad person because she’s trying to set a boundary. It’s always frustrating, and you never feel like you’re doing enough
This woman I’m thinking about, she was developing stress-related physical symptoms, and it was like, OK, let’s talk about the effect on your health. So then you may bring up to the person, “Do you want to keep visiting them?” Lots of times, that’s the first time that thought’s ever crossed their mind.
There’s a moral obligation that is not only implied but explicitly stated: If I have a need, you should be there because you’re my kid. I’m trying to get them to feel the cost of it to them, which often they have completely tuned out because they don’t want to be a bad person.
I think the book’s ongoing popularity has been due to the fact that it said something about the cultural stereotype that we’ve had about parents for eons: that all parents love their children; all parents only want the best for their children; all parents put their children first; children can depend on their parents to be there for them when no one else is. I think people’s actual experience is that these stereotypes and these tropes don’t match up with their emotional experience.
Once we call something something, we think we know all about it. On the other hand, sometimes when you reduce and isolate out the operative factors, it gives you a way to not only recognize it but to control it and do something about it. So it’s a valid point, David, but it is a point that you could say about anything where you have an effective categorization: that it oversimplifies and leads to black-and-white conclusions that are not helpful. I’ve just tried to moderate that by helping people see more of the big picture about why these people became emotionally immature, what they’re trying to do with that kind of behavior and what you can do about it.
Do children owe parents anything? I look at that question differently. I look at it as, do any of us owe anybody else anything? What’s the answer? The answer is, yes, I think we do. If I’m walking down the street and somebody trips and falls, I’m going to stop and help them get up. I wouldn’t want to live in a world where that wasn’t there, but what has happened is that there has been such an assumption that because you’re my child, you owe me something. Or, I’m entitled to your attention, and I can treat you any way I want because we’re family. That’s where you get to a point where there should be a boundary
People could decide, Hey, my unhappiness has to do with being raised by emotionally immature parents, and I’ll work on that. Then six months down the line, they realize there’s still a bunch of things they’re unhappy about. So how do we understand what our expectations for happiness should be? If you ever watch little kids, their default mode is happiness, and that’s because they’re spontaneously going and doing the next interesting thing. They naturally are following their energies. I think that’s what happens with people too. If they feel released to say no to the things that kill their energy, if they don’t feel guilted into acting more compassionate or loving than they really feel, if we take these things off of them, it’s like a cork that bobs to the top of the water.
When we can get the idea that we’re not in this world to function as a sort of auxiliary coping mechanism for people who can’t do it for themselves, we begin to feel our energy coming back. That’s what happiness is. Happiness is like free energy.
what I’m talking about is that with the people that I work with in psychotherapy, the adult children of these emotionally immature parents, the problem was really an excess of compassion. What I’ve seen is that the compassion takes over the instinctual self-preservation, and the person feels too guilty, too ashamed and too self-doubting to even think about what’s healthy for them.
don’t think there’s much possibility of change unless you have self-reflection, and you have self-reflection because you have a sense of self. You developed a sense of self because your emotional needs have been met and you have been responded to as a human being early enough that that sense of self gets in there.
I think there are earth-shattering moments that permanently shift your view of something or your way of thinking. That kind of change can happen in a flash. It’s like a joint goes back into place. There’s a click and it’s like, ah, everything starts to reorganize around that new realization. What I have found, though, is that the biggest change that people seem to have gotten from therapy is that they have a realization of their own inner experience. They now know how things affect them, what they really feel, what they really think, and they use that to guide themselves through relationships and their lives. The insight is not an intellectual exercise. It is like a becoming — an awareness that this is who I am.
What if I’ve come up with something that is most palatable for me? Well then you’ve got a problem, and what will happen is that reality will spank you. [Laughs.]
When we’re talking about relationships between people, is there such a thing as “the truth”? Just to use my own example: I have what I think is a truthful understanding of my relationship with my biological father and how it affected me as an adult. I think he has his own interpretation that is true for him. So what does truth mean in your context? Well, there’s no eye in the sky that’s going to one day give us the answer, but I think we can sense the truth for ourselves. Even if it’s a bad thing, even if it’s a painful thought, you still have those experiences of, I’ve touched on the truth of something. As far as human beings go, the best we can get is that internal sensing of what our truth is. And of course the next question’s going to be, What if I am a conspiracy theorist or a paranoid personality?
if our expectation about childhood is one where happiness is the default, might that retrospectively lead us to feelings of disappointment as adults? I think what I was trying to get at is that if children’s basic needs are met, they want to go and experience things that make them even happier.
you can mess it up early if you don’t pay attention to what something needs when it’s young
