I grew up the same way. There was a lot of arguing—it rarely turned physical, but they didn’t take much interest in me, either. I had to sort out many of my own issues on my own. Fortunately, I had grandparents on one side of the family who loved me dearly and made me feel like I belonged. They also always encouraged me and supported my talents.

Now I have children of my own and think about this a lot—especially since my wife’s experience was similar, yet different. We decided to do things better with our kids, and we try to put that into practice every day.

Here’s something that crossed my mind: I’ve certainly achieved a degree of success in life, partly because I had to be very independent from a young age. If I wanted something, I had to take care of it myself—at least in most cases. But I’ve come to the conclusion that while my sons might turn out to be more "normies" or conventional, the psychological toll of that kind of upbringing—the low self-esteem and the lack of pride from one’s own parents—far outweighs those benefits.

I never said that we weren't loved or that basic affection was withheld.

We were expected to do beyond what we thought was our best, or else we would be disappointments to our parents. Would they still love us? Sure. Kick us out...? Not unless our responses involved gross insubordination. But we were called to explain ourselves as one would in a court of law.

What was at stake, and this is what I think you may misapprehend, was not parental love. It was parental respect.

In order for that to function, you actually have to love them and know that they love you. Otherwise you wouldn't give a shit whether they respected you.

Which is why withdrawing respect at times is not abuse, it's teaching someone how to conduct themselves.

My childhood didn't suck at all. That's really a misinterpretation. Here's an example.

When I was 5 years old, my parents took me on the Concorde from New York to London. I remember the trip very well and learning what the Mach sign at the front of the cabin meant. The flight attendants gave me some neat models and stuff that I still have 40 years later.

A member of the British Parliament was sitting in the row behind us. Toward the end of the flight, he spoke to my father and said that he'd been worried about sitting in a row behind a child, but that he'd been listening to our conversation for two hours and had to comment on how much we'd talked about and how well I'd behaved.

Children do live up to your expectations of them, and you can talk to them as adults. None of this makes a childhood suck.

I've just been sucked into the same online shitstorm as everyone else, I guess. I'm posting right now directly after reading tonight's clickbait about the woman who got sentenced for child abuse for letting her 5 year old kid walk a few blocks alone in a gated community. Transposing that to all this, it makes me think about what impacted me, my family and my cohort and allowed us to be self-sufficient, and further, the whole commentary demonstrates that such things are perceived by a good chunk of the population as "abuse" when they're really tools you need to give your children which other people would love to deprive you of giving to your children. I am an example of someone who would be nothing without the framework of expectations and responsibilities I was given at an early age (including at times radical freedom that I had to use judiciously or else face extreme disappointment) so I'm speaking in defense of that style of parenting.

But as to why I'm here writing in the middle of the night, it's pretty much on myself and my own addictions. I should be doing something more productive.

I've got lots in the humanity tank.

I just reserve the right to speak honestly, and I'm also willing to have my mind changed. Lots of hypocritical assholes are magnanimous as a gesture. I'll spend 2 hours telling a homeless guy he's not Jesus and he's ruining his life and try to find him a job. I did that a couple nights ago. But that isn't magnanimity, fuck no. It's some kind of sheer Dostoevskyan desire to see humanity in everyone I meet because the token value of mine is only as good as theirs. That's how I define morality. Magnanimity can go to hell.

When I was a teenager I really thought their demands were unfair.

When I was a dropout and a taxi driver in my 20s, I blamed my parents.

When I became a millionaire based on finding something I loved and doing it very well, even though they disapproved and didn't support me in it, I finally was able to thank them for giving me the intellectual tools to do that for myself.

And interestingly, unexpectedly, they finally respected my choices as well.

Life without a struggle is meaningless.

My brothers, worth noting, are far far more interesting and successful than I am... I'm still a dropout loser to them. Megacorps and politics are their games.

Our father had a thing about no television and only books. We had to read 50 pages a night of a book he chose, after school, and report to him what we had read. Every night. No video games either, and computers only if you were writing your own code.

My eldest brother was severely dyslexic. He had a very hard time reading 50 pages a night. He found all kinds of ways to fake it. He makes $20 million a year now, give or take, as a senior law partner, still faking it. Tell me that ain't a good story.

The measure of whether it was done in the proper proportion, I think, is whether you find later in life that it was, on balance, a service to you.