From “domostroy” to “declaration of the rights of the child”
There has never been a generally accepted definition of love, and what to take as the basis of education is still not clear. “Discipline your son from his youth, and you will rejoice for him in his maturity; raise your children in prohibitions, and you will find peace and blessing in them” - to modern parents such a command seems outrageously soulless and cruel, but just a couple of centuries ago such maxims were considered an immutable truth. Now everything is different: the old educational guidelines have been destroyed, and the new ones are still extremely vague.
In the old days in Rus' it was simple - the foundations did not change for centuries: the grandfather, holding his grandson in his arms, knew what the baby’s life would be like and how to prepare him for it. From an early age, respect for elders was hammered into young people, so that later - in adulthood - they could not doubt the correctness of parental guidance and would accurately reproduce it on their children. There was no talk of love for the younger generation then: give birth - grow, that’s the whole science. Sooner or later, this ossified system was bound to fail and cause a revolt among the most advanced part of the population.
Information began to be received not only from parents and grandparents, but also, for example, from books or from travel abroad. We now know very well what this led to: society stirred up, looked at parent-child relationships from a different angle and put forward new pedagogical ideas.
But this is only one - positive - side of the coin, and on the other side there is total parental confusion. Now the mother has no idea what kind of world her beloved baby will live in, what to teach him and what to forbid. We have a lot of doubts about the consistency and adequacy of our own pedagogical views, but, alas, we cannot find answers to our questions.
And then how to love a child correctly? After all, to love is not only to pat you on the head and sing songs at night, but also to educate you - to prepare you for adult life, in which there will be not only roses, but also, naturally, thorns.
Dislike for children
Hello Svetlana!
“persistent dislike for children since childhood” is a consequence, and its manifestation cannot be called an unexpected and inexplicable event. Dislike for something always has a reason and is the result of consistently previously acquired negative sensations, feelings and thoughts.
Then, at the age of 21, you had to face certain circumstances that, apparently, brought you limitations on your desires, needs and limited your freedom. As a result of an unpleasant experience, your mind may have created an anchor between the feeling and the unpleasant stimulus, and the subconscious mind has reinforced this relationship.
Now, when you think about the child, what you will have to face with his appearance, you experience that fixed feeling of lack of freedom that you experienced earlier. The child is a stimulus. Reaction (feeling) is your attitude towards him, based on the difficulties you have experienced.
When the stimulus-response connection is repeated, an association of the reaction with the stimulus arises, and a habit arises. This is what may happen to you when you think about a child not yet born.
“The age is no longer suitable for birth and upbringing, as well as loss of time and loss of life for at least 3 years to care for the baby.”
Think about what you will be deprived of when you have a child? Do you allow yourself to have what you listed in the answer to the question in your life today? To the extent that this would suit you ideally? But even having answered these questions and having it in the future, there is still no guarantee that it will help you feel better. If the answer turns out to be a lot of material things, then you should start working on your inner side. With your soul. Tuning your tuning fork. Then you will feel more harmony in your life or, in other words, live at peace with yourself.
It’s also worth thinking about how your relationship with your man is going? How much do you trust him and can you rely on him? The level of trust between you may also be an unconscious reason for not wanting to have children. Are these deviations, you ask? From what norm? Who invented it? Normal is a relative concept. If you think that you do not need children and you are not ready to give them due attention, this is your desire, and you have the right to it. Your choice is your responsibility. If you are internally prepared for the baby’s arrival, you will not be tormented by doubts. The solution will come easily. It is also important to remain at peace with your decision not to have children. That is, having decided not to have more children, do not have doubts about your choice.
“Is it possible that my psyche will change?” There is no need to break your psyche. You should treat it very carefully and with attention, taking into account your own desires and needs, listening to yourself, building strong relationships with yourself.
“Tell me how I can work on myself, is this realistic?” Really, if you want:
- figure out what really stands/hides behind the dislike for children. — learn to distinguish between what you want and what society, your husband, children, parents, friends want from you. — learn to satisfy your own needs by identifying your desires and their motives.
Build a relationship with yourself, and you won’t feel like having a child is a burden that takes up your time and your life.
