The most clear memory I have around this point, is where my mother would drag me to some place that I didn't want to go to as a toddler (like school), and I would cry, cry and cry because I really did not want to go. As we are walking and she is pulling/dragging me -- I am crying and trying to hold back so that she really has to pull hard to get me to move forward, while I am shifting all my weight back to resist.
As I am just sobbing very exuberantly -- as if that is all that exists in that moment -- my mom suddenly whispers but in a 'shouting' way, where the words are kind of 'held back' behind the teeth but are still very harsh -- and she goes "Stop crying!! Can't you see everyone's watching you!!". Not 'everyone's watching US' no no, everyone's watching YOU.
So then I'd go huh? And kind of 'pause' for a moment as I stand and look around to see if this is indeed the case. There's some people on the street, and sure enough, they are looking at me -- but this might just be because I am looking at them and they are just meeting my eyes.
So now I am really confused, because what, I shouldn't be crying? I am making a fool out of myself because I am crying? But I am crying because you are forcing me to go somewhere I don't want to go -- I mean, I'm pretty sure they are watching you more than they are watching me, you are the one dragging me along!
So here, the idea is created that 'crying is bad', 'crying is shameful', 'crying is weak' and 'crying is not done in public'.
Obviously there are also other dimensions involved within this memory, where I was throwing a tantrum and tried to manipulate my way out of something by crying lots -- but this was not addressed by the parent, instead the focus was placed on the action of 'crying' and that I should stop what I am doing because it's a shameful thing to do. So instead of addressing the situation common sensically, the parent went into fear because of 'what other people might think' about how the parent and child are interacting, and so the parent freaks out and impulsively wants to infuse a 'bad feeling' into the child to just make it STOP. But this then got projected unto the child, where the parent was concerned what people might think and then re-directed/projected this point unto the child, and make the child believe that people are thinking bad about the child because of the way it is acting.
So this is quite a fuckup -- there's no common sense or self-insight present in parenting to this day, where the only tools used are positive reinforcement as providing the child with a 'positive feeling' such as compliments or candy and negative reinforcement by making the child 'feel bad' through for instance punishment and manipulation. This reduces children and the adults they become to what? Robots who's actions are completely predictable and based on negative and positive impulses? Isn't that the whole design of binary codes 1010100111?
We need to seriously re-evaluate our parenting methods, as we are creating little robots with no practical common sense or insight into themselves and into this world, who create dysfunctional ideas about themselves and then try to impose those same ideas unto the world around them -- leaving a world behind of disorder and failure.
To be continued
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