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Life experience & transition

Parents & caregivers

Attention, repair, independence, inherited practices, boundaries, and seeing the person beyond the care need.

12 questions, 313 answers on the record, from 272 members. Every question is asked in FLAPSS wording — nobody answers as anybody else.

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Worth reading

What has been most rewarding about being a parent?

Ethan Hawke

Actor, director and novelist

Recorded · The Talks · 2012

I love being a father. I think there’s a great lie that we tell kids that pleasure creates happiness.
Frances Arnold

Chemical engineer; Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 2018

Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2019

He says that he has the job of his dreams, which is the greatest joy that I can feel, is to have my child say he has the job of his dreams.
Mohamed ElBaradei

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 1997-2009; Nobel Peace Prize 2005

Recorded · Academy of Achievement · 2006

I think it’s more modeling. I never bring in my children and say, “Listen, these are the values you should follow in life.” I think it’s a modeling by my wife and me.
Read all 7 →

Every question in this questionnaire

  1. What form of attention has mattered most to the person you care for? —
  2. What has been most rewarding about being a parent? 7
  3. How do you repair the relationship after you realise you handled a difficult moment badly? —
  4. How do you protect somebody's independence while remaining responsible for their care? —
  5. When you need counsel, who is the first person you call? 12
  6. Which family practice is worth carrying forward, and which should end with your generation? —
  7. How has a setback or failure set you up for later success? 69
  8. Which boundary lets you care well without disappearing into the role? —
  9. What are you unwilling to optimise? 30
  10. What lesson has mattered most in your life? 138
  11. What do you wish other people understood about the person beyond their age, illness, or need? —
  12. Which teacher, parent, coach, or friend most made you who you are, and what did you learn from them? 57

Who has answered

Members with enough answers in this questionnaire to be worth arriving at — listed A–Z, not ranked by count.

  • Barack Obama

    44th President of the United States, 2009–2017; United States Senator from Illinois 2005–2008

    3 answers United States b. 1961

  • Bill Clinton

    42nd President of the United States, 1993–2001

    2 answers United States b. 1946

  • Charlie Munger

    Vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, 1978–2023

    3 answers United States b. 1924

  • David Oyelowo

    Actor, director and producer

    2 answers United Kingdom b. 1976

  • DS
    Derek Sivers

    Founder of CD Baby; author of Anything You Want

    3 answers United States

  • Desmond Tutu

    Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town; chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Nobel Peace Prize, 1984

    2 answers South Africa 1931–2021

  • Edmund Hillary

    Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953

    3 answers New Zealand 1919–2008

  • FC
    Francis Collins

    American physician-scientist

    2 answers United States b. 1950

  • FC
    Francis Ford Coppola

    Film director, producer and screenwriter; director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now

    2 answers United States b. 1939

  • Frederick W. Smith

    Founder and long-serving chairman of FedEx Corporation

    2 answers United States 1944–2025

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