Nothing is quite so horrifying and paralyzing as to win the Oedipal struggle and to be awarded your mother as the prize.
Frank PittmanA boy is not free to find a partner of his own as long as he must be the partner to his mother.
Frank PittmanParents vary in their sense of what would be suitable repayment for creating, sustaining, and tolerating you all those years, andwhat circumstances would be drastic enough for presenting the voucher. Obviously there is no repayment that would be sufficient . . . but the effort to call in the debt of life is too outrageous to be treated as anything other than a joke.
Frank PittmanParents have to get over the idea that their children belong just to them; children are a family affair.
Frank PittmanSome parents were awful back then and are awful still. The process of raising you didn't turn them into grown-ups. Parents who were clearly imperfect can be helpful to you. As you were trying to grow up despite their fumbling efforts, you had to develop skills and tolerances other kids missed out on. Some of the strongest people I know grew up taking care of inept, invalid, or psychotic parents--but they know the parents weren't normal, healthy, or whole.
Frank PittmanIt's not that we have too much mother, but too little father. We can't forgive our mothers for taking the place of our fathers until we are ready to see that the point of a man's life is to be a father and a mentor, and we can't do that because we don't know how we would be a father or a mentor when we never had one.
Frank Pittman