by The Parenting Centre | Mar 2, 2022 | General
My favourite podcast tells stories of lesser known or forgotten events in history. Today I was listening to it and it really got me thinking about the power of perspective.The following is not a political commentary; it is about the psychological power we have to create narratives that work for us regardless of the particular set of facts.The podcast comes from America, and the couple who host it were describing an Allied plan in World War II to destroy a Norwegian plant where the Allies thought the Nazis might be developing an atomic bomb. The hosts talked intensely about how horrific it would have been if the Nazis ever got their hands on nuclear weapons.
What would the Nazis have done with nuclear weapons that was so terrifying? Drop them on big cities? Kill hundreds of thousands of civilians? Cause genetic defects in future generations from radioactive contamination? Of course, these things DID happen, but they weren’t perpetrated by the Nazis. They were perpetrated by America. And somehow that seemed MUCH less horrific to these hosts, who of course, are Americans.
Listening to the podcast, I started thinking about how a German podcast might have talked about the dangers of America developing nuclear weapons in Germany had won the war. The reality is that both sides tried to kill as many of the “enemy” as possible. That’s how it is in war, and that’s how it’s always been. Wealthy and powerful leaders tell young people to put on outfits and slaughter young people with different outfits, and for some inexplicable reason, young people (on all sides) agree and go do it.
But the point is perspective. One person’s “horrific” event is another person’s “heroic triumph”.
This example is about countries, but the same thing is true with individuals. We embrace a narrative that works for us, and then reject or ignore anything that doesn’t fit in our narrative. Whether it’s a country that dropped nuclear weapons condemning another country for even thinking of developing them, or a separated parent condemning their ex for even thinking of the ex’s own best interests, we seem to be so easily stuck in our own perspective and our own narrative.
Of course, the exciting opportunity exists to recognize our narrative is only one way of “spinning” a story, which gives us the power to change our own narratives, and thereby change our lives.
by The Parenting Centre | Feb 2, 2022 | General
In the early 1970’s, a Stanford University psychologist named David Rosenhan was introduced to the “anti-psychiatry” movement and was inspired to devise a study. He got together a group of 8 “pseudo-patients”, including three psychologists, a psychiatrist and a pediatrician, to present themselves at a total of 12 psychiatric hospitals complaining of auditory hallucinations. They were told to say they heard words associated with existential dread, such as “thud” , “empty” and “hollow”. All 12 hospitals admitted the pseudo-patients and gave them diagnoses of major psychiatric disorders (11 categorized them as “schizophrenic”). Although they all acted normally once admitted and told the staff the voices had stopped, all 12 were discharged with diagnoses. Rosenhan contended that this was evidence that psychiatry is not scientific or objective.
Not surprisingly, there was some pushback from the psychiatric establishment and efforts as recently as 2019 to discredit him (long after Rosenhan’s death in 2012). This happens to most professionals who dare to question the “big lie” of psychiatry.
For me, the most shocking part of this is that almost 50 years later mainstream society still accepts psychiatry as “real”. Obviously, there are huge corporate and political entities who are propped up by psychiatry. It allows drug companies to make billions of dollars of profit, and it allows the mainstream to marginalize people who are different or are perceived as a threat. But where is common sense, and how many other things do we accept without question that would not stand up to objective scrutiny?
This strange era of human history is a great time for us to recognize that things often are not as they seem, and we don’t “have” to believe what we are being told unless we independently decide it resonates with us.
by The Parenting Centre | Jan 6, 2022 | General
In the 1950’s, there was an American politician named Joseph McCarthy who was accusing virtually everyone of being a Communist. His vicious attacks provoked an ethos in American society of paranoia, including people turning in friends and relatives to save themselves, and many people losing their careers and even committing suicide. The legacy of this is the word “McCarthyism” to describe tactics of attacking people, turning them against one another, and provoking paranoia.
In 1954 a lawyer named Joseph Welsh was being questioned viciously about an innocent young lawyer in his firm. Welsh famously refused to answer, and said to McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
A few weeks ago I was sitting in my dentist’s office waiting to be seen. While I waited, three different older women came into the office.
Each one had their temperature taken with the “forehead gun” (as did I) and then each of them was asked a series of questions about their general medical condition, including whether they had the Covid vaccination and if so, which one. All of the women seemed uncomfortable to various degrees (one refused to answer) but I don’t think they were as uncomfortable as me. Here I was, a total stranger, and these women were being asked to divulge personal medical information in front of me (and after the first one, in front of each other). It brought the Welsh quote to mind.
