by Jose Astorga

Created on: November 08, 2009   Last Updated: November 10, 2009

Parenting is a tough business and it seems to get tougher. Parenting when you are carrying emotional baggage takes a certain intellect and an inordinate amount of internal strength. Emotional baggage is not restricted solely to women; men also can carry tremendous amounts of weight on their shoulders. But make no mistake, mothers are more often unfortunate victims when men take the cowardly route and run, leaving behind broken families.

Emotional baggage is also color blind. There is no race that holds the exclusive patent rights; however, environmental conditions, such as poverty or the extreme of any human condition, will only worsen emotional trauma regardless of race or gender.

At a very high level, there are two types of emotional individuals. The first is the medicated parent and the second is not. Medicated individuals need assistance in maintaining the emotional and mental constancy of purpose required for parenting. This does not mean that parents not on medication are any better parents, because some of these people might distract themselves with alcohol or other forms of mind-bending activities - activities that address only symptoms not causes.

Anecdotal evidence indicates that more experienced or educated parents are better equipped to handle emotional stressors because they have a larger reservoir of emotional intellect to pull from. The more experience and knowledge a parent has the larger her arsenal for emotional and intellectual superiority over self-serving emotional inclinations.

Uncontrolled emotions are extremely painful and very debilitating. When a parent cannot manage their emotional baggage, the children are the ones that ultimately suffer. It is simply a fact that children are a product of their environment. An emotionally crippled parent only serves to stunt the emotional growth of a child.

Men's and women's emotional requirements are so diverse that it would take pages to even attempt to provide a one size fits all solution and the attempt would fail. But there are things parents can do to manage and control their emotional baggage so that children are not subjected to unnecessary displays of human temperament.

One of the more obvious solutions is to see a doctor for counseling and possibly medication for the extreme conditions. The act of talking about problems with physicians or clergy is one of the most potent solutions to feelings of obscurity or helplessness. The only general drawback to this approach is that most people

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