Dislike of small children. Disgust (1 answer)
Sincerely, Irina Monroe, psychologist Los Angeles, consultations on Skype.
Good answer3 Bad answer2
Mother and father: such different love
How nice it would be if raising children was regulated solely by instincts. Just reproduce the sequence of actions fixed at the genetic level, get a predictable result, and no painful thoughts and internal tossing for you.
By the way, until the beginning of the 20th century, maternal love was credited with a similar, unconsciously innate character. But over time, data began to accumulate on such significant differences in upbringing that scientists began to seriously wonder whether the maternal instinct was so omnipotent.
Of course, motherhood has a natural basis - for example, doctors have proven that its strength directly depends on the hormonal status of the female body. Thus, a low level of the ACTH-RF hormone causes a weakening of the maternal instinct, to the point that a woman stops feeding her children and taking care of them in any way.
But still, the mother’s attitude towards the child is largely determined by ideological reasons, and the experience of pleasure from interacting with the baby is nothing more than a natural safety net, an additional mechanism that binds the mother to the baby.
Dad feels differently. If for a woman the safety of a child is tantamount to complete control on her part, then a man, on the contrary, encourages children's independence and the development of new experiences, while being the guarantor of the same security.
Father's love is conditional: the heir must go beyond the boundaries of his mother's cozy little world, prove his right to life and earn independence. It is interesting that “papal” authoritarianism is perceived by children more constructively than maternal one. The first stimulates development, the second suppresses. It is because of such gender differences that in many cultures there is a tradition: until the age of 3-5, a child develops under the supervision of his mother, and only then does the father become involved in his upbringing.
However, now society is cultivating the early inclusion of the father in the life of the child, and at the same time, a woman has the right not to devote herself entirely to the family. Moreover, a modern mother can plan the birth of a child and determine the “measure” of her involvement in motherhood. It would seem that you can live and be happy, but even in such comfortable conditions, a dislike for children arises from somewhere.
Psychological sources of dislike
Sometimes a mother fails to adequately perceive the child’s natural age-related changes and accept his growing up as an immutable fact.
For example, there are women who love the tender years of infancy very much, but become lost and extinguished when the baby becomes a teenager. Such mothers are ready to give birth and give birth in order to repeat the most pleasant period for themselves, but with older children they, as a rule, experience a serious and sometimes insurmountable alienation.
It also happens the other way around: the mother is too anxious about the baby, but is happy to be involved in raising him when he gets older (a sort of “paternal” type of motherhood). Then she simply waits out the first years, almost formally carrying out everything necessary.
It happens that parents simply “do not get along” with their child. After all, no one has long believed that a child comes into our world as a “blank slate.” Only those who judge children from books and films believe in the magical power of education. A child may turn out to be so “difficult” that it is extremely difficult for a parent to constantly be in the same area with him. And if you can separate from your husband (or wife) due to “dissimilarity of characters,” you have to raise the baby, no matter what.
The most common reason is that mom or dad simply doesn’t like this child. It does not meet their requirements or some internal needs - and these people are simply unable to come to terms with the fact that it did not turn out the way they wanted.
There is also such a psychological state as “instilled” dislike. It arises in a situation where someone from a significant circle constantly finds fault with the mother, criticizes her upbringing and questions her feelings for the child. This creates a neurotic environment, and in the end the woman herself can believe that those around her are right, slowing down all her “maternal manifestations” so as not to provoke painful criticism.
By the way, we should not forget that coldness and restraint in expressing feelings may simply be inherent in a mother as a person. In this case, we are not talking about the absence of love, but about the deficiency of its manifestations. This, of course, cannot be explained to a child, and he may feel the lack of warmth quite acutely, but over time, such children, as a rule, understand the nuances of parental behavior and feel quite comfortable.
Shows of love
Of course, every parent expresses their feelings differently. There are no rules here: everything is individual. But most often those children who were deprived of protection, attention, communication, care and affection of either one of their parents or both consider themselves unloved.
Protection
The child comes into the world as a “clean slate.” From the first days of his life, he adopts every gesture, look, tone and emotion of his mother and father.
Adults show how to eat, drink, treat stomach pain and protect against an angry dog. It is difficult for a child if his parent lacks the instinct of protection. The world seems big and complex, but there is no one to explain what and how it works.
