Why I never finish anything

Just a very quick musing—in thinking about what to write for Week Five’s challenge, the following things occurred to me just now:

• I could use the same characters from Week Three’s challenge.
• Maybe he’s a single dad? Or a stay-at-home dad, and his wife is away on business a lot?
• Maybe they’re recently separated, and he’s in the position of being a primary caregiver for the first time in his life?
• Why did they separate?
• Oh, this could be a whole book. A meditative literary fiction thing where the protagonist is grappling with a lot of new things at once, trying to maintain normalcy even while he questions everything that brought him to where he is now.
• But wait—then I would always have to write books like that. That would be exhausting.
• ...I probably should write about something else this week.

I recognize that this is a disfunctional thinking pattern, but it’s my disfunctional thinking pattern, okay?

Anyway, there’s something here and I’m interested to find out what, so as much as possible I’m going to try focusing just on exploring this week’s challenge and not allow myself to think even a chapter past that. That way lies darkness.

Week Five: What happened to the mother as best parent stereotype?

...I don't know, what did happen to the mother as best-parent stereotype? Did something happen? Where was I when it happened?

I wrote this sometime in early November (early November! the first semester is almost over!) in Peter Corea's psychology class. It was clearly a reaction to something we had to read, but I can't remember what and don't think that I saved it.

My mother single-handedly raised my sister and I, and it is usually the case that the kids remain with the mother when divorce strikes. (Yes: "strikes." Like a tiger. Patiently waiting...) So perhaps I had a strong reaction to something that tickled my wounded-child-of-divorce bone?

Or maybe this was more a reaction to something asserting that men and women were equally suited to be nurturing, parentally attentive blah blah blahs? The context is totally missing here, and without that, the sentence is not something I necessarily feel to be true.

So. What to write about...?