Most parents are addicted to their children

[Truthtraveler]

Oh I don't know... my BS-O-Meter seems to be flying off the scale with each new baseless accusation.

I’m probably wasting my time arguing with you, considering the intensity to which to confuse your “BS-O-Meter” with your own pierced denial and desperate need to reinforce it, but I’ll give it another shot.

Allow me to try a new angle. You mentioned that you were obese and that you don’t blame your mother and only blame yourself: “I don't blame my mom for this... she didn't eat my food for me. I merely blame ME.” So do you believe there are no emotional dynamics underlying your overeating? If there were dynamics what might they be? Where did they come from? Did your mother have no effect on these dynamics?

I do agree, however, that it is now your responsibility to work out your own problems now, considering you are an adult, and that it is no longer your mother’s responsibility (and I have no idea whether she is alive or not).

A good psychologist/psychotherapist asks more questions then they actually answer.

So there, I’ve asked you a few questions, even though I will say again (because I already told it to Melody) that I am not coming on here as a therapist, but as a forum member to discuss and debate. I would, however, be curious to know your answers to these questions.

 

[Truthtraveler]

Correction. You tell it like *you see it* which is not necessarily the same thing.

Yes, I tell it “like I see it,” but I’ve also come to realize more and more as my denial has lifted that how I see it overlaps greatly with “how it is.”

I don't believe that children will grow up with all of these unresolved conflicts if they don't have perfect parents. In fact, there are cases where the opposite has happened. Read Dave Pelzer's accounts of his abusive childhood.

Are you implying that Dave Pelzer has grown up to have no unresolved conflicts? (It seems like that’s what you’re saying.) If that is what you’re saying, then you seem to have bought his semi-conscious, fabricated, denial-laden version of reality to about the same degree as he has. (I’ve read his books.) If you don’t believe me just go to amazon.com, look up ‘A Child Called “It”,’ and read a few of the one-star reviews. That should open your eyes a little to the opposite side of Pelzer’s tale.

And by the way, this is not to say that Dave Pelzer didn’t have a horrible childhood. I’m sure he did. I just don’t think he really has any true grasp on it at all.

 

[Truthtraveler]

In the first place, ideals often lead us to absurd positions, such as the position that people should not become parents unless they are enlightenned.

In the second place, ideals are a denial of reality, however noble a denial of reality, since ideals do not exist in reality.

Frightening! You speak as the voice of perfect reason, as if you know all and are confident of all as you lean back from your confident perspective – and yet it strikes me that you come from a strong lack of perspective.

You consider my point of view absurd because you have clearly walled yourself off from any deep understanding of what I’m talking about. Of course, we could go back and forth forever in the debate of “you’re in denial/no YOU’RE in denial,” but I would ask you this: have you really, truthfully considered my point of view. I ask you this because in my past I held much more strongly to YOUR point of view, and would have once considered my point of view absurd. I have since had my eyes opened, and that’s why I speak with the confidence I do. I have seen the hell that children go through, I have felt that hell, and I have come to realize just how much that hell is the norm – and how much the norm denies this reality.

So you speak of my ideals denying reality. Oh no. It is the norm that is denying reality, and in denying reality they must lose their ideals. It strikes me that you are very much a part of the norm in some basic ways, despite whatever unusual sides you might have.

 

[Melody]

Frightening! You speak as the voice of perfect reason, as if you know all and are confident of all as you lean back from your confident perspective – and yet it strikes me that you come from a strong lack of perspective.

Wow...my thoughts exactly....on all of your posts.

Yes, I tell it “like I see it,” but I’ve also come to realize more and more as my denial has lifted that how I see it overlaps greatly with “how it is.”.

I see....and, other than your own opinion, what makes your views correct? Perhaps you're just deluding yourself but your own ego won't allow you to believe that?

 

[Truthtraveler]

Sorry I feel the need to come back again;

1.If this is the case, and your views were implemented, the human race would come to rather abrupt end.......