Attention
Parents teach their child to solve everyday problems and overcome difficulties. They pass on their life experience and wisdom to the child. Therefore, it is very important to be close to the baby when his worldview is just being formed.
Attention is one of the manifestations of love. It indicates that the parent is not indifferent to the life of the child. And when a mother, for example, completely switches to work and providing for the family, the child loses in this manifestation of love. The main thing for her is that the child does not need anything (and, by the way, the question is what is the internal state of the mother and what does the father do if she provides for the family). But she pays less attention to the child, which is why he suffers.
Communication
What does a family do in the evenings when they get together? Dad sits at the computer, and mom washes, cleans or cooks, the child is with a tablet... No one is interested in him - he is left to his own devices. Children who are not given attention in communication, are not interested in their inner world, grow up withdrawn and unsociable. It is difficult for them to find a common language with society; they prefer to remain on the sidelines.
Care
Different families express care differently. This is both care and protection. But it happens that parents are too active in their guardianship, creating “greenhouse” living conditions for their child.
They “smother” him with their care, not giving him a chance to find himself as an individual.
Such children grow up unfulfilled and spend their entire lives blaming their parents for this.
Weasel
Some parents deliberately do not show emotions towards their child. They raise him in strictness to strengthen his character.
In such families, the child is deprived of attention and care. He grows up tough and sometimes even cruel, unable to show love to his loved ones, because he simply doesn’t know how.
Reason to think
Is there a parent who would not love his child? Of course not. This mechanism usually works differently - you want to fall in love, but it doesn’t work out. Any reasonable adult understands perfectly well how positive feelings facilitate the long and complex process of raising an heir, but sometimes, unfortunately, a malfunction occurs inside.
Everything about the child begins to irritate and tire you: the baby gets sick, and you constantly want to sleep, he reaches out to you, but nothing in you responds to this call, moreover, any physical contact with him is unpleasant for you. To be completely honest, you really feel good only when the baby is not around, and you only worry about him not getting into a story, the settlement of which will fall on your shoulders. Looking at your son or daughter, you mostly see shortcomings that cause frustration and a desire to immediately correct them. Hence the nagging, tugging, and remarks. But, as a rule, you don’t have time to listen to your child or go somewhere with him, because you “have a lot of things to do.”
Isn't it true that many people can recognize themselves in this description? Sometimes each of us behaves this way towards our own children. In what case should you seriously think that something has gone wrong in your relationship with your child? When you realize that all these manifestations are protracted and the accumulated negative feelings prevent you from adequately fulfilling parental responsibilities!
Children's theory of improbability
The baby, as a rule, “resists” his unloving for a long time. An important security system is built into him, because if he believes that he is unloved, he will have no one to look to for protection.
Therefore, he “justifies” the behavior of his mom and dad with all his might, seeks out and rejoices at minimal manifestations of warmth and attention. By the way, this is where the roots of the love of orphanage children for their asocial and at times very cruel parents come from. The extent to which the perception of reality can be distorted is well reflected in the following dialogue:
- Mom loves me very much!
- Why do you think so?
“My fathers change every month, but she leaves me.”
However, this relatively smooth and calm situation usually changes sharply with the onset of adolescence, a period when the desire for independence is clearly manifested in the child. At this time, the sense of danger in the surrounding world becomes dull, and the center of authority shifts towards peers. Then the consequences of parental dislike can manifest themselves in full measure, and here everything depends on how high the child’s adaptive mental abilities are (that is, whether he can adapt to such parental behavior without any problems).
In one case, the teenager responds to the alienation with reciprocity, he develops a negative attitude towards his dad and mom and loses trust in them.
In another version, the little person will try to get the missing love and attention with loud, demonstrative hysterics. Or it may happen that the child completely loses faith in his own capabilities, falls into apathy and is constantly in an anxious and suspicious mood.
Of course, none of the listed options clearly arises from parental dislike. Different parenting styles, including those based on a strong and fulfilling feeling for the child, can lead to the same consequences. But nevertheless, it is precisely in unloved children that all this manifests itself especially clearly and painfully.
Is it normal that I don’t feel much love for my overprotective parents?
