Destabilised From The Inside

Before I even discuss emotional poverty, I think it’s best to direct you towards a definition. I found this from a book by Dr. Ruby Payne called ‘Emotional Poverty in all Demographics: How to Reduce Anger, Anxiety amd Violence in the Classroom’. Her definition is thus:

‘when the integration and regulation of the brain are underdeveloped, the inner self is weak, and bonding and attachment is unstable‘

Whilst that book is for professional devlopment, what I’ve taken from it is that an overall lack of structure and cohesion creates emotional detachment which results in an individual becoming fractured and fragmented. This breaking up of the psyche can lead to destuructive and isolating behaviours.

But what causes this?

This article by the Mom Collective references Dr. Payne’s book and it suggests that things like the death of a parent, bullying, racism and moving (house) a lot are some of principle reasons.

If such events are not addressed at a young age then the child will grow into a less stable adult. I believe it’s one of the main reasons therapy in young adults is so high nowadays. The parents of the last forty years aren’t there for their children in the same that the parents born in World War 2 and back were there for their children. The Boomers appear to have been the catalyst for emotional decline as being the first where both parents could choose to work with neither staying at home to tend to their child, instead relying on the school to do the bulk of the care work.

In the 21st Century, I’ve seen a significant drop in emotional health between my generation (Millenial) and the current Gen Z (birth years circa 1995 – 2010 and Generation Alpha (birth years circa 2011 – 2026). There’s a sense of unassuredness masked by a veneer of false confidence in them which I believe comes from not having having been raised correctly.

I think I was part of the last generation that was encouraged to go out and play in parks, forests, fields, etc and be home in time for dinner. When I visit my home village, I hardly see any children playing. There’s either not enough of them now or they’re encouraged to stay indoors and play on a tablet, console or watch TV in their room. They’re given a prison out of compassion in an attempt to protect their children from the ‘dangers’ of the outside world at a time where it’s far safer than it’s ever been. All this does is create a crutch for them in the future where emotional resilience forms the bedrock of being able to tackle real world problems effectively as an adult. You don’t learn much from scripted events in games, films and TV shows compared to developing and maintaining connections with your peers.

But let’s get back to the aforementioned definition. How does an inner self become so weak that the attachments and bonds created with others is unstable?

From my own experience, I can say that neglect is a major factor. Parents that take a very hands-off approach to raising their children can create a lot of emotional problems. If parents show little to no interest in their own children, it should come of little surprise that that child will grow up with a low opinion of themselves and end up over-exerting themselves to make as big an impression as possible on people just to earn the slightest bit of attention.

Conversely, I’ve experienced children that were so spoiled with material items, but not truly disciplined, that they grew up to have little-to-no respect for their parents. It seemed the parents wanted to be popular with their children rather than respected. This has been the case with a childhood friend. She and her younger brother got anything they wanted despite being absolute brats. Now adults, the parents have been enslaved into acting on every whim of their adult children. Needless to say, they have been aged significantly by this and, I’d argue, robbed of any real quality time with their grandchildren. But then, if you don’t spend real time with your children don’t expect them to want to spend time with you when they get older.

I never kept in touch with those children after finishing secondary school but I get reports that their lives are not steady and structured. The son is on his second child with two different women, has no employment or financial stability and doesn’t seem to be able to provide a home for his children. His father has built a second shed in his garden just to store his son’s excess stuff.

The daughter has subscribed to the alternative lifestyle. Hair of various shades, sexually ambiguous and promiscuous (always was) and seems to have turned her boyfriend into becoming a neutered ‘they’. From what I’ve gathered, her job situation is also unstable having had 17 jobs since 2010.

I think what these examples serve to highlight are how important it is for parents to attach and bond to their children.

It’s become all too common now for parents to give up on the actual parenting and outsource it to technology, the government and other people. You’re not a parent if you think a child can be looked after by a screen and a controller or anyone that isn’t you. What you are is neglectful of your child and your duties towards them. It should be a pleasure and privilege to have a child to take care of. To love, support and watch them grow into well-rounded individuals with a sense of self. But how many see their children as an expense they say they can’t afford? How many tell their children they gave up on their dreams because of their children? How many don’t say these things but project them? Too many, I’d wager.

