How and why do noble and worthy people grow up in dysfunctional families, where the child, it would seem, has no one to orient and rely on, where an atmosphere of mutual hostility reigns? According to the psychophysiologist, parents are not the only source of love that helps a child grow up as a whole, happy person.
«What kind of parents, such will be the children.» This statement implies not genetic, but social inheritance — in the process of upbringing, parents form a personality similar to their own in a child. They do this either unconsciously, influencing the child with an example of their own behavior, or quite consciously, conveying attitudes and moral values.
It is not surprising that in families where parents are attentive to children, take care of them and treat each other well, children grow up to be happy, full-fledged individuals. It’s amazing how children from dysfunctional families manage to grow up to be worthy noble people? It would seem that they have no one to focus on and rely on, an atmosphere of mutual hostility reigns in the family. But a normal child in a dysfunctional family is no exception.
Their childhood was very difficult. Conflicts constantly occurred in families, at best they ended in divorce. «At best» is not a paradox. It is preferable for a child to remain in an incomplete family than to be a constant witness to the mutual hatred of the father and mother, their intolerance towards each other.
Hostility was periodically splashed out on the child, who was required to make a choice with whom he was and against whom. I heard a four-year-old boy suggest to his mother: «Mom, let’s sell our father and buy a cow.» Communication with the father continued, and the father participated in the upbringing of his son, feeling his hostility.
The child wants his parents to be satisfied and happy, just to be happy himself.
When one of the parents tries to win over the child to his side and turn him against the partner, he is often ready to fulfill and encourage any of his desires, sometimes completely unacceptable — if only he was at one with him. Such “playing along” with the child for selfish reasons from early childhood teaches manipulativeness and at the same time devalues everything that the parent does to demonstrate his love: the child feels that this is not a manifestation of sincere love for him, but just an attempt to appease him.
Meanwhile, only the disinterested love of parents from the first days of a child’s life becomes his main value and then determines the formation of his motives and behavior. He wants his parents to be pleased and happy with him, just to be happy himself.
So how do normal children grow up in families where they are deprived of all this? Fortunately, parents are not the only possible source of love that becomes mutual and gives the child a sense of happiness.
I know a woman who is loved by friends and family. From her comes the light directed to all who deserve it. She is incapable of moral compromise and intolerant of base motives. Her life has been tragic since childhood, but this did not break her and did not deprive her of the ability to experience happiness.
Her parents divorced early, she was lucky not to communicate with her father, because he was an insensitive robot. The mother experienced strange feelings for her daughter from an early age, similar to jealousy, and constantly tried to suppress her as a person. She waged a constant war with her, striking her acquaintances and relatives, insulting her in the presence of others.
How was it possible in such conditions to form a whole personality and grow up the way this woman became? I think that only thanks to a deep emotional connection with my grandmother, who was the opposite of her mother and from early childhood filled the girl’s world with warmth, love and understanding. She was humanly wise, and many loved her. While she was alive, the relationship with her was a protection for her granddaughter, against which waves of mother’s hostility broke.
When a child learns that there is a world where other relationships reign, he develops independence from a depressing home environment.
This role can be played by a relative, and even a neighbor or parents of a friend of the child — but these people must treat the child in such a way that he feels them as family and at any moment can come to them for love. In all the stories that I know, there was such a person.
This creates an alternative to the destructive family atmosphere. When the child learns that there is a world where other relationships reign, he develops some independence from the depressing home environment. There is also a critical attitude towards the parents who create it, a look at them from the outside — precisely because his experience of human relations is no longer exhausted by these domestic relationships. Such a child often matures earlier than his prosperous peers.
This is a very difficult process of personal formation, but those who have successfully completed it may be more resilient to other life crises. It happens that later they find the strength to pity and forgive their parents and try to help them — but only when they no longer depend on them.