Assigning people roles and expecting them to fit is a poor system–particularly when they aren’t allowed to fill the role as it naturally suits them. Sure, we have to do stuff we don’t like, but to be someone you aren’t doesn’t make sense.

I’m sure my Sister and me were entertaining, and were certainly loved and cared for, but we had lives to figure out too. Kids can’t be instructed all the time, like adults they need time to themselves. It might be that a lot of the over-work people do is a form of time to themselves with their job? Anyway people are complex, constantly evolving and hard, if not impossible to manage.

Both our Daughters were in a cooperative day care where I did maintenance some days as part of our fees. After the parents left in the morning it became a small country for kids to interact and learn to be humans. Their attention moved from missing parents to regarding each other socially very quickly.