It’s not the child’s fault they were born therefore the blame cannot be passed on to them because the lives of the parents have now been deemed as disrupted.

This study from the Guttmacher Institute may give some insight as to why Millenials onward are the most likely generations to develop emotional problems.

The graph above is for the UK and shows that, over a 29-year period, an average of 35% of pregnancies were unintended and, of those, an average of 13% end in abortion. The Institute doesn’t provide figures until its graph for 2015-2019 where it stated that there were 1,150,000 pregnancies annually. That must be an average but they don’t state it so I’ll take them at their word. In that four-year period, 545,000 were unintended and 197,000 ended in abortion. Again, they don’t state but this must also be annually.

If we believe these figures to be a true reflection of the percentages of unintended pregnancies and abortions then it stands to reason that, on average, a third of children born during the assessed timeframe could develop mental and emotional problems because they were not planned or, even worse, not wanted but had anyway.

How do I come to this conclusion?

Let’s take an abortion. Woman is raped and unwillingly impregnated. She gets rid of the foetus. She finds a man worth having a child with but hasn’t dealt with the trauma of her previous pregnancy. Second pregnancy goes to term and the child is born. That child, through no fault of its own, is not bonded with its mother. In fact, its mother rejects it because all she can think about is the rape. She’s not emotionally healthy therefore the child grows up resented and neglected by its mother. It may well be cared for well enough by the father but living with a mother that hates you because of what you are not is a very scary and confusing environment for that child to grow up in. The child will, in all likelihood, develop problems with their image, worth, abilites, etc because they do not have the backing of two supportive parents. This will create a multitude of problems as the child gets older and requires more sophisticated guidance and, possibly, treatment.

It’s a made-up scenario but it’s entirely feasible. An unintended pregancy can be a double-edged sword. For couples that have been trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant, it’s a Godsend. For those that didn’t want children or had them already, it could change their minds or just be a surprise and welcome addition. Conversely, it could be a burden.

A child is a responsibility and should be a privilege. Never a burden. To treat one as the latter only does harm.

And if the child is treated as a burden then you have to look at the environment that’s being provided. If they were unintended and unwanted, the enviornment the child grows up in will not be one that fosters a whole individual. Instead, they will become fractured and unsure of who they are and why they are here which can lead to a whole host of problems.

This blog post from Psychotrauma Practitioner, Vivian Broughton, is full of insights. I’ve copied over the bullet points from the Catch 22 section:

• the mother doesn’t want to get pregnant and have a child
• the pregnancy was a mistake
• the conception was violent, or by rape
• the conception was coercive, unpleasant, boring, unemotional
• conception was seen as a duty
• the mother hates the father
• pregnancy is unpleasant and the mother is often sick
• the mother is ambivalent about having a child
• the mother is frightened of pregnancy and giving birth
• the mother has been told many frightening things about having children
• due to her own childhood trauma the mother is still psychologically a child and sees her child as a rival for satisfaction of her wants and needs
• the mother sees children as a nuisance, a drain on her resources and opportunities
• the mother may suffer from her own trauma from being unwanted, even hated, by her mother
• she may unconsciously see her child as, finally, someone weaker than her that she can take revenge on for her own victimisation
• if the mother has been abused as a child she may see her unborn child as a potential abuser
• for many reasons the mother may prefer a child of the opposite gender, not wanting the child as he/she is

This list is neither exhaustive nor does it include the reasons a father might not want a child. However, across the sexes, the reasons are quite similiar.

What this post does discuss is the fact that a child unwanted by its parents will pick it up…eventually. They will become consciously aware of the fact that at least one of their parents didn’t want them. Once this thought has embedded itself into a child’s psyche, it will dominate to the point that the child may disassociate themselves from their parents in a number of ways. They may become more introverted and isolate themselves; their behaviour could become more erratic and violent; or they may become overwhelmed with feelings of helplessness.