My mom and I have a great relationship because I was able to articulate to her, and was willing to, how she hurt me. She was blown away at first and we fought for months about it. Now she has come to terms with yes, she did some pretty terrible things. No she didn’t hit me, but what her and your generation doesn’t understand is there are many ways a parent can hurt their child without putting a finger on them, creating difficulties for them in later years. The fact that my mom could own those things, sit with them, accept that she had hurt me and accept that she had been the villain at times, saved our relationship. We never talk about it anymore. We never fight. We talk everyday. She is now not only the mother I want and need at 36 but my friend and confidant. My father however refuses to accept anything I tell him about how he hurt me. We can’t talk about it because he believes I’m making it up and the culture has taught me my parents are the root of all my problems, that he is the victim, that I have to do what is best for me if that means cutting him off. I did, and don’t regret it
When therapy knocks up against economic reality, one sees how meager therapy’s promise is. The most psychologically healthy person today is limited by destructive environments. If only my outlook was emotionally healthy— maybe then I would be able to—- able to what? Find an affordable rental, send my child to a good school, take time off when I am sick, feel secure about the steps taken to combat global warming, eat healthy food….
Has anyone in the comments actually read this book? The misplaced assumptions are astonishing. It is not about holding a grudge against your parents or about sidestepping personal responsibility. It is about better understanding the emotional landscape we come from so that we can understand what, specifically, we can take responsibility for, and how, specifically, we can truly and wholly forgive. I am a parent, and my mother fits the definition of emotionally immature. Reading this book has helped me have MORE compassion for her and more compassion for myself. It has not made me feel like I’m walking on eggshells around my daughters. It has helped me develop a roadmap for how I can repair our relationship when those rifts inevitably happen
My husband noticed when I was in my 30s that seeing or talking to my dad was hard for me. He said, ‘you get wound-up for a couple of weeks before you see him and it takes you a month to come down.’ So seeing my father once took me 6 weeks to cope. So I didn’t see him much. This story is clearly longer and more complex than the comments section can allow. In the end, I helped him - with his doctor appointments, hospitalizations, moving to assisted living, running errands. I did it for the basic idea of his humanity, and I excused his behavior to help him. But I exposed myself to a lot of toxicity in the process.
if a parent was not emotionally, physically, or mentally abusive then have a conversation. Let the parent know whats happening and how you’re thinking about the relationship. I did understand that she has her own journey and gets to choose those she will share it with. But she didn’t tell me any of that until i asked directly. I want my adult child to be satisfied with her life and to have autonomy. She didn’t have to break my heart to get there. Folks who write books like these make it black and white but people, families, are so many different shades in between. The author should recognize and callout the difference between extreme and repairable.
My own mother has started being able to talk with me about what she wishes she'd done differently while raising me, and that's helping me go easier on her. It's easier to forgive someone who says, "I'm sorry, I didn't handle that well," or, "If I'd known then what I know now," I would've handled that differently."
I think it’s fair to say that one of the problems with contemporary life is how we label other people in ways that are reductive or don’t acknowledge multidimensionality. Is there any part of you that thinks it’s not a good thing for the people who have read your book to be thinking about a parent, Oh, you’re emotionally immature, and that is what defines you now? Absolutely, I think it’s a danger. That is the problem with the categorizing part of our mind.
·nytimes.com·
‘The Interview’: Dr. Lindsay Gibson on ‘Emotionally Immature' Parents
How Bad Habits Are Formed (Unconsciously)
How Bad Habits Are Formed (Unconsciously)
I think she enjoys treating her boyfriend like a chore because her relationship with her parents acclimated her to the feeling of being depended on. She likes the feeling of parenting and babying someone because her child-self had to do that to stay on her parents’ good side. In other words, her psyche felt like, in order to keep her parents’ love and protection, she needed to turn herself into a caretaker, going above and beyond what she knows she should be doing.
Patterns that are formed out of necessity in an earlier stage of life determine what you look for for the rest of your life. The behaviors you were forced to do when you were younger become the behaviors you itch to do when you’re older.
Like making a tie-dye T-shirt, the twists and turns of childhood shape the way we’re colored as adults.
·sherryning.com·
How Bad Habits Are Formed (Unconsciously)
The Free-Time Gender Gap - Gender Equity Policy Institute (GEPI)
The Free-Time Gender Gap - Gender Equity Policy Institute (GEPI)
Women spend twice as much time as men, on average, on childcare and household work. All groups experience a free-time gender gap, with women having 13% less free time than men, on average. Mothers spend 2.3X as much time as fathers on the essential and unpaid work of taking care of home and family Young women (18-24) experience one of the largest free-time gender gaps, having 20% less free time than men their age Working women spend 2X as many hours per week as working men on childcare and household work combined Mothers who work part-time spend 3.8X as much time on childcare and household work as fathers who work part-time Married women without children spend 2.3X as much time as their male counterparts on household work Among Latinos, mothers spend more than 3.6X as much time as fathers taking care of children and doing household work
