It is the obligation of every parent to provide their child with material for future therapy.
I have supplied Baby Boy aka Jordan with a long and substantive list. So don’t worry about your son or daughter having to do without. Baby Boy has enough to share.
When he was young I decided to choose the area of his future neurosis. I thought, “He’s going to be neurotic about something. It will be my fault, so why not choose something of benefit to me?” I chose neurotic neatness. I created systems for ordering his toys – plastic see through containers that fit neatly onto a shelving unit. The containers were labeled – Lego playground; toy soldiers; cars & trucks etc. As a side benefit he would get a jump-start on learning to read.
Baby Boy is now 20. Here is a picture of his room on a very good day. He is in the process of organizing and packing to go back to Ohio for his Junior year. 
What have I learned from this? Neuroses develop out of the natural order of things. No pun intended, but enjoyed nevertheless.
Among all our parenting failures we did at least one thing well. Independence and self-reliance. The proof as they say is in the pudding. We did not receive the midnight phone call during his freshman year asking, “How much laundry detergent do I use? When do I add it?” Baby Boy has been doing laundry since age 14. He irons, meticulously folds and hangs his clothes – except for the ones that are all over the floor. Those are tweener-duds – too clean to be in the hamper, too worn to be with the hasn’t-been-worn-yet. He plans his diet, does the grocery shopping and cooks as well. He’s not so great in the dish washing and clean up department as you may have guessed. He makes his own travel arrangements and budgets the spending money he earns during the summer. We call the last item “skin in the game.” We committed to pay a specific dollar amount for tuition, room and board, books and other necessities. Baby Boy earns or takes out loans for the rest, including his spending money. He values and is making the most of his college education.
A few years ago I asked his advice for a colleague who discovered her son had not attended classes since week two of the semester. With a sense of disbelief at what he was hearing, he replied “Get him out of there. He doesn’t value what he’s getting and he’s wasting their money and his time.” After several interventions with the school, a series of incomplete grades, a semester at home while taking a few courses, and months of therapy, my friend sent her son back to school. He repeated the failed attendance pattern, and is now living at home.
Here’s the lesson I learned from all of this. As parents do what you do well. The neurosis will take care of itself.
By the way, here is a picture of Baby Boy’s closet. Perhaps my lesson plans were too specific. Oh well, too late now. I think it’s really that he’s a clothes hound and has nothing to do with me at all – except that when he asked I taught him how to fold clothes just as my mother taught me.
Here is Baby Boy with Cousin Sarah. You can follow him on twitter @JordanSPerschel, but if you tell him I sent you, you may get a quick “unfollow.”