2.Here I disagree with you - obviously from my own experience, in that I am an unsatisfied person, but the fact remains that I love my Children unconditionally - actually, my wife is the same.


3. You have distorted what I have said; I didn't imply that I expect my children to love me - if they do, then that is a bonus; I have the love of my wife.


4. Again, you have introduced another variable which is not valid; you are insisting that the troubled element exists in my parents relationship, and in mine. That is factually wrong, and please don't say that I am in denial - you have psychobabbled too much for my liking already.


5. A Master Race, hey ? There was an Austrian house painter who tried that - the rest of the world didn't approve.


6. Ideals, yes, I have them, but I KNOW that they are unattainable; if you insist in striving for that which you have no chance of achieving, you are doomed to low self esteem and disappointment.


I do not want to belittle what you do or put you 'down', but you seem to have the knack of making the simple complicated - something which is common in your profession.

I call your type of posting a S**T sandwich: You start it off with a gentle apology and you end it with a gentle apology, and in the middle you pack it full of a poisonous, viperous wallop.

Do you realize that you compared me to Hitler – and then have the nerve to tell me that you’re not trying to belittle me or put me down? I suggest you look at yourself and your motives – and your anger – a little bit more closely. I felt your comparison of me to Hitler was not only downright offensive but totally off the mark.

My point again, to restate: “I would hope you would agree with me that it’s not a bad thing for the least emotionally healthy people to not have children…”

I will now elaborate: I never said anything about creating a Master Race, nor did I ever bring race into this. This has nothing to do with genetics, in case you didn’t catch that the first time around. I said “emotionally healthy people,” and purpose for saying this was not to DENY any parent the right to procreate – though I have considered it as a theoretical point of view, and see its totally inherent flaws – but to protect children from being raised by disturbed parents. Allow me to share some extremes. Have you ever seen two unhealed schizophrenic parents raising a child? Two unhealed bipolar parents raising a children? Have you seen what happens to a child who is raised by an active pedophile? A sadist? Perhaps you believe these parents have a full right to raise children, and destroy them as they see fit. Perhaps you do not see the incredibly unfairness this imposes on the child, and the world of hell this brings him into.

But these are just extreme cases. I think it’s similar (though just milder) in the less extreme cases – ones more like yours. I could see why you would feel offended. Like I have done with many others on this forum, I seem to have pierced your denial and to have threatened you – and kicked up a poisonous reaction in you. So be it.

But I would still say this to you: Watch out before you compare someone to Hitler, and next time you’d better be sure you have your ducks lined up and that the comparison is fair. You really sickened me with that one. That said, I learned from it. I learned about myself and I learned about you.

What have you learned?

TO conclude, however, I would like to address some of your other (less poisonous) points:

You wrote: 1.If this is the case, and your views were implemented, the human race would come to rather abrupt end.......

My reply: This would only be true if it were truly impossible for people to live up to these ideals. I believe that it is not impossible.

You wrote: 6. Ideals, yes, I have them, but I KNOW that they are unattainable; if you insist in striving for that which you have no chance of achieving, you are doomed to low self esteem and disappointment.

My reply: Some ideals are not unattainable. I have reached many of mine already. Others I have not yet reached and believe – or at least hope – that I might someday reach them. I have not yet lost hope. It sounds like you have lost hope to some degree, and so have given up a certain degree of the journey to prevent yourself from feeling the “low self esteem and disappointment.” Many also do this.

You wrote: 3. You have distorted what I have said; I didn't imply that I expect my children to love me - if they do, then that is a bonus; I have the love of my wife.

My reply: Fair enough. Sounds good to me.

You wrote: 4. Again, you have introduced another variable which is not valid; you are insisting that the troubled element exists in my parents relationship, and in mine. That is factually wrong, and please don't say that I am in denial - you have psychobabbled too much for my liking already.

