Preacher's Kid

[Jaeger]

After chatting with Rainbow Jamz  in the chat room Saturday I just couldn't  stop thinking about my childhood especially my teenage years.  During the course of our conversation I brought up that there was a time I wished that my parents had punished me physically instead of trying to reason with me.  In which he replied that he didn't understand how someone raised by peaceful parents would ever want to be punished physically.  That statement hit me like a ton of bricks and really got me thinking.  What sane person would ever want to get hit.  The answer I gave him was as a teenager my number one fear was being labeled a goody goody and that if I was punished it would be the ultimate proof that I was not a goody goody.  However I alluded to but didn't go in to details on why I felt that way.

 

My father was a lay minister in the LDS (Mormon) church.  The church has no paid clergy so all church functions are done through the members.  My dad was called as a High Counselor as well as to the Bishopric through out my youth.  These callings are considered by the general membership as prestigious and that the men who hold these callings are extremely righteous.  As a result I felt a great pressure from the general membership as well as my non-members friends that I needed to be perfect.  I remember going to a birthday party of one of my friends and his mom poring me a pepsi and my friend speaking up saying He can't have that he is a Mormon.  Lets just say by the time I was thirteen, I was ready for a new image.

 

My mom and dad for the most part were peaceful parents.  I do remember getting spanked once or twice by my mom and my dad yelling at us once.  To my dads credit he was passing a kidney stone at the time and after coming home from the hospital he apologized profusely.  So I can't say they were 100% perfect.  For the most part punishment came in the form of time outs while I was young.  In my teenage years punishment came in the form of what I called "Lectures".  These usually my dad sitting down with me and him trying to convince me why such and such action was a bad idea.  For example I started smoking when I was thirteen.  When they found out my dad would bring out a study and anti-smoking literature he got from the high school he worked at.  These lectures could last hours sometimes and I remember throwing my hands up in the air and saying "why can't you just spank me and get it over with".  Hindsight I'm glad they never did.

 

One thing I will always be grateful to my mom and dad for is that they never threw religion in my face.  I stopped going to church most of my teenage years.  They never tried to force me to go but let it be my choice.  I wish I could say that all the members of my church were that way.  I remember smoking in the smoking section in high school one day and one of the teachers who was a member of my church came up to me and grabbed me by the arm and started talking to me sternly on how I was a bad example and as a "Latter day Saint", I should be better.  

 

I use to tell people I felt like the preacher's kid.  Looking it up I guess I was.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preacher%27s_kid

 

"Children of clergy often experience pressure due to the expectations placed on them,^[1][2][3][4] and may develop feelings of isolation and inner conflict as a result.^[5] Parental workload (which, by definition, includes working on the weekend) may also be a source of stress.^[4]

Some writers suggest that there is a "preacher's kid syndrome", in which children of clergy reject religion and the church.^[6] Such rebellious children of the clergy are a stock figure in the Southern literature of the United States,^[7]and this view is seen as a stereotype.^[8] One literary example occurs in Eugene O'Neill's play "The Iceman Cometh" when the traveling salesman Hickey describes his life: "You see, even as a kid I was always restless. I had to keep on the go. You’ve heard the old saying, “Ministers’ sons are sons of guns.” Well, that was me, and then some.""

 

P.S.  I really had a hard time writing this.  I fact I kind of feel guilty.  Being the son of a "preacher" who loved me unconditional as his son seems like pretty trivial stuff.  Having pressure from the congregation to be a good boy seems like nothing compared to some of the crap you guys (and gals) had to dig through.  I could never imagine a life with an ACE score of 6 or 7.  In fact what do I say to someone like that.  I'm often at a loss of words and my heart just ache in compassion for all of you.  I wish I could just hug you and say there is good in the world.  There are people who love and will love you unconditionally.  

I'm getting into peaceful parenting because my dad challenged me to be a better parent than him shortly before he died in 2008.  Most of you are getting into peaceful parenting because you been through the most horrible of family lives and want something better for your children.  You are the real heroes in my opinion.

I am forever grateful for my mom for taking that first step in breaking the cycle of violence.  Other than a few relapses she kept her promise to not raise me and my siblings the way she was.  She was abused as a child with spanking and yelling.   There were many times I felt my parents were to permissive, and perhaps they were but I will take that over being abused.

[neeeel]

In my teenage years punishment came in the form of what I called "Lectures".  These usually my dad sitting down with me and him trying to convince me why such and such action was a bad idea.

