This piece by The School of Life was a powerful read. It claims that even children who grow up in functional families with kind parents can emerge from it “substantially damaged.” Why? Because they absorb their parents’ unprocessed fears.
There appears to be an even stricter requirement for being a good parent than kindness: a parent must get on top of their own issues before the child comes on the scene. In particular, they must minimize the number of things they are unduly frightened of, threatened by, or traumatized by due to past events. The parent needs to deal with their unfinished business so that their child will not have to live their life through the narrow window of their parent’s projected neuroses and terrors.
For example, if a parent is anxious about emotional vulnerability, insecure about their intelligence, or struggles with their sexuality, these issues can subtly shape the child’s behavior and self-perception.
[The child] is wired to try very hard to avoid upsetting its parent and, out of innate loyalty, will try to become whoever the parent needs them to be in order to maintain their psychic equilibrium.
The more easily the parent is rattled, the more they cannot tolerate certain possibilities in themselves and others. As a result, the child will need to be careful not to grow in particular directions, often at a severe cost to their own authentic potential. The unexamined parent will unconsciously raise a child who is silently commanded not to frighten or undermine them.
This can be a confronting idea, especially for parents. Raising a child in a balanced way is already a considerable challenge. Being told that it’s not enough, and that they should also heal their own wounds — which is in itself a demanding and complex process — almost seems like an affront.
Yet the point remains thought-provoking. If, as a son or daughter, you can’t make sense of your struggles because “you had a good childhood,” this can shed light on how intergenerational psychology works. If you’re a parent, it can make you aware of how much the child absorbs, and encourage you to keep working on your issues, as they might not be as invisible or impactless as you think.
