Sounds like you were used as an emotional cushion for your parents, forcing you to be the nurturer when you weren’t in a position to be one. Very sad. Sorry you had to go through that.
Yep, pretty accurate. To this day I can detect the slightest vacillation in female mood and react accordingly out of instinct. Do I need to cheer them up? Just listen? Do something? Don’t do something? Crazy how what we endure in childhood we spend the rest of our lives deprogramming from.
Classic enmeshing mother instance. You instinctively feel the need to care for them, a behaviour instilled in you in early childhood. And by the time you manage to deprogram, it may be too late to make any meaningful difference to your life: https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-price-of-redemption
“Children never had the choice to be brought into this world. Not only that, but they never had a choice of parents either. Who told you you were fit to be a parent and have an innocent life rely on you totally and helplessly?”
I hope you know that this is a series of meaningless statements (contradictio in adjecto).
Granted that it does “feel” like a strong argument for holding parents accountable for their actions. But then you could also argue that parents should be objectively “good parents” (whatever that would mean) to their children. I mean it’s only common sense to hold them to such a standard because they chose to become parents.
However, a more realistic view of parenting might be reduced to keeping a child alive by providing for its basic needs and physical safety—there is no obligation to “love” a child but it would be a crime to harm or permit physical harm to it.
That pretty much sums up the libertarian view on parental responsibility.
Obviously, your post demands more than that (I sense that there is a backstory to your moral outrage). The truth of the matter is that few people get the parents they want (also a contradictio in adjecto). But I will share what I told my three children when they were still young (now 26/25/21): “Whatever you may think of me as a parent, you will have an opportunity to do better with your own children, but don’t count on them viewing you as an objectively good parent.”
Almost everything we "know" about children is wrong, just as almost everything we know about adults is wrong. Even the most well-intentioned parents can make wrong choices in raising children. The simplistic assumption the child good, parent bad can and has resulted in manifold mistreatment.
Yes, in general, it is better to treat children with love and respect, just as, in general, it is better to treat each other with love and respect. But, how in love manifest in the real world? And, how is respect? It is well nigh impossible to know the origin of bad behavior, whether of adults or of children. All we can do is speculate. All of us are bent and/or broken. Trying to determine how we became that way is impossible to know. There is as much evidence for inbred evil as for derived evil.
The same behavior that triggers good traits in one triggers bad traits in another. One fatherless child grows up to be a scholar, another grows up to be a criminal. One child of good parents grows up to be good. Another child of bad parents grows up to be good, too. There are too many external influences for good and evil, as well as internal tendencies, some conscious and others subconscious, and many unknown and unknowable. Outcomes of scientific studies are as often as not influenced by bias as by science, for biases are many times undetectable both to ourselves and to others. Your bias in favor of the basic innocence of children has no more basis in observance than my bias in doubting that innocence. For either, chemical or emotional occurrences in the womb may or may not affect the appearance of innocence. Battery or accidental traumatic events may or may not be affective. Too much is beyond our knowledge, both pre and post birth.
Yes, but I present logical and ethical arguments, and your rebuttal is arbitrary characterization, that I am “simplistic” and “biased”. I say you are simplistic and biased. Now what? See how characterizations doesn’t mean anything? Yes, it is extremely simple that your children owe you nothing, and you owe them everything, and I explain crystal clear why. The truth is often simple. Characterizing it as “simplistic” and appealing to complexity doesn’t help.
Edit: I also never mentioned anywhere that “child always good parent always bad”. I child might want to try beer, for example; this doesn’t mean the parent should allow it. I think you’re projecting meaning onto my article from elsewhere, and you likely haven’t read it in full.
I agree with your conclusions, but not all of your assertions. It's missing some basic information that transcends our physical experience.
At "Essence level," we are aware of each other outside of time. Children do indeed "choose" their parents, and the basis of their focus (lifetime) circumstances and experience. The Essence chooses this for each focus, which may number in the thousands for an Essence, in order to have a "rounded" and complete experience of physical life based on the overall intent of the Essence.
Obviously, we are not objectively aware of any of this as focuses, because of the amnesiac nature of physical manifestation in order to have a pure experience.
When we, as Essence, undertake physical manifestation, we agree to a minimum of three focus experiences - male, female and other. Though most Essences manifest in the neighborhood of hundreds to thousands of different focuses of all different backgrounds, races, socio-economic and historical timeframe.
So, we're not quite as clueless as we may seem, at least spiritually. But again, I agree by and large with the intent and tone of your column.
Yes but we have no way of knowing what you assert, no way of knowing that “children choose their parents before birth”. This is just at best speculation. And no child would choose a child rapist for a parent, so that’s enough disproof of your claim for me.
One: I have kids and do not agree. I help and guide the kids to lead an independent life from their parents. They can choose to end their own life, not getting own kids or whatever they want which is much more than animals can do. Nobody cares if a cat or dog gets puppies which are about to starve. The same for humans except they can decide to stop existing.
My parents just saw me as an extension of themselves forbidden to have any of my own thoughts and emotions. I owed my mother comfort.
Sounds like you were used as an emotional cushion for your parents, forcing you to be the nurturer when you weren’t in a position to be one. Very sad. Sorry you had to go through that.
Yep, pretty accurate. To this day I can detect the slightest vacillation in female mood and react accordingly out of instinct. Do I need to cheer them up? Just listen? Do something? Don’t do something? Crazy how what we endure in childhood we spend the rest of our lives deprogramming from.