Regardless of anyone’s position on Covid, the vaccination and the mandates, where did we lose our sense of civility, our sense of decency? Couldn’t we all agree, from any perspective, that human beings are entitled to be treated with dignity? Couldn’t we all agree, from any perspective, that human beings are entitled to a right to privacy?
So many things have changed in society over these past two crazy years, and I hope when/if we “get to the other side” there will still be a society where we respect each other’s boundaries, autonomy and privacy. As individuals, and as parents being role models for our children, we can dedicate ourselves right now, in the midst of this, to treat others with dignity and respect. At the end of the day, all any of us can control is how we behave.
by The Parenting Centre | Dec 1, 2021 | General
DISCLAIMER: This reflection is about understanding the historical roots of judgment in our society and in parenting. It is NOT a criticism of anyone’s religion, or of religion in general.
A brilliant 9 year old boy recently reflected to his Mum that “organized religion is like traditional parenting for adults”. I’m consistently amazed at the wisdom of young people, and this observation really got me thinking about where our values originate.
Having grown up in America, and now having lived many years in Australia, I am most familiar with the Judeo-Christian framework, but I suspect it is true of many (most?) religions that they provide a structure of what people should or should not do. In our western traditions, we are essentially provided a list of rules to follow, and the general theme is that we are blessed if we follow these rules, and damned if we do not.
It is not difficult to see how this sort of structure translates to parenting. As adults, our religious dogma (eg – the Bible) tells us what the rules are, and we learn that someone way more powerful than us will reward us if we follow those rules, and punish us if we don’t. As children, the rules are laid down by our parents, and they dish out the rewards or punishment.
Having externally imposed rules, in some ways, is comforting. We don’t have to decide what is the right thing to do – we can just follow someone else’s rules. Unfortunately, it inevitably happens at some point that those values don’t comport with our own wishes/impulses, and while it is our choice to be “true to ourselves” and accept the consequences, we more often make the choice of capitulating to the powerful and silencing our inner voice.
What is the result for society? We have a world of adults who are mostly compliant, but not very happy. People are “outer-directed” (listening to external norms) rather than “inner-directed” (listening to themselves), and it manifests in a (mostly) orderly world, but one where there is a gigantic international market in psychotropic drugs, because SO many millions of people are depressed and anxious.
What is the result for children? We have a world of children who are also mostly compliant, but are many (most) of them are “on track” for being tomorrow’s market for those psychotropic (not to mention illegal) drugs?
Our Judeo-Christian traditions have taught us that someone more powerful than us makes rules and we either obey, or we are punished. Our traditional style of parenting is that parents make rules and children either obey, or are punished. I thought that 9 year old was brilliant the first time I heard what he said, but upon reflection it feels more and more ‘spot on”.
by The Parenting Centre | Nov 10, 2021 | General
John Lennon wrote about imagining a world with no possessions, countries or religions. I wonder if we can imagine a world without judgment.
It’s an axiom in Buddhism that “desire is the root of all suffering”. I think one way this plays out in our daily life is in self-judgment. One of the pillars of traditional parenting is judgment. We are given the “good girl/bad girl” paradigm almost from birth. Literally, parents will talk about having a “good baby” because he sleeps through the night and isn’t fussy. A three week old may not understand this cognitively, but I imagine long before he is verbal he will “get” that he’s being judged.
Parents have power over children, and their judgment can decide what a particular day is like for a child. The “good” child gets praise, love and rewards, while the “bad” child gets shunned, yelled at, and often punished. If I am 4, and I want my ice cream, I better behave in a way that my parents judge as “good”. For most of us, we then go into a school setting where everything we do, behaviourally or academically, is assessed and evaluated. It’s all about judgment.
Just like any other value, we internalize the belief that the things we do (and the ways that we feel) are either “right” or “wrong”, or “good” or “bad”, and we start being judgmental with ourselves.I am confronted daily with how incredibly pervasive judgment is in our daily lives. We are always comparing what we do to some subjective standard, and often criticizing ourselves because we feel we “didn’t do it right”. Our days can be filled with all the times when we feel we didn’t say, do or feel the “right thing”. In my opinion, this makes life really stressful, and makes us very unhappy.
As parents, we can look for opportunities to NOT judge, and to just be accepting and loving. This includes avoiding excessive praise, which is also inherently a judgment. None of this needs to be conceptualized as a “rule” – it’s just an idea. It’s hard to completely shift a paradigm in one generation, but if each generational cohort of parents judges a bit less and makes judgment less of a central piece of their parenting, maybe we can slowly start to imagine a world without judgment.
Where did this way of looking at the world come from? That will be the focus of next month’s newsletter!
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