Marlon Bain’s letters (p. 1050)

Beneath the specific stories Bain builds a general thesis, and it is the theme's whole argument stated as a riddle. He has watched "parent after unimpeachable parent" — loving, supportive, "profligate with compliments," conforming to every definition of good parenting — raise children who are emotionally retarded, depressed, self-loathing, or Disabled. Why do parents "relentlessly bent on producing children who feel they are good persons deserving of love" produce children who feel "hideous" and merely lucky to have such marvelous parents? And the barb: "could such a mother then really be all that magnificent, if that's the child's view of himself?" The unimpeachable surface indicts itself — a love so perfect the child can only conclude the fault must be his own, which means the love was never really reaching the child at all.