My reply: So be it.

 

[Scuba Pete]

The time you are wasting is in arriving at conclusions about people WAY TOO QUICKLY.

Insights are welcome, but clairvoyance is what you seem to be peddling here.

As for my obesity, it comes from being hypoglycemic as well as going from an active to a sedentry life style. I learned early that if I don't "feel right" that eating will straighten things out.

So no, I don't blame my mother for that. I don't blame my alcoholic father who drunk himself dead either. I see many mistakes that they made and have hopefully learned from them.

 

[Truthtraveler]

Why do we have to apportion blame to our parents?

In order to heal fully we must find out what happened to us – every detail of it – and work through it. You have to blame the people who caused the damage. What you do with the blame is a different story. For instance, is a child is molested in order to heal they have to blame the perpetrator. If they cannot blame the perpetrator they cannot ever really know how they were damaged – and cannot heal from it. But that does not mean they have to confront their perpetrator. In fact, such confrontations can often just end up being re-traumatizing.

If I have issues, as a 34 year old adult woman it is no longer my parents who bear the blame for dealing with my crap, but myself because I haven't dealt with it yet. They are no longer responsible for me, and haven't been since I was 18 and moved out of the house.

Here I totally agree with you. As an adult you – and I, and everyone – have a full responsibility to take control of the helm of your own healing. That is a cornerstone of my whole point of view. But you still have to know what happened to you, and not be afraid to look at it squarely in the eye and call a spade a spade.

If you choose to remain a tosser then it's your choice as an adult, otherwise you build a bridge and get over it.

Choice is only part of it. I wish it were only choice that influences people’s ability to heal. If that were the case everyone would heal. This stuff is motivated by forces that go much deeper into the psyche than choice.

You know, I could see the merit in some of what you were saying, but you've lost me with this whole,'blame the parents' thing.

I don’t know if I made my point of view more clear. Have I? I’m willing to try more.

 

[Melody]

I felt your comparison of me to Hitler was not only downright offensive but totally off the mark.

<snip>

I will now elaborate: I never said anything about creating a Master Race, nor did I ever bring race into this. This has nothing to do with genetics, in case you didn’t catch that the first time around. I said “emotionally healthy people,” .

TT,
I'm sorry you were offended by Michel's post, but I actually came to much the same conclusion. In one breath you're advocating that only emotionally healthy people should be parents and in the other you're making the claim that very few people are emotionally healthy. Genetics is not the only way to create a master race. It just takes a belief of something being more superior than another.

Reading on in your last post, perhaps I've misunderstood you. I understood you to mean that we all have unresolved conflict and until that conflict is resolved we cannot be emotionally healthy and, therefore, good parents. If that's still the case, then I disagree with you.

 

[Melody]

Are you implying that Dave Pelzer has grown up to have no unresolved conflicts? (It seems like that’s what you’re saying.) If that is what you’re saying, then you seem to have bought his semi-conscious, fabricated, denial-laden version of reality to about the same degree as he has. (I’ve read his books.) If you don’t believe me just go to amazon.com, look up ‘A Child Called “It”,’ and read a few of the one-star reviews. That should open your eyes a little to the opposite side of Pelzer’s tale.

And by the way, this is not to say that Dave Pelzer didn’t have a horrible childhood. I’m sure he did. I just don’t think he really has any true grasp on it at all.

I'm not quite sure why reviews, one star or otherwise, would have any bearing on Dave Pelzer's "tale" (as you so insultingly put it). I've read his books. I've read some of his motivational speeches. I think the man has done incredibly well at resolving the horror of his childhood.

How...arrogant...to say he has no grasp on his life and that he's in denial. Then again, that's consistent with the rest of your posts. You know better than everyone else and the rest of us are deluded. Oookay.....since this little world you've built up leaves no more for anyone else, I'll just bow out and leave you to it.