The problem with mental and emotional poverty is that it’s arguably the worst kind because it is largely invisible. It requires objective observation and granting the affected person the space where they can feel comfortable to openly discuss their experience.

If they even realise what’s happened.

Then the problem becomes a person that wanders through life without even knowing they’ve been deprived of a decent upbringing. And even if you’re sure of it, you cannot force awareness to the affected person as that will unsettle their psyche to the point where they may be unable to function properly. Whilst they might be concsiously aware, they can still be deluding themselves to the point they create an illusion of stability to the public and themselves. Breaking that illusion could send the person into a downward spiral of destruction.

So, what to do?

Accept it. Rather than subscribe to a delusion, subscribe to reality. The parents should be confronted about the nature of their child’s conception and the effect it’s had on their lives. It’ll be tough. It’ll bring about feelings of anger, guilt, shame, betrayal, hate, etc but, by getting the truth out in the open, the child and their parents can at least move forward honestly however that may look be it together or apart. The main thing is gaining some closure over how the child came to be in this world. Then they can go about the rest of their life with either some or all of the void filled.

If this happened more then, perhaps, we’d have far less young people wandering around seeking some semblance of structure however loose it may be. I can only think they’d be all the healthier for it.

Because that’s all any child really needs, isn’t it? Some structure. A structure forged out of love, responsibility and a duty of care. Without it, we become wayward and end up falling into all kinds of emotional traps later in life which can lead us down very dark paths. Some may find/fight their way back to a worthwhile path but many won’t. Of course, that can happen to those who had a good upbringing. The difference there is that such a child is likely to get themselves back on a good footing and avoid such traps in the future because they’ve been taught.

But then, the unfortunate truth is that it’s fashionable to not look after children anymore. At least, in the UK.

Speaking of emotional traps.

This BBC article highlights the childcare subsidies for parents in England. They are expected to come into force in between April 2024 and September 2025. The main points are:

• Eligible working parents of two-year-olds will get 15 hours of free childcare per week from April 2024

• Children between nine months and two years old will get 15 hours of free childcare from September 2024

• All eligible under-5s will get 30 hours of free childcare from September 2025

So, parents will effectively be paid to not look after their children. The state shall provide a carer who will, in all likelihood, become the person the child has the strongest bond with during these crucial early years.

And once it’s done? I imagine the child will have a similar relationship with their parents as those who are sent to public school in England (private in Scotland).

This article from Brighton Therapy Partnership discusses the effects of ‘Boarding School Syndrome’. Whilst it’s not a medical condition, it’s effects are quite real.

One such effect is losing the ability to form relationships with parents and other family members. And it’s not surprising. The child is at home and is then sent off to live with strangers for several months only to return for holidays. In some cases, the child is away for years. It can help some if the parents are in an abusive relationship. For the children that aren’t, it can cause depression, confusion and a sense of loss. They may think they’ve done something wrong to deserve being sent away.

That’s just one effect. Now, let’s take the UK government’s childcare proposal. The child is under five and the parents leave whilst a stranger comes to look after them. Imagine the problems that could cause.

Of course, rather than pay a stranger to spend 15-30 hours a week looking after someone else’s children, why not give that money to, I don’t know, the parents? If the mother/father wants to stay at home with their children then why not have that be their occupation for a few years? If the parents would prefer to split things, then the money gets divided.

Ah. But that would be giving power back to parents and communites and we can’t have that, can we?

I’ll not divert in the political direction. That’s a whole other topic.

I will, however, finish by saying that being emotionally malnourished does not allow someone to function well in the world. You can come from a rich background, have gone to the best schools and a great university where you received a top class degree which landed you an excellent job at a reputable company. But if you weren’t loved fully by your parents, none of that will matter. I’ve seen it in big organisations. These people are cold but not because they’re evil but because human intimacy is alien to them.

Conversely, I went to school with a guy who was highly intellectual. His mother was a housewife and his father a postman. He became a lawyer. Why? Because his parents loved him enough to give all they could so he could achieve a life beyond his upbringing. And he did.