Fat Dog Don't Run No Rabbit

Everyone knows a Fat Dog. In fact you may have several in your own family. Fat Dogs are the people who, like Peter Pan, never grow-up. Unfortunately, unlike Peter Pan, Fat Dogs, are not even good for fighting pirates. Fat Dogs seem destined to fail because they lack all motivation to succeed. Usually, Fat Dogs can be easily identified by anyone outside their immediate family, but their identity is almost always evident (even to their parents) during the launching phase of their development.

The true mark of a Fat Dog is the difficulty they encounter leaving home and becoming an adult.

Fat Dogs just don’t seem to want to spread their wings and leave the nest, and when they do leave they seem to somehow bounce back. They may be attractive, intelligent and extremely gifted, but they seem to never fulfill their potential. Family members, teachers, coaches, friends and lovers often speak of how the Fat Dog could have been somebody.

For more than twenty years parents have been bringing their Fat Dogs to my office. Generally, these parents say that all they want is what most parents want -- to see their children grow-up and be happy. Most often I am not the first therapist that this family has sought out and sometimes I am not the last they will see. Many of these parents and their children, who come for help, learn how to not just survive but to flourish. Some don’t survive.

A colleague, who read a draft of this book, said that I was too rough on parents and was not taking in to account all the complexities of modern life or the pressures on parents. My response to such statements is that I am “rough” on parents because I believe that raising children is the responsibility of parents and not as the popular saying goes “the village.” This is not to say that parents are totally responsible for the behavior of their children, but rather parents are responsible for helping children learn to accept responsibility for their own behavior. As my mother was fond of saying,

“If you are smart enough to know how I screwed you up, you are smart enough to fix yourself.”

Children do not grow-up in a vacuum and parents are always contributory in the development of a Fat Dog.

Regardless of poor parenting, bad genes, peer pressure, childhood trauma, stupid choices, social inequity or even acts of God, being an adult means accepting responsibility for your own behavior, making your own life and contributing to the greater good.

Fat Dogs are unable to become adults because their path has been impeded with privilege or obstructed by overprotection. The intent of this book is to help Fat Dogs break the chains of childhood and liberate their parents from providing eternal childcare.