There is no greater misfortune for a person than parental love. Real. Blind. Manic. Call-home-or-I-don’t-me. Most troubles hit an individual from the outside, and only this one corrodes from the inside every day, at the most pliable age. Even prison, scrip and the army deform the personality no more than the daily requirement to wear a scarf. Eat a carrot. Eat an apple. Would you like some tea? We'll have lunch in an hour. We'll have lunch in half an hour. We'll have lunch in 15 minutes. Where do you go, wash your hands. Just not too late. Is Misha not with you? What time did he leave? Did he wear a hat? Did she get married? So you're only doing this because of this? She's not worth you, stupid provincial girl. Why are you yelling at me all the time? I'll accompany you. I'll meet you. Time for you to sleep. It's cold outside. Lock yourself up properly. Lower your ears. Don't print this, I'm afraid. Don't drink raw water, don't drink raw water, don't drink raw water. Your mom is running around the block in slippers, looking for you? Thank you, that's what I thought, give me a cigarette. “The main thing is to agree with everything,” a fellow sufferer taught. A friend calls from the station in the evening: meet me. Getting dressed. They go out into the hallway and say: you can’t go anywhere, it’s late. Okay, I'm not going anywhere. You undress. They leave. You get dressed again and quickly leave, not paying attention to the screams on the stairs.” He's neurasthenic, my friend. Boxer and neurasthenic. Wild combination.
He has been living in Germany for three years without his parents, with his family, and is still neurasthenic. Loves Natural Born Killers. I understand him. People who have not seen it cannot understand. They are easy and indulgent. When you tell them that your own grandfather is a seriously ill psychopath, because five minutes after the call to his forty-year-old daughter on her way home, he stares into the door peephole and stands like a pillar for fifty minutes, they instructively say that when you have your own children, then you will understand. They're just happy fools. When they were forty years old and had come to their neighbor’s house to smoke and have a drink, their 65-year-old father never came to them and took them home by the hand because it was already late.
They laugh naively and offer, as a last resort, to exchange the apartment. They don’t realize that a person who has seen great parental love does not know how to exchange an apartment. God grant that he at least knows how to pay for it. He can't do anything at all. Decisions. Accept praise. Live together. Fit. Give in. To keep distance. Punch in the face. Buy. Repair. Reply. Out of horror at the world, he hates people much more than they deserve.
External love is a drug for him, which he always received for free and got him really hooked. Drug addiction is progressing, mother’s hysterical love is no longer enough, strong hallucinogens are needed, but they won’t give them for that. And he, by the way, doesn’t know how to love either, because love always requires distance, and he’s been kissed since childhood, and he’s not used to giving, and besides, he knows how burdensome love is for its object, and instinctively tries not to strain the pretty ones. him people. Throwing begins between “I am a worm” and “I am a god,” painful thoughts, reflection, a look at oneself from the outside, which cannot but aggravate. When you imagine yourself through someone else's eyes in an expensive restaurant, your hand immediately begins to tremble and everything falls off your fork.
The grown-up beloved child is the crown prince, who was humanely allowed to live after his father's head was cut off. It would be better not to let go. It's better to finish it right away. The combination of a tyrant and a baby in one soul reliably cuts off a person from humanity. There is no further need for mother’s help: loneliness wears on and spoils the prince on his own; his tragedy is already self-organized, he is able to reproduce it himself. However, if mom has not died yet, she will always find time to call and ask what he ate today and where he went yesterday. This has long been the scourge of entire nations. A friend who returned from Israel said that a whole generation of eternal underage children of those who were spared by the pogrom and crematorium grew up there. Children who will never become adults, because until old age they will be taught that they have lost weight and will not be allowed on the street because there are dogs, cars and criminals.
So the world is divided in two on one more basis. On one side of it live nervous, lonely slobs with suicidal tendencies, trying to seem cool into old age. On the other, light, festive, everyone’s favorite pranks, wasting money and sticks until old age. They are fine. At the time of their puberty, parents were busy with work, with each other, with organizing their personal lives, but not with love for their children. Someone’s father, a director, at the age of 16 left him in an apartment with money for two years and went on an expedition with his mother. Someone’s father-academician at the same 16 years old said: “Next on my own. Here’s your room and breakfast at home, and the rest is none of our business.” Some people didn’t have a father at all, but their mother is still a berry again. “So these are the right children, they can be released alone, not like mine,” any professional mother will calmly say to this and lie. These are not the right children, these are the right parents. At the age of 16, anyone can and should leave alone, except Seryozha from the book “The Fate of the Drummer,” who either sells his boa or lets in spies.
