The dude was at sea for two months at a time. FOR THIRTY FIVE YEARS. Here's the money quote from the follow-up: "I remember once my mother asking me what Emily — who was at Exeter University at the time — was up to. I said I hadn’t a clue. ‘What a way to run a family!’ she said.” So basically, a man who has never taken part in any sort of parenting (" I’ve changed their nappies — OK only once each. But I don’t feel I’m a stiff upper lip sort") decides to lash out at his adult children because they're getting the attention from his wife that he wants. This is news how?
A follow up interview - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/9699955/I-havent-done-w... Love this quote, so British: He was chuffed to hear Stanley Johnson, father of Boris, and head boy at Crews’s alma mater, Sherborne, discuss the email on the Today programme last Tuesday. “I looked up to him immensely at school. He was brilliant.”
Two sides to every story. Wonder what a letter critiquing his parenting might look like? That said, it is a very well written letter and you really can tell it came from a place of love.
I have to agree. The evidence that 1) all three of his kids turned out the same, and 2) apparently all or the vast majority of his peers' kids turned out 'successful,' suggests that some fault is inherent to the man's own family; rather than there being individual, mutually exclusive faults to each kid.