The unequal division of unpaid work in the home, such as cooking, cleaning, and shopping for food and clothing, is a powerful testament to the tenacity of old gender norms. Women do significantly more of this work than men do, even when there are no children living in the home. This holds true for women regardless of their marital status, their employment status, or their level of education.
Among all adults without children, women do twice as much household work as men, dedicating 12.3 hours per week to these tasks, on average, compared to 6 hours for men. Similarly, among all single people without children, women do nearly twice as much household work as men, spending 10.6 hours per week on household tasks compared to 5.7 hours for men.
getting married seems to exacerbate the burden of household work on women. Married women do substantially more household work than their single women peers, while married men spend just a few minutes a day more than their single peers. Married women without children do 2.3 times as much household work as their male counterparts (14.3 hours per week versus 6.2 hours).
Working women spend significantly more time than working men on unpaid work in the home. This is the case whether they work full-time or part-time. It is the case whether they have children or not. Take household work like cooking, laundry, and the like. Women who work full-time do 1.8 times as much as men who work full-time; they spend 9.7 hours per week on it compared to 5.4 hours for men. Women who work part-time do 2.5 times as much household work as men who work part-time.
Across every group studied, men spend more time than women socializing, watching sports or playing video games, or doing similar activities to relax or have fun. Women overall have 13% less free time than men, on average. The gap balloons among some groups, with women having up to one-quarter less free time than men.
Women overall have 13% less free time than men, on average. The gap balloons among some groups, with women having up to nearly one-quarter less free time than men.
there is a wide gulf between our ideals and our realities, as we have seen in this report on how Americans divide the work of taking care of home and family. One reason for the persistence of these gender disparities is that the U.S. has failed to modernize its public policies to fit 21st century economic realities. Even though 78% of American women are in the labor force, the nation’s social infrastructure is still largely premised on the assumption that mothers will be at home with children.
Every high-income nation in the world provides for paid leave for new parents—except the United States. Most provide ample financial and institutional support for childcare and preschool. Our peers devote a substantial share of public spending to family benefits, but the U.S. invests only minimally in supporting families. For instance, family benefits account for 2.4% of GDP in Germany compared to 0.6% in the United States.
Even when young children enter school, typical American school hours are grossly misaligned with the workday, forcing families to either spend money on after school care or reduce their work hours.
Public policy alone will not entirely eliminate these deeply rooted gender disparities. Cultural change is needed too. But smart policy can nudge along positive behavioral change that ultimately advances equity and equality. For example, several countries include mechanisms in their family policy to encourage fathers to take paid parent leave. Many Nordic nations have a ‘use it or lose it’ provision for fathers. Other countries, like Canada, provide extra paid weeks of leave to families if both parents use the time.
The unequal division of care work, particularly, affects women’s opportunity and well-being in ways that cannot be measured solely in dollars and cents.
One way Americans deal with the housing affordability crisis is to move to distant suburbs and exurbs, where housing is cheaper than it is in central cities and job hubs. The tradeoff, however, is typically a long commute to and from work. But for women who are caring for children or elderly relatives, long commutes are often not feasible. Children and elderly parents get sick and need to get to doctors in the middle of a workday. School hours begin too late and end too early to accommodate a commute to a 9-to-5 job.
when schools close due to climate-driven events, mothers might have to take unpaid time off of work or pay for childcare. As Americans experience more dangerous heat waves, wildfires, and floods driven by climate change, the caregiving demands on women can increase, as they are more likely to be the ones responsible for helping children and elderly adults stay out of harm’s way.
·thegepi.org·
The Free-Time Gender Gap - Gender Equity Policy Institute (GEPI)
Part 1: How To Be An Adult— Kegan’s Theory of Adult Development
Part 1: How To Be An Adult— Kegan’s Theory of Adult Development
Robert Kegan's theory of adult development proposes that adults go through 5 developmental stages. Becoming an 'adult' means transitioning to higher stages of development, which involves developing an independent sense of self, gaining traits associated with wisdom and social maturity, and becoming more self-aware and in control of one's behavior and relationships. However, most adults never progress past Stage 3, lacking a fully independent sense of self. Progressing requires a "subject-object shift" where one's beliefs, emotions, and behaviors become observable and controllable, rather than subjective forces.
When we’re older, religion becomes more objective — i.e. I’m no longer my beliefs. I am now a human WITH beliefs who can step back, reflect on and decide what to believe in.
Stage 1 — Impulsive mind (early childhood)Stage 2 — Imperial mind (adolescence, 6% of adult population)Stage 3 — Socialized mind (58% of the adult population)Stage 4 — Self-Authoring mind (35% of the adult population)Stage 5 — Self-Transforming mind (1% of the adult population)I focus on Stages 2–5, because they’re most applicable to adult development. Most of the time we’re in transition between stages and/or behave at different stages with different people (i.e. Stage 3 with a partner, Stage 4 with a coworker).
·medium.com·
Part 1: How To Be An Adult— Kegan’s Theory of Adult Development
Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits
Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits

