You’re polite to strangers. You’re encouraging to your employees. You’re forgiving to your friends. You are tolerant and accepting of people whose lifestyles and choices you disagree with. You smother your dog with attention and affection, even when she’s terrible.

This is all good stuff—so good, in fact, that our families might be wondering when it’s their turn to get some.

Because at home, with the people we love and claim to care about most, we are strict. We are critical. We punish. We assert rules. We raise our voice. We sweat the small stuff. We assume they know how we feel about them. We expect compliance and sometimes, demand perfection. Why? Because we saw our parents parent this way? Because we can get away with it? Because we don’t quite see the contradiction?

It calls to mind a quip supposedly uttered by the Emperor Augustus about King Herod. “I would rather be Herod’s pig than his son,” he said with disgust and horror. While Herod, like most tyrants, generally treated everyone terribly, he was similar to many powerful and important people whose children had a rough go of it, to say the least. Gandhi, as we’ve talked about, was patient and loving and endlessly forgiving…of everyone except his boys. Queen Elizabeth II had time for millions of people over the course of her life…but not enough for her children.

And what about your children? What’s it like for them? Do they get the best treatment or is that only reserved for strangers and pets?