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Alice Miller's For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

 

Recently, I picked up one of my favorite books, Parenting for a Peaceful World by Robin Grille. This fascinating book explores how parenting practices have shaped societies and world events, including human rights abuses and ecological destruction. It’s a must read book for anyone interested in how child rearing creates the world in which we live.

As I was reading, I came across several passages detailing the work of Alice Miller. It made me realize just how often I see Miller referenced in contemporary books that deal with psychology, sociology, and the like.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the name, Alice Miller is a Swiss psychologist whose insights on the consequences of child maltreatment—or as we would say today “adverse childhood experiences”—became highly influential after the publication of her book Prisoners of Childhood in 1979.

 Miller claimed that most cases of addiction, neuroses, chronic depression, and a slew of other disorders were caused by buried feelings and unresolved trauma and grief related to some form of child abuse.  

She wrote extensively on why she believed that these problems impacted not just the individual, but society as a whole. According to Miller, “Child abuse like beating and humiliating not only produces unhappy children, not only destructive teenagers and abusive parents, but thus also a confused, irrationally functioning society.” She concluded that all social and global problems, including worldwide violence and even warfare, were a direct manifestation of the early childhood maltreatment that led to this “confused, irrationally functioning society.”

In her book For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence, Miller hammers home her provocative stance that the root causes of ALL violence are a consequence of childhood trauma.  Of course, this doesn’t mean that all children who are mistreated will unleash violence on society. Far from it! Nevertheless, according to Miller, we should all be wary of this powerful dynamic that unfolds again and again across the globe.

To make her case, Miller uses the example of Hitler’s childhood to show the genesis of his insatiable hatred, which, of course, resulted in the horrifying fate of the Jews in the Third Reich.

Specifically, Miller describes how the parenting manuals that were in vogue when Hitler and his Nazi collaborators were children belied extreme hostility to children. Parents were exhorted to “show no mercy” when it came to breaking the child’s will. Rather, parents were advised to withhold affection and enforce rigid obedience by whatever means necessary. Physical demonstrations of love were deplored, and using “the rod” was an absolute necessity in child rearing.

Surely not all German parents adhered to these austere standards, but plenty did, according to Miller.  She writes that these disciplinary techniques, which she calls “poisonous pedagogy,” enforced a continuum of violence that reverberated throughout Nazi Germany.  

Of course, the idea that war and genocide is a symptom of childhood trauma is not new or unique to Alice Miller. But because she speaks with such ferocity and clarity on the far reaching impact of psychological injury, I highly recommend For Your Own Good, which is utterly illuminating in its entirety. Her insights were ahead of her time, and this oldie-but-goodie remains an important reminder of how ACEs affect, sometimes dramatically, the world in which we all live.

 

 

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Cissy: I completely relate to what you say. Until he was about three years old, my oldest son was a screamer—vicious temper tantrums during the day and screaming all night long. I felt wholly inadequate as a parent as it seemed that friends’ babies were blithely floating through life. So at the urging of many friends and relatives, I tried letting him cry it out. But it was torturous for me and I couldn’t keep it up so we just sort of muddled our way through.

Fortunately, I started reading Alice Miller and some other thought-provoking authors about this time, and I started to ease up. But still, I agree with you that it is difficult to know what is best. So many of our parenting conventions—rigid schedules for babies and whatnot—are really just cultural Western concepts that are not rooted in biological imperatives.

To Jane and Jackie:  I love Jackie’s great response to Jane’s question. I totally relate to the fear and hatred I felt when I was physically punished! Here are a few more thoughts:

Usually I ask what lesson spanking imparts that couldn’t be achieved with compassionate communication. Invariably, those who sanction spanking respond that young children do not have the cognitive ability to understand verbal reasoning. Hence, a 2-year-old needs a smack to learn not to run out in front of a speeding car or touch a hot burner.

Of course, this logic fails, because no parent would ever leave a 2-year-old alone by a busy street, even if the child had previously been spanked to learn the danger of speeding cars. They're not developmentally ready. As Jackie says, young kids often have no clue why they're getting spanked in the first place.

