How honest should parents be?

[Ravenshire]

No, fuck that.

One does not need the direct experience with children to know or understand how they should be raised.

After all, we were all once children ourselves, and it is entirely and logically applicable for those without children to be capable of making suggestions toward being raised how they should have been raised.

Raising children based solely on your experiences as a child is like teaching guitar based on your first fumblings on the instrument. The fact is that parenting is an enormous responsibility, and if you haven't experienced it, feel free to offer your advice, but don't for a moment think you're in a position to lecture actual parents who've successfully raised children, which is the dynamic in play here.

Not all opinions are equal. The idea that they are, or should be, is asinine and to be deprecated.

As for your comment about a "gang attack", bear in mind that poking a wasp's nest isn't only going to fetch up one wasp on you. You come into a thread acting like a know-it-all even when you have not one iota of experience on the subject at hand, and then proceed to talk down to folks who have many years of experience, well, yeah, you're gonna take hits, and not from an assigned respondent.

Perhaps this experience will teach him to be more thoughtful -- but I won't lie, I seriously doubt it.

OMG. Couldn't say it better myself, even if I were sober!