Chapter 3

We Learn From Our Parents

The first teachers most of us encounter are our parents. Because we are so completely dependent on them in our early years, they are generally the most significant teachers. When one considers the enormous impact parents have in determining what their children believe about themselves and their environment, the thought becomes frightening. Particularly when considering how ill-equipped and untrained many of us are when we become parents. For many, our knowledge of parenting consists primarily of what we learned from our parents.

Parents serve a dual function. They are both custodians of their children and nurturers of them. The custodial part wants to keep the children healthy, safe, and comfortable. The nurturing part wants to teach the children how to keep themselves healthy, safe, and comfortable. Simultaneously protecting children and allowing them to learn can sometimes be a strain. When it’s 30 degrees outside and the child is running around without a coat, do you take the coat out and insist the child put it on, or do you let the child learn personally the consequences of not wearing it? It’s sometimes difficult to know when or where to draw the lines.

To fulfill the custodial responsibility, the parent may satisfy the physical needs of the child and maintain some system that protects the child from avoidable harm. If parents could be with the child constantly, this system of protection would be simple: watch and listen, interceding when necessary. Because it’s not possible to be with the child constantly, the system becomes more complex. It may include day care, it may include phone calls to make sure everything is all right, or it may be an apathetic system that offers little protection at all. In almost all cases, the system includes a set of rules that the child is told to follow. The more the child identifies with the rules, the more advantageous it is from the custodial parent’s point of view. If the child identifies completely with the rules, then the parent doesn’t need to worry about violations of them. The custodial parent needs to maintain control. Compliance with the rules minimizes unnecessary risk-taking. But how does the parent respond when the rules are broken?

Some of the most damaging and harmful messages we ever receive concerning our beliefs about ourselves can be given to us by our parents in their attempts to ensure our compliance with the rules.

The first type of damaging message children can receive has to do with their sense of identity. When rules are broken, parents may give children the message that the children are as offensive as the offense itself, hoping to shame them into future compliance. For example, assume a child has lied about something. If the parent’s response is simply a tirade about what a liar the child is, then the child may believe, trusting the parent’s right to judge, that liar is a part of the child’s identity. Repeated occurrences of this type of exchange may leave children with the belief that they are unsalvageable in terms of ever becoming honest human beings. So why try? People who truly believe they are liars, cheats, thieves, lazy, or whatever, will have diminished understanding that behavior can be changed. They frequently think they can’t change. After all, liars who tell the truth are still liars, so how can they feel good about telling the truth?

Children are also subject to receiving harmful messages that diminish their sense of worth. Assume, again, the child has lied. This time, the parent’s response is not to call the child a liar, but a bad, rotten, nasty—you get the point—little demon, again hoping to shame the child into changed behavior. Though less specific than messages that damage a child’s sense of identity, these messages can significantly harm a child’s sense of worth as a human being. Who could possibly love someone who was bad, rotten, and nasty? But in these instances, also, the children assume the messages must be true because they believe the messengers. They may hate the parent for pronouncing judgment, but they trust the parent’s right to do it. No matter how exemplary their behavior may become in the future, the children may never truly feel lovable. In that event, they may never learn to love themselves.

The last type of harmful message is the one that threatens a child’s sense of security. The child has lied again. But instead of addressing either the child or the behavior specifically, the parent throws up its arms and says, “I just can’t cope with you anymore. I’m sending you to an orphanage.” Or, “I’m sending you to live with your father.” Or, “I’m sending you to live with your mother.” Rather than shaming children, these messages attempt to threaten them into future compliance with the rules. The feelings of insecurity that can be instilled by these threats may cause children anxieties that could be carried the rest of their lives as they become preoccupied with their dependence on other people and their fear of being abandoned.

These types of messages may be viewed as somewhat expedient in gaining compliance with the rules. They are completely counterproductive to the nurturing parent, however. While it’s sometimes tempting to scream and flail, the nurturing parent must constantly strive to distinguish between the child and what the child does. The parent must strive just as hard to make certain the child understands that distinction. A great deal of social pressure must be overcome in achieving that end. I think it’s appropriate to view children as a subculture. Though they participate in our society, they do it under very different circumstances than do adults. In a society that values skill and productivity, children are generally less skilled and less productive than adults. In a society that values wealth and independence, children generally have less of both. In a society that values the ability to affect change through the power of control, children find themselves, for the most part, without power.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this, of course, as long as the children recognize that the limitations exist because the children are children generally and not because they are undeserving children specifically. Children are not oblivious to the values of society or to the values of their parents. They can see that people are constantly being judged according to these values. They find themselves being judged, as well, by their peers. Society tends to establish a person’s identity and worth in terms of what the person does. This is subtly apparent each time a child is asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” instead of “What do you want to do?” Professional athletes are viewed with awe because of their athletic abilities and the disproportionate salaries they receive. Criminals, on the other hand, are often viewed as being every bit as offensive, worthless, and unlovable as the crimes they’ve committed. Unless children are taught the distinction between being and doing, they are encouraged to accept society’s judgments. They will learn to assess their identity, security, and worth as functions of what they do, how they look, and what they have to offer. They will learn to accept, as valid, the assessments of others as well.

Children who have been taught to believe the lessons I’ve discussed have been victimized. They have received an inappropriate education. They have been taught things that—though untrue—can seriously affect their ability to enjoy being who they are. Because they trusted the judge’s right and qualifications to pronounce the judgments, the children believed them. Though they may eventually come to realize the messages were not true, they will struggle to overcome the instinctive and conditioned response that they were. Is it wrong to tell children they’re unlovable? Most of us would agree that it is. Is it less wrong to tell children they are lovable? The answer to that depends on the expressed basis of their lovability. If parents imply that they are qualified to assess the lovability of the children, the worth of the children, or that the parents can ensure the ultimate security of the children, then the most harmful and damaging messages are given.

The most significant danger children and the rest of us face is not the harmful messages themselves. It’s our willingness to believe them simply because we assume the qualifications of the people who make the judgments.

We are most subject to being manipulated, exploited, abused, and controlled by those people whom we assume to be qualified and dependable in telling us who we are, what we’re worth, and to what extent our security depends on them. When parents—however innocently or inadvertently—imply they are qualified to issue such judgments to their children, they are setting their children up to be victimized by others who make the same claim.

As parents, we commonly teach what we were taught, becoming first the victims and then the perpetrators. And the cycle goes on and on.