Classic enmeshing mother instance. You instinctively feel the need to care for them, a behaviour instilled in you in early childhood. And by the time you manage to deprogram, it may be too late to make any meaningful difference to your life: https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-price-of-redemption
Yep, she was too busy navigating her own mental state to accommodate mine. Mine were just inconveniences for her. Did you grow up similarly?
Many of us have grown like this, doomed from a very young age to manage the emotions of adults. Scars you forever. Book recommendation: "Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners" https://www.amazon.com/Silently-Seduced-Parents-Children-Partners/dp/0757315879
Thanks for the link I’ll check it out after work
Excellent piece. Got set aside for too long. Finally finished it. Good points…all of them really. Undid some stuff I hadn’t really noticed.
Thanks
Glad you liked it. The hardest part is to apply those points
https://open.substack.com/pub/nickita/p/rethinking-autism?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1h6blo
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3FvUdSUwNqKddfK8QZn90f?si=Tk9EXilJThKlQH-jhEQRnQ
Very positive changes are here already.
"To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." 😘
Excellent. Thank you. Is that your quote?
Welcome and no it isn't.
“Children never had the choice to be brought into this world. Not only that, but they never had a choice of parents either. Who told you you were fit to be a parent and have an innocent life rely on you totally and helplessly?”
I hope you know that this is a series of meaningless statements (contradictio in adjecto).
Granted that it does “feel” like a strong argument for holding parents accountable for their actions. But then you could also argue that parents should be objectively “good parents” (whatever that would mean) to their children. I mean it’s only common sense to hold them to such a standard because they chose to become parents.
However, a more realistic view of parenting might be reduced to keeping a child alive by providing for its basic needs and physical safety—there is no obligation to “love” a child but it would be a crime to harm or permit physical harm to it.
That pretty much sums up the libertarian view on parental responsibility.
Obviously, your post demands more than that (I sense that there is a backstory to your moral outrage). The truth of the matter is that few people get the parents they want (also a contradictio in adjecto). But I will share what I told my three children when they were still young (now 26/25/21): “Whatever you may think of me as a parent, you will have an opportunity to do better with your own children, but don’t count on them viewing you as an objectively good parent.”
Almost everything we "know" about children is wrong, just as almost everything we know about adults is wrong. Even the most well-intentioned parents can make wrong choices in raising children. The simplistic assumption the child good, parent bad can and has resulted in manifold mistreatment.
Yes, in general, it is better to treat children with love and respect, just as, in general, it is better to treat each other with love and respect. But, how in love manifest in the real world? And, how is respect? It is well nigh impossible to know the origin of bad behavior, whether of adults or of children. All we can do is speculate. All of us are bent and/or broken. Trying to determine how we became that way is impossible to know. There is as much evidence for inbred evil as for derived evil.
The same behavior that triggers good traits in one triggers bad traits in another. One fatherless child grows up to be a scholar, another grows up to be a criminal. One child of good parents grows up to be good. Another child of bad parents grows up to be good, too. There are too many external influences for good and evil, as well as internal tendencies, some conscious and others subconscious, and many unknown and unknowable. Outcomes of scientific studies are as often as not influenced by bias as by science, for biases are many times undetectable both to ourselves and to others. Your bias in favor of the basic innocence of children has no more basis in observance than my bias in doubting that innocence. For either, chemical or emotional occurrences in the womb may or may not affect the appearance of innocence. Battery or accidental traumatic events may or may not be affective. Too much is beyond our knowledge, both pre and post birth.
Yes, but I present logical and ethical arguments, and your rebuttal is arbitrary characterization, that I am “simplistic” and “biased”. I say you are simplistic and biased. Now what? See how characterizations doesn’t mean anything? Yes, it is extremely simple that your children owe you nothing, and you owe them everything, and I explain crystal clear why. The truth is often simple. Characterizing it as “simplistic” and appealing to complexity doesn’t help.
Edit: I also never mentioned anywhere that “child always good parent always bad”. I child might want to try beer, for example; this doesn’t mean the parent should allow it. I think you’re projecting meaning onto my article from elsewhere, and you likely haven’t read it in full.
I agree with your conclusions, but not all of your assertions. It's missing some basic information that transcends our physical experience.
At "Essence level," we are aware of each other outside of time. Children do indeed "choose" their parents, and the basis of their focus (lifetime) circumstances and experience. The Essence chooses this for each focus, which may number in the thousands for an Essence, in order to have a "rounded" and complete experience of physical life based on the overall intent of the Essence.
Obviously, we are not objectively aware of any of this as focuses, because of the amnesiac nature of physical manifestation in order to have a pure experience.
When we, as Essence, undertake physical manifestation, we agree to a minimum of three focus experiences - male, female and other. Though most Essences manifest in the neighborhood of hundreds to thousands of different focuses of all different backgrounds, races, socio-economic and historical timeframe.
So, we're not quite as clueless as we may seem, at least spiritually. But again, I agree by and large with the intent and tone of your column.
Yes but we have no way of knowing what you assert, no way of knowing that “children choose their parents before birth”. This is just at best speculation. And no child would choose a child rapist for a parent, so that’s enough disproof of your claim for me.
One: I have kids and do not agree. I help and guide the kids to lead an independent life from their parents. They can choose to end their own life, not getting own kids or whatever they want which is much more than animals can do. Nobody cares if a cat or dog gets puppies which are about to starve. The same for humans except they can decide to stop existing.
I don’t see where you do not agree
then I misread your post