I should never have read Summerhill or seen A Thousand Clowns

Bad Parent Entry #2027

I should never have read Summerhill. Or seen A THOUSAND CLOWNS. Summerhill, in case you're not familiar, was (is?) a school in England where basically kids did whatever they wanted. It was based on the belief (unlike Steiner's Waldorf that is positively controlling by comparison) that humans are naturally good, curious and motivated. That really appealed to me in high school (a Catholic boy's school -- not the epitome of trust in nature). I vowed (and for some dumb reasons the vows of the 18 yr old do access our deep DNA) to be into "freedom" especially if I ever had kids.
And then the movie A THOUSAND CLOWNS where Jason Robards plays the loveable, eccentric single dad of an eccentric kid. The subtext was: as the "1950s" die also (good riddance) dies the idea of control vis a vis kids. Eccentrics are usually right (even if their methods are a bit wierd). They stand for humanity at its best! Control freaks (Republicans, adults, "teachers", etc.) are all manifestations of our closest approximation to evil.
You see where this went? Drugs, sex and rock-and-roll and later, um, permissive parenting. Worse than permissive parenting is the guilty permissive. The non-guilty permissive is adamant that they are right. Don't know many of those. Know plenty of controlling parents, from the "wood toy" Waldofians to the Sunday school megachurchers, plenty of those around, all worried, all worried. Permissives tend to be downbeat, depressed, feel like parental failures. Not tough enough. Shoulda done this or that. (Even Tony Soprano is in this category).