In a low-class society, the prince is always more unhappy than the beggar, the infant of the street child, Sid Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn. For some, life is spent in complaints and dreams, for others in fantasy and adventure. Some go to friends to complain about their existence, others, secretly from their wife, hug another baby doll, happy and grateful. Some people think for months that they need to wash the floor, others arrange a new home in half a day. Some are tightly sealed into their apartment, others change the keys like gloves, taking them off, getting married and visiting friends. Military registration and enlistment offices can never find them, and if they find them, they come across a confidently and quickly made excuse, and if they grab them, then here too the little guys easily end up in the secret, in the draft, in the orchestra, and without any protection, having been taught from childhood to decide Problems. Children, who have been bundled up since childhood, serve in the combat fuel oil tanks. They come back with a doubled fear of the world, isolation and hatred of humanity. Relatives trim their gray temples and immediately recommend that they dress warmly.
This is a quiet, dull, mechanical insanity. In order for a child to grow up healthy, he is forced into bed in the middle of the fourth grade a minute after the New Year and listens contentedly to sobs into his pillow for three hours. In order for the daughter to quickly come to her senses and become happy, they tell her what a fool she has wasted her life, on her birthday, with champagne in her hands, in the form of a toast.
Sticky like candy, annoying like a flower seller, deaf like an honor guard, parents stubbornly and viciously do not want to see that those they wrapped up are sick, those they married are lonely, and they beat those they saw off. They methodically defend their right to love, until the boldest children in their assumptions realize that they are defending themselves. I should be proud of my daughter, but she is a fool and at twenty-five she lives with a married man. I want my son to celebrate his birthday at home with me, but it doesn’t matter what he wants. It’s me who worries when you’re not at home, so die and be there at ten. And the fact that you, let’s say, are used to the cold and have slept in the snow more than once or ten times, it doesn’t matter, I didn’t see you there, and my heart didn’t hurt, but here you’re welcome to button up. His still living father, a very correct uncle, once said to his mother: “If you had never gotten married, your daddy would run around you, feel sorry for you, flap his wings and be happy.”
In general, I understand why Zhenya Lukashin from “The Irony of Fate” did not have a family until she was thirty-six. But he had a mother. The same one. World.
Not love alone
What should you do if it suddenly becomes obvious to you that you don’t love your child? The obvious option is to contact a psychologist who will help you understand the reasons for the current situation. Conversations with him can alleviate some of the problems and, with successful cooperation, teach you to live with an unloved baby. Believe me, it's possible!
To begin with, mom or dad needs to stop feeling guilty towards the child for not being able to give him the necessary emotions. Yes, from all sides you are told that a child must be loved (this is, as it were, the duty of a modern parent), but the feeling of your own inferiority and non-compliance with standards will not bring you any closer to solving the problem.
Moreover, over time, these experiences will cause increasingly acute defensive irritation.
American children, for example, are pampered in every possible way, rejoice at every manifestation of their activity, and nurture their childlike spontaneity and cheerfulness.
In England, on the contrary, parents raise their children in strictness and emotional restraint.
In France, mothers practically do not sit with their babies, but send their children to nurseries almost from the age of three months. And children raised in such conditions do not at all consider themselves unloved - they grow up organic to their culture.
Since ancient times, children have been raised in strict obedience and respect for their parents. We still consider a well-mannered child who does not interfere with adults, but pleases them. That is, our society still gravitates towards prohibitive methods, rather than permissive ones. Therefore, love in our understanding is not permissiveness, even for good, but a system of restrictions. So the issue with manifestations of love is ambiguous.
And here it is important for “unloving parents” to understand that the absence of obvious warm feelings does not give them the right to ignore their upbringing responsibilities and certainly does not justify violence and abuse of a child.
