thoughts about parenting

With kids, I think, you tend to get back what you put in. But everybody makes mistakes, everybody fails, and sometimes the child or adolescent doesn't accept all you give him, he takes what he wants, and disregards the rest. I should have never become a smoker - but who is to blame? Did I fail, did my parents fail, are the cigarette companies to blame? And we're not all the most brilliant, competent people to begin with, and there is no instruction booklet tied to his ankle when he's born. But this is all obvious. My Aunt wrote to me, after the birth of my son: "Parenting is one of life's greatest adventures." She's probably right. But what happened to her oldest son? He was severely schizophrenic and hanged himself in an institution. There is story after story, and everyone has heard them. Your kids will turn your heart to hamburger. They all will, whether it's their own fault or someone else's, or just circumstance. Being a single parent is hard. In a lot of ways now, I'm failing, but I don't know what to do, or if there is anything I can do, or if, in a sense, I WANT TO or am ABLE TO, or if I just don't cut it - at least for now, which I don't understand and can't explain. I'm depressed. At a FUCKING PARENTING CLASS, the moms and dads will be urged to give him fruits and vegetables, talk to him about drugs, the most OVER-SIMPLIFIED, obvious shit in the world - and I attended the class, NOT because I was an ignorant, or poor, parent, but because I'd become manic due to bipolar disorder - which had NO RELATION TO my greatness as a parent. After Family Court was through with me, after they pushed me BEYOND what I could tolerate, the bond between mother and son was nearly severed. IS THIS THE GOAL OF FAMILY COURT? It's a flagrant mockery and grotesque distortion and failure of justice to do anything but what's stupid, destructive, and wrong. But here my anger has brought me off-track. Just love your kids. Just love them as much as you can love them, give them all the time you can give them, make them your 2nd priority (after yourself - you can't take care of a child, or anyone else, if you yourself, are a shambles), and give him his fucking CARROTS and BROCCOLI.