 

[Truthtraveler]

Truthtraveler: You speak as the voice of perfect reason, as if you know all and are confident of all as you lean back from your confident perspective – and yet it strikes me that you come from a strong lack of perspective.

Melody: Wow...my thoughts exactly....on all of your posts.

Interesting, isn’t it? I think you (and Sunstone) are in extreme denial, you think I’m in extreme denial… Someone is right (or closer to right), and someone is in denial.

I see....and, other than your own opinion, what makes your views correct?

Tons of exploration, leading to tons of data, leading to tons of evidence. I may not be as foolish as you think, and as off the cuff in my remarks.

Are you open to the possibility that I might be correct? Are you willing to read some books that I suggest that might present something approximating my point of view in a more mild way? Do you find ANY validity in my point of view? Or are you simply convinced that I am completely nuts?

Perhaps you're just deluding yourself but your own ego won't allow you to believe that?

My experience and intense self-questioning has not shown this to be the case – and I have explored this possibility for years. In fact, I have been very open to the possibility that I am deluding myself, but have come to learn that that is simply a self-hating voice. Allow me to ask you this: Have you truly considered the possibility that…“perhaps you're just deluding yourself but your own ego won't allow you to believe that?” I say this in all sincerity. Again, can you conceive of the possibility that I might be onto something?

 

[Melody]

Have you truly considered the possibility that…“perhaps you're just deluding yourself but your own ego won't allow you to believe that?” I say this in all sincerity. Again, can you conceive of the possibility that I might be onto something?

Truthfully? Not from you. You appear to believe that you somehow have superior knowledge and insight into everything and that gives me cause for concern that you're even farther from reality's path than the average human being.

From someone else with a more unbiased view of himself and others? Absolutely.

 

[EnhancedSpirit]

I do not think TT is trying to offend anyone. It is his nature to psycho-analyze. He does not mean to do it, it's just how the mind of a therapist works. I have a hard time not doing the same thing.

I think what he might be trying to point out is that if we have unresolved issues about our childhood, they may not even come out in a negative way, until we have kids of our own. Then issues we don't even know exist, drives how we deal with the pressure of parenthood. I don't know how we could go about resolving these issues before they come to the surface.

But we can better prepare people for what parenthood is all about. Like, get them a puppy first, and not a dog that just sits in the backyard, either. Having dogs made me think long and hard about having children.

 

[njcl]

people are addicted to their children?.good...its better than abusing/beating/starving them

 

[Truthtraveler]

I do not think TT is trying to offend anyone. It is his nature to psycho-analyze. He does not mean to do it, it's just how the mind of a therapist works. I have a hard time not doing the same thing.

When I or anyone speaks the truth and others are in a state of denial, I often cannot help but pierce their denial. The problem is, they don’t know the different between their false selves, surrounded by their denial, and their true core, which they have buried to protect their ancient pain. So if I offend someone’s denial, they feel I’m offending THEM. But it’s not them I’m offending – it’s their self-deception.

It works the same in reverse too. In order to defend their denial they fight back and have to pierce the truth of who I am, and thus attack the best of me and try to wound it, but they don’t consider this offensive. I do.

All a matter of perspective. They think I’m offensive and they’re not. I think they’re offensive and I’m not. It comes down to who is speaking the truth – and who you believe.

I think what he might be trying to point out is that if we have unresolved issues about our childhood, they may not even come out in a negative way, until we have kids of our own. Then issues we don't even know exist, drives how we deal with the pressure of parenthood. I don't know how we could go about resolving these issues before they come to the surface.

Sounds like you’re hearing me correctly. And it’s a hell of a job to resolve these issues before someone has children – and practically impossible to do afterwards (but still possible, I would argue, if someone were utterly devoted and largely healthy to begin with).

But we can better prepare people for what parenthood is all about. Like, get them a puppy first, and not a dog that just sits in the backyard, either. Having dogs made me think long and hard about having children.