 

 

Its interesting that you experienced these as punishment. ( not that you shouldnt have, just to be clear). When stefan talks about how he talks with his daughter, I wonder if she experiences that in the same way? 

I wonder what was missing in these Lectures that made it feel like a punishment to you? Did it just feel to you like something you had to endure, and not really pay attention to? "yeah yeah, heard it all before, can I go now?" type of thing? It sounds like there was a lack of trust for your father, in that, he was saying these things, but you didnt believe him, or didnt believe that he had your best interests at heart. I know that I basically disregarded,rejected, EVERYTHING my parents said, and I think the reason was because I knew they were full of shit. I couldnt trust anything they said, any judgement. 

 

On the face of it, these Lectures sound like good parenting,they were presenting facts to you, in order to show you why your behaviour wasnt acceptable to them, but you didnt experience them that way, I wonder why?

 

There were many times I felt my parents were to permissive, and perhaps they were but I will take that over being abused.

 

 

What do you mean by too permissive? Do you have an example?

[Frederik]

Hey - I must say this is one of the weirdest posts that I have read in a long time and I had quite a strong reaction to it, but maybe I am somehow not seeing things or projecting or something - I am, actually, a preacher's kid, too, so..

That's why I would like to just ask you some questions.

 

What is your ACE score?

 

Were / are you in therapy? What about your parents?

 

What exactly is your intention for creating this thread?

 

Thanks.

[Jaeger]

Hi Fred,

 

Sorry if I've caused you any discomfort .   It was not my intention.

 

I guess I'm trying to figure out why I felt the need to rebel as a teenager when my home life was peaceful.   Why was I drawn to the bad crowd?   If I look only at my home life it makes no sense.  The only thing that makes sense to me is that it was an external force that made me want to rebel.  Was I rebelling against my church?  I'm open to any insight from the group on why I would be that way.  Which is the real reason for posting.

 

My ace score is 0 (1 if you want to count the spanking).

 

I am not in therapy.  I did take some marriage counseling about 8 years ago.  I believe my mom had therapy before she met my dad.  I don't believe my dad had any therapy.  

 

Is this something worth seeing a therapist for?  Like I said it seams pretty trivial but it is something keeping awake at night and wanting to post about it at 2:30 in the morning.

Maybe I should have titled this post "Am I a Preacher's Kid?".  Not sure if there is a way to edit it.

[dsayers]

as a teenager my number one fear was being labeled a goody goody and that if I was punished

Assuming that the label "goody goody" is intended to shame, then I would argue that you WERE being punished by whomever you feared would shame you. Unless there was no reason to suspect that they would. In which case, that fear was instilled upon you from someone else who was punishing you in this fashion.

 

One of the ways in which psychological abuse can be worse than physical is that it implants in you an inner-critic. A away for your abuser to continue to abuse you even in their absence, and almost without a trace. Though to be clear, "time out" is a form of physical abuse even if it's not as obvious in the moment.

 

With regards to your follow up post, I'm curious as to why you specify "home life." When you are born, your parents literally create your entire environment. If they send you to a (insert not-home here), that's an extension of your home life even though you're not home. Any abuse you suffered as a result of being separated from them, they are responsible for as they were the ones to expose you to it.

[Jaeger]

I wonder what was missing in these Lectures that made it feel like a punishment to you? Did it just feel to you like something you had to endure, and not really pay attention to? "yeah yeah, heard it all before, can I go now?" type of thing? It sounds like there was a lack of trust for your father, in that, he was saying these things, but you didnt believe him, or didnt believe that he had your best interests at heart. I know that I basically disregarded,rejected, EVERYTHING my parents said, and I think the reason was because I knew they were full of shit. I couldnt trust anything they said, any judgement. 

Wow that explains it almost exactly.  I did feel like it was something to endure and I didn't want to hear it.  Only thing is I don't think it was lack of trust.  I knew he had my best interest at heart.  I think it was because I knew my actions were wrong but didn't want to hear it.  I was doing more than just smoking I was also drinking and doing drugs ( Pot and LSD).  Perhaps I was in addict mode?

 

The more I think about it I was ashamed of my actions and couldn't stand the pain I was causing them (my parents).    

 

On the face of it, these Lectures sound like good parenting,they were presenting facts to you, in order to show you why your behaviour wasnt acceptable to them, but you didnt experience them that way, I wonder why