Childhood is an extremely frustrating time as well as a wonderful time. It is a time in which there is a great deal of powerlessness and boredom in addition to discovery and awe. How nice it would be to be honest with kids about that ("yeah, I think practicing scales on the piano is boring too, but it's also important if you want to learn how to make music") and help them to learn how to cope with these feelings, and even how to value them ("when you feel sad that's how you know something really matters to you"; "if you can do your homework even when it's frustrating you, that's a real accomplishment because you've worked hard at something that is good for you"). After all, kids can call bullshit on the "no really, it's fun" strategy pretty readily. They tend, in the long run, to recognize when they are being fed a line. If they are encouraged to be authentic about their feelings, they can be shockingly, courageously, wonderfully so. If taught that they need to cover everything with a veneer of fake enjoyment, they will just lose touch with what it feels like to actually enjoy.

I think the author is right to identify the funification of childhood as an issue of linguistic imprecision, because I do think that finding value in these experiences is part of what folks are trying to express by saying things like "math is fun" - that, for example, math is not inherently fun for most people, but there is a pleasure to be had in solving a problem and being able to see your own accomplishment on paper. That enjoyment is the key to helping kids get motivated and involved in learning. Getting in touch with it is one way of learning to value "down" feelings like boredom and frustration, because of what they tell us about ourselves and our experiences, and becuase of the long-term rewards of patience, confidence, and genuine self-esteem that perservering through them can yeild. But the vague language just contributes to the hiding away of real feelings and the almost manic insistance that everything of value must be exciting and upbeat. I'd rather see something marketed with a phrase like "math is worth the work!" but of course that would probably not move much product.

I would guess that there are many of us here who grew up with fathers -- and mothers too -- whose views on gender roles did not change with our births but became even more entrenched in traditional models out of disappointment that we were female and/or confusion and fear over how to raise a daughter.

For those who think that pointing out the roots of misogyny in the home is somehow misandronist, I would suggest that our brothers suffered due to our parents' calcified notions of gender roles in different but also harmful ways. On the other hand, I would also ask why it is somehow anti-male to choose to focus in certain forums on female experiences. Does it always have to be about you?

I have worked in treament programs with adults who have mental illnesses, including Schizoaffective Disorder, for many years. Some of the best people I have ever met were clients in those programs. Some had done things when they were psychotic that hurt other people. Many, when faced with the challenge of actions for which they were both in some sense responsible and yet not entirely at fault, found deep inner reserves of dignity and personal faith to use to reconstruct their sense of themselves as moral beings. Whether the people they had hurt were able to forgive them had more to do with the injured parties. What made the clients feel whole again were the repairs they made to their own injured sense of self worth. Perhaps your former aquaintences will never be able to fully process the moral ambiguity of your situation, but that doesn't have to set the tone for how you think of yourself or what you should expect from others in the future.

One of my fellow counselors had himself been a client in the program at one time and continues to be treated for Schizophrenia to this day. He tells others about his illness openly, knowing that he will probably be prejudged by the ignorant, but also expecting that showing people there is nothing to fear in him is probably the best thing he can possibly do to help change attitudes. This was not the path that everyone took -- many chose to keep their illnesses to themselves and work on improving their own lives and repairing their own self-image from the inside out rather than the outside in. Either way, they had to learn to trust themselves. The trust of others followed from that.

This may not be your experience, but I thought perhaps you would find it heartening to hear that you are not alone, and that there are many paths you can choose in response to the things you did when ill. The only thing you can't do is control how other people judge you.

... by pointing out that couples therapy is not supposed to operate the way it is (ever so briefly) described in this article. I shudder to imagine the session in which the person who had an affair gets total control over what is disclosed and revels in recounting every little detail about the sexual acts involved. I don't think many competant therapists would go for that.

On the other hand, there are some terribly incompetant therapists out there in the world. The author's atitude about couples therapy may very well have been earned.

I'd be interested to know how different cultures treat extramarital affairs in therapeutic settings as well.