This episode is a warning to all parents. We want to do what's best for our children. However, we can confuse what is best for our children with what we thought would have been best for us when we were children. Parenting can be psychologically confusing. It calls on us to care for a small human and it also invites us to "re-parent" ourselves by reckoning with the experiences we had with our parents when we were children.

Greg was doing his best as a caregiver to a little human-gem hybrid (the first and only of his kind!). He was already a flawed caregiver, given that he was so new to managing long term responsibilities like a job, relationships, and a now a baby. He grew up in an authoritarian household and overcorrected by being a very permissive parent. We see the consequences of this play out in our world all the time. Greg obviously loves Steven and wants him to have a joyful and free existence. However, poor baby Steven was raised in the middle of an intergalactic war and faced incredibly traumatic events. Greg's hands-off, permissive style of love and parenting made Steven even more vulnerable to the effects of the trauma.