The provided web page discusses a study on the longitudinal associations between parenting practices and child Big Five personality traits. Here are the key takeaways and findings from the content:

  1. Association Between Parenting and Child Personality:

    • Previous research has explored the associations between parenting and various child characteristics, but less has been done on the longitudinal associations with child Big Five personality traits.
    • Studies have shown both positive and non-significant associations between parental warmth and child personality traits.
  2. Longitudinal Analyses and Changes Over Time:

    • The study utilized longitudinal data with assessments at different grades (5, 6, 7, and 8).
    • Changes in parenting behaviors over time were observed, with a general trend of decreased parental involvement and structure as children entered adolescence.
  3. Measurement Invariance Tests:

    • Measurement invariance tests were conducted to ensure that changes in latent factors represented real changes in constructs rather than changes in relations between factors and indicators across time.
  4. Correlations and Effect Sizes:

    • The magnitudes of correlations between parenting variables and child personality were reported to be small, averaging around 0.05.
    • The study emphasized that small effect sizes should not be dismissed, and the associations were comparable to those found between other environmental factors and child personality.
  5. Practical Implications:

    • The study suggested that the small and non-significant associations should not discourage research on parenting interventions. Modest changes in parenting and child personality, when multiplied by the population, can have meaningful effects.
  6. Changes in Child Personality Over Time:

    • As children got older, they became less conscientious and less open to experience, as indicated by negative slopes in the longitudinal analyses.
  7. Parenting and Child Personality Complexity:

    • The link between parenting and child personality was described as complex, transactional, and dynamic. The study considered theories like Social Learning Theory and Attachment Theory but highlighted the need for a nuanced understanding.
  8. Limitations and Future Directions:

    • The study acknowledged limitations, such as the small effect sizes and the complex nature of personality development. It emphasized the need to consider multiple environmental factors contributing to personality development.
  9. Contributions and Data Accessibility:

    • The authors highlighted contributions to the conception, design, acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data by various individuals. The study's materials and data are accessible on the Open Science Framework.
  10. Conclusion:

    • Despite small effect sizes, the study suggests that understanding the association between parenting and child personality requires a nuanced approach, and interventions at the population level can still be meaningful.

Overall, the study contributes insights into the complex and dynamic relationship between parenting practices and child personality development, recognizing the importance of considering multiple factors and the potential impact of interventions.

·online.ucpress.edu·
Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits
Why education is so difficult and contentious
Why education is so difficult and contentious
This article proposes to explain why education is so difficult and contentious by arguing that educational thinking draws on only three fundamental ideas&emdash;that of socializing the young, shaping the mind by a disciplined academic curriculum, and facilitating the development of students' potential. All educational positions are made up of various mixes of these ideas. The problems we face in education are due to the fact that each of these ideas is significantly flawed and also that each is incompatible in basic ways with the other two. Until we recognize these basic incompatibilities we will be unable adequately to respond to the problems we face.
·sfu.ca·
Why education is so difficult and contentious