Aside from very young children, there’s always the debate over whether or not spanking, etc., extinguishes unwanted behavior. I would have to say that yes, smacks and hits might lead to temporary compliance, but at what cost? I myself was absolutely petrified of getting hit with the belt so yes, I was perfectly behaved as a child. I was also an extremely frightened, anxious and hyper vigilant kid, and the constant stress of witnessing my siblings getting hit was extremely harmful to me.

An interesting dynamic I notice with some of my siblings, who were spanked themselves and went on to spank their own children, is their reluctance to regard the beatings they received as a form of abuse. I wonder if they feel it would be an admission that they were not loved—an intolerable thought indeed. I myself don’t make this connection. My mother endured extreme violence at the hands of her own father and just did what she knew. This knowledge actually makes me feel great compassion for my parents. The cycle of violence is indeed vicious and hard to break.

Jane Stevens posted:

Jill, how do you respond to people who say, "I was spanked/hit/etc, and I turned out just fine"?

As a teacher of young children for 42 years, I have had many a parent say this to me.  My response is always an "I message," in which I basically take a walk down memory lane with these parents,saying... "Yes and so was I. That's what unknowing parents did when we were little.  I can remember to this day how it just made me hate and fear my father without teaching me anything.  Discipline comes from the word disciple, which is a teacher, or a guide sent to light the way"....

I can remember spankings where I didn't have a clue about what I had done wrong, or how I was supposed to have done the task in the first place....Nobody had bothered to teach me that part!   For example there was one time when I was barely 6 years old and my not-quite 2-year old sister walked into the street....Did I know at that ripe old age that it was my job to keep her out of the street?? I can also remember getting spanked once for passing the concrete staircase while floating down a rapidly flowing irrigation canal.  I got spanked for not stopping where I was supposed to even though nobody had ever told me that is what I was supposed to do, and how a person is supposed to it.....Children are like sponges, but we have to provide the right stuff for them to soak up!

On the positive side, reminiscing with parents about these types of happenings from way back in my memory made them realize how long-lasting and mis-guided the effects of a spanking can be. They also made me so much more aware as a teacher of the need to teach children in great detail EXACTLY what you mean for them to do and how is the best way for them to do it in order to learn a new skill.

 

Last edited by Jackie Hamilton

Jill:

Thank you for this post.

It can be easy to blame ourselves (as parents) or our own parents (as children) for some things that were/are cultural pressure.

I know for myself, I struggled with the "cry it out" at night before bed routine and whether that promoted self-regulation or just makes a child feel ignored. There were various and popular views saying completely opposite things.

There are parents seeking to do the absolute best and not always sure of what that means. Sometimes, the expert advice of the time is flawed and that's not always a thing that gets addressed or considered. It's good to look more at the history as well as individual parents parenting.

Cissy

Jackie: I totally agree with you. Old habits die hard, and the "spare the rod, spoil the child" mentality (even if it doesn't involve actual beating) is still alive and well. I frequently hear people say "I was spanked/hit/scolded/harshly punished/etc. and I turned out just fine." And so it goes...

As you say, education and awareness is indeed the key. I cringe when I think of some of the things I said to my own children when they were young. At the time I thought it was all in the name of good parenting. Fortunately, I read lots of psychology books (and a BA in psychology) so I did better when I knew better.

Yes, and sadly it may have taken generations and lots of child psychology/parenting education classes to overcome this phenomenon!  My great-grandfather immigrated from Germany and 3 generations later, in spite of advancing his education in child psychology, my father was very very strict and punitive.  Not to the point of physical beating, but words and body language can do much to break down a child's self-esteem and ego. By the time I majored in early childhood education at CSU Sacramento, 4 generations later,  I had learned much about what would NOT be a part of my parenting or teaching, and still as a parent/teacher I did make human mistakes along the way.

Education is the key to making life on this Earth better and better for the little ones everyone claims to cherish!!

 

 

Last edited by Jackie Hamilton
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