I agree. And I like that you wrote that in red. Maybe if you wrote it in NEON RED more people would listen.

By the way, EnhancedSpirit, I read your earlier posts of the two quotes – Kahlil Gibran and the other poem, and I thought they were both lovely – and on the money. I didn’t comment on them, however, because I was too caught up in the debate. Sometimes the quiet still voice gets trampled, I suppose. BUT I HEARD IT!

 

[Stormygale]

"Most parents are addicted to their children..." and that's why children walk all over the parents.

 

[Truthtraveler]

"Most parents are addicted to their children..." and that's why children walk all over the parents.

Yes, I do see the connection, though I feel that what you write can easily be interpreted to blame the children instead of the parents. I’m not sure if that’s what you meant. But I do see the truth that when parents are addicted to their children their children often have a strong desire to act out their TOTALLY LEGITIMATE rage – and sometimes they act it out on their parents – by “walking all over them.” But at basic the parents are still the cause of the problem.

The Oompa Loompas in Willy Wonka say it best: “Who do you blame when your kid is a brat? …The mother and the father.”

 

[Stormygale]

You got my point....I see it too much.
-
I know this person at work. She is a middle-aged woman, who lets her kids walk over her. They are at the teenage point, I guess sixteen and eighteen. She complains like there is no tomarrow, however, on the same hand, both girls are pregnant by older men. The men have been allowed to move right into her house. Only one of the guys has a job, and it is a joke. I told her for one, the guy who slept with my sixteen year old daugher, whom I put much work into, would have been either dead, or pressed with rape charges. He is twenty one. Sad. Maddening.
Yea, there is no way in h**l I would invite a man into my house to live, knowing that he is screwing my sixteen year old daughter in the next room. Then, the other man, who is older, is screwing my eighteen year old daughter two rooms away.
-
I cannot see passed such a thing...no matter her love or obsession or whatever it is for her girls. It sickens me....but, at least it is not me.....lol

 

[bdbthinker]

] [/color] 1) You are not fully enlightened.

If you are not fully enlightened it means you still repress some degree of unresolved trauma. We all have a compulsion to act out our repressed traumas on our intimates, and all the more so on our vulnerable, needy children. Therefore, if you are not enlightened you will abuse your children at least to some degree.

2) You feel your life is incomplete.

It is a myth that children make parents’ lives complete. If your life feels incomplete without children then your job is to find a way to make it complete BEFORE you have children. Children should not be brought into the world to meet any of YOUR needs. It is your job to meet their needs, and to devote yourself to this end. Not the other way around.

3) You are lonely and want love.

No child deserves a lonely, needy parent. Your child will not love you. That is a myth. Your child needs you – and needs you desperately – and if you think your child loves you then you, along with most of our culture, have mixed up love and need. Now granted, if you need your child to love you, your child will quickly pick this up on his emotional antennae and will adjust his behavior toward actually loving you…but this will be devastating for his emotional development. Learn to love yourself fully before you have kids.

4) You feel left out of the normal, conventional loop of parenting.

Yes, and the loop is SICK! If you are left out of the loop you have a FAR better chance to become healthy. And if you become healthy, you have a FAR better chance to contribute to this world. And our world needs your contribution.

5) You are single.

A single parent alone cannot effectively raise an emotionally healthy child. It’s hard enough for two parents. It’s hard enough for four! If you think you can handle it on your own then you have no idea of the extent of a child’s truest and deepest emotional needs. And this is because you have not faced the full depths of the painful limits and abandonments of your own childhood.

6) You are close with your own parents.

If you are close with your own parents, it is highly unlikely that you have evolved out of the family system to any degree. If you have not evolved out of the family system, you will never be able to know the full limits of your own buried traumas, much less be able to resolve them. Thus you will act them out on your child. And your parents will love you for this, because this will let them off the hook for what they did to you.

7) You know you will have to hire help to assist you in caring for your child.

No child deserves to be raised by hired help. If you do not have the time and comfort and energy to devote to raising your child yourself, then you will be bringing your child into a deprived world. You will be at least partially abandoning your child – and your duty to your child – before he is even born. Radically unfair.

8) You got pregnant by mistake.

This is a terrible psychic burden for a child to face. It is a clear sign that your child was not conceived in an environment of love, caring, and planning. It is a sign that you undervalue your child from the beginning of his journey – and will continue to do so all the way through his journey. You will leave him with a terrible legacy. And deep down he will know it.

9) You drink alcohol, use drugs, smoke cigarettes, or take anti-depressants.

Ingesting these substances is a sign that you have a desperate need to abandon parts of yourself – and thus are not a whole person. And even after a person stops ingesting these substances, it takes years of incredibly hard internal work for them to become whole. No child deserves parents who are not whole, because by extension they will also similarly abandon him. And people wonder why substance abusing parents beget substance abusing children!

10) Your relationship with your partner is not fully enlightened.

Where your relationship with your partner is not fully enlightened your family environment will be toxic. Your child deserves the best, and a partially toxic environment is anything but. Your child needs to be nurtured in an environment in which his parents live in complete emotional synchrony with life’s sacred purpose – and by extension with each other. Where you do not live in synchrony with your partner, your child will suffer. And the fault will be yours, because you brought him into the world. After all, your child never asked to be born.

11) You and your partner are both not ONE HUNDRED PERCENT convinced you want a child to the deepest levels of your soul.

If you have any doubts about having children, don’t have them! There are a million other ways for you to contribute to this troubled, overpopulated, resource-exploited world without procreating. And often these other ways are far more valuable. But the primary way is to devote yourself to parenting yourself. This is the spiritual path.

Wow...you don't even want to know what I think about your list. :sarcastic

Might I suggest renaming your essay tosomething along the lines of "Eleven Situations In Which I BELIEVE It Is Not Appropriate For You To Have Children".

That way you don't come off looking like a presumption know-it-all whose compeletely out of touch with humanity. Also, since you've limited the
number of people who are qualified for child rearing to [something like] 10 people, any references to scientific studies would certainly do wonders to improve your credibility.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

people are addicted to their children?.good...its better than abusing/beating/starving them

They fall under the heading of addicted also, I think you'll find.

 

[Truthtraveler]

Wow...you don't even want to know what I think about your list.

Well, actually I’m curious. But from the little you’ve written I already can guess…

Might I suggest renaming your essay to something along the lines of "Eleven Situations In Which

I BELIEVE It Is Not Appropriate For You To Have Children".

So do you put “I believe” before every opinion you make, even when you know you are speaking the truth? Sometimes, after all, opinion can overlap with truth. Do you say, “I believe I am hungry” and “I believe I feel ill today” and “I believe that that drunk, homeless person lying there in the gutter that I’ve seen lying there drunk every day for the past four years is an alcoholic”? Or do you just state fact?


I see no point in the softening the language.

That way you don't come off looking like a presumption know-it-all whose compeletely out of touch with humanity.

Might I suggest YOU rephrase your above quote to something along the lines of “That way you don't come off looking TO ME like a presumption know-it-all whose compeletely out of touch with humanity.”

Also, since you've limited the number of people who are qualified for child rearing to [something like] 10 people, …

Wow – what a great new start for humanity that would be. A little tight as regards a gene pool, but it would do a wonder for the world. I’d love to see the new children coming into the world being given a chance not to have to grow up knowing the abuse and neglect that almost every child I’ve ever seen has to face because of the denial of his or her parents.

any references to scientific studies would certainly do wonders to improve your credibility.

From the tone of your post, I don’t believe you here. Are you really that open-minded that scientific studies will truly orient you toward my point of view? If so, I’ll gladly start steering you in the right direction (as far as I am able), and at the least can provide some good reading.