An approach, according to which children should fulfil their parents’ dreams/ do everything in order to make their parents happy/ provide their parents with a peace of mind, or whatever they want for themselves - because they owe it to them for all those years in which their parents took care of them - is utterly selfish.

— Lukasz Laniecki

If parents want “success stories” to share at gatherings they should provide themselves with those, and they should not use their children for that purpose.

— Lukasz Laniecki

It’s a mistake to believe that they (parents) are responsible for their children’s best future. This responsibility is on their children, and that’s the message they should be conveying to their children on a daily basis.

— Lukasz Laniecki

It’s entirely on our children to build their best futures. Not on us, parents. And we should be imprinting this message on our children’s brains from as early as possible.

— Lukasz Laniecki

It’s not their (parents’) job to prevent their children from making mistakes, because mistakes are a normal part of our lives. It’s like preventing those children from having a real experience. A real life.

— Lukasz Laniecki

It’s safer/ easier to follow the script and complain how broken some things are in that script, than to attempt to change those things.

— Lukasz Laniecki

Mistakes are part of life. And yet, for some reason, most parents in this world, wish their children made no mistakes at all, or as little as possible.

— Lukasz Laniecki

None of us has an obligation to accept the definitions of ‘respect’ and ‘gratitude’ our parents espoused, especially when those definitions can be used to guilt-trip us, or when they are being used for the purpose of forcing us to do certain things (as an extortion mechanism).

— Lukasz Laniecki

Our parents are not the only people on this planet, and we should not base our life choices on what they want (what will bring them a peace of mind, satisfaction, and give them a reason to brag), but we should make those choices keeping in mind that there are upwards of 7.5 billion people in this world, and that we should use our talents and energy trying to improve the lives of as many of them as possible.

— Lukasz Laniecki

Parents like to think of themselves as Batman, and of their children as Gotham Cities. Gotham City depends on Batman for its survival, and Batman delivers. This belief prevents parents from letting those young adults actually live their lives.

— Lukasz Laniecki