12 February

The American novelist Richard Powers says that it’s our parents’ weaknesses that have the deepest, most lasting influence on us, above and beyond anything else they teach us. Many peoples’ lives are driven by the attempt to not be the things they saw as weakness in their own parents. But I also think it’s our weaknesses which bind us much more than any of our strengths, not just within families. We are our most human when we are weak and fallible. Nothing connects us faster to another human being than saying “hmm, I really stuffed up here.” As in nature, so in us, the weakest force of nature - gravity - is also the force that holds the entire universe together. The meek shall inherit the Earth. One of the most powerful pieces of parenting I’ve heard of was a friend, talking to her eldest child as a teenager, and saying “look, this is hard for you, but it’s also hard for your dad and me - we’ve never been parents of a teenager before either, we’re learning as we go along”.