Breaking the Bonds. Dorothy Rowe

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СКАЧАТЬ were active when we felt active, emptied our bladder and bowels as soon as they were full, and, when we felt hunger or any discomfort, we voiced our displeasure and demanded that the world make us comfortable again. If we felt angry with our mother we bit her, and if we did not want to engage in conversation we turned our head away.

      Some of us were lucky enough to have mothers who let us go on being ourselves for many months, but some of us were unlucky enough to have mothers who very soon stopped us from being ourselves. However, sooner or later, all of us as babies were shown that we could not go on pleasing ourselves and being pleased with ourselves. We had to conform to what society expected of us.

      For some of us the first lesson came when we cried in hunger and were not fed. Perhaps we were not fed because our mother had no food, or perhaps because our mother had been told by people who considered themselves to be child care experts that babies should be fed according to a clock and not according to the baby’s need. As we lay there, our little body creasing with hunger pangs, we drew the conclusion, in images if not in words, ‘If I ask for something the world will not give it to me’.

      Some of us were lucky enough to have mothers who met our need for food, but even we, sooner or later, encountered society’s demands that we empty our bladder and bowels at special times and places. Some of us were lucky enough to have mothers who knew that we could not achieve this until our sphincter muscles were strong enough, and so they let us discover at our own pace that society’s rules about cleanliness have some sense to them and can yield a feeling of achievement. However, some of us found that when we could not learn these rules quickly enough to please our mother we were called ‘dirty and disgusting’ and we were punished and humiliated. Whatever experiences we had, we all drew the conclusion that, ‘No matter how I feel, I must make my bowels and bladder conform to what society expects’. For many of us ‘what society expects’ dominates our life, making us carry out rituals of cleanliness and trapping us in a sorry round of constipation and diarrhoea, all of which adds to our worry about how acceptable we are.

      By showing us that we cannot expect to be fed just because we are hungry and that our bowels and bladder must conform to society’s rules, our families force us to draw the conclusion that other people’s wishes and needs must be met before our own. If we want something for ourselves we find ourselves being called ‘selfish’, and if we want what others have we are called ‘greedy and envious’. Anyone who is selfish, greedy and envious is bad. If we observe that our families are expecting us to be unselfish in order that they can be selfish, we must keep that thought to ourselves, for if we do not we are punished and humiliated.

      Rebecca said, ‘I always felt manipulated. My father would want me to do something and I wouldn’t want to do it, and he’d say, “You’re thinking only of yourself”. I’d think who do you think you’re thinking of? There was one time when I was at college and I was at home and I had an argument with my brother and my mother would not intervene and I went to stay with my grandmother for several weeks because I was having a hard time at home. Then my mother called up and said, “I want you to come home. I feel abandoned. You’re just thinking of yourself.” I thought who the hell are you thinking of? I’m unhappy there. I’m happy here. What right do you have to ask me to be miserable so that you can be happy? I think that was pulled a lot on me as a child. Everything is justified by saying that your parents love you, your parents know best. If your parents love you, does that mean that they’re asking you to do what is best for you? I wanted to be an anthropologist and my father thought that that was ridiculous. He would say I wouldn’t get a job, I should go to medical school, or do accountancy, or something practical, and when I’d ask why he’d say, “I’m only thinking of you”. I don’t think he was thinking of me at all, but so many things were justified by him with “I’m thinking of you”, “I’m doing it for you”, “It’s for your own good”, “After all I’ve done for you”.’

      We all learn, too, quite early in life that we have something else bad inside us. This is anger and aggression. As a toddler we live in a world of giants who act in unpredictable ways, who continually put us in new and often frightening situations, who say things which we cannot understand, and who expect us to do things which we cannot do. Sometimes all of this overwhelms us and we can do nothing but fling ourselves down in despairing rage. If we are lucky the adults with us remember what it is like to be only two and they treat us kindly, but if we are unlucky (and many of us are) we get punished. We are hit, or locked up alone in a room. As well as frightening us, this puzzles us, for while the adult is saying, It is wicked to be angry’, the adult is angry, and while the adult is saying, ‘It is wicked to be violent’, the adult is violent.

      Adults may believe that they are teaching small children to be clean, considerate of others, unaggressive, and not to be selfish, greedy, envious or angry, but what children are actually doing is drawing the conclusion, ‘I am not acceptable’. The child’s birthright of self-confidence has begun to dwindle.

      Sometimes parents, seeing one of their children in need, fail to see the conclusion another of their children is drawing.

      Rebecca said, ‘I have two brothers younger than me. I think my father valued Jimmy, the older of the two. He was like my father. My father never got along with my younger brother, Nick. He was an accident and he was ten days old when my father went to Vietnam for a year. They never seemed to bond and my father has never got along with him, but my mother has always defended him and paid a lot of attention to him, so I always felt that Jimmy was Dad’s favourite and Nick was Mother’s favourite, because he was persecuted, and that left me out, although I know that as I’m a girl my mother feels close to me, but I never felt like anyone’s favourite.’

      One of the tasks of parents is to define aspects of the world for the child. They say, ‘Don’t eat that dirt.’ ‘That’s hot. Don’t touch it.’ ‘That dog might bite you.’ They also define aspects of each child, like, “You’re a boy.’ ‘That’s your bum.’ ‘As you get older you get taller.’ Often in this defining they go beyond factual information and add their own value judgements, like, ‘You’re a bad boy.’ ‘Be careful how you touch your bum. It’s dirty.’ ‘Big boys don’t cry.’ When, like Candida’s mother (pp. 38–9), they define the child in ways which the child finds do not fit with her own experience of herself, the child, unable to reject what a powerful parent says, feels inadequate and unacceptable, just as Candida did when she could not be the outgoing, centre-of-attention person her mother insisted she was.

      Many children find themselves being defined by adults in negative, rejecting ways. Pat, like many girls, found herself being defined as ‘not valuable like a boy’. Dan found himself being defined as an object on which his father could take out his rage. Lisa and Jill found themselves being defined by their parents as being of less value than their grandfathers, and by their grandfathers as objects they could use to satisfy their sexual needs. Out of these experiences of humiliation the child draws the conclusion, ‘I am of little value’.

      These conclusions, ‘I am not acceptable’ and ‘I am of little value’, prepare the way for the conclusion ‘I am bad’, which we drew when we found ourselves trapped in a dangerous situation from which there was no escape.

      The dangerous situation was one where we were helpless and in the power of strong adults who were inflicting pain on us and on whom we depended.

      Perhaps, like Dan, we were being beaten, or, like Lisa and Jill, we were being sexually abused, or perhaps, like Pat, we were neglected and used. For some of us the adults were deliberately inflicting pain and humiliation on us for their own ends, although for others the adults could do nothing else, for they were starving, or in mortal danger, as in a war, or they were ill, or overburdened with their own troubles. Or perhaps they had died, or left, and we needed them desperately and they did not come.

      For those of us who were born to parents who loved us and wanted to do the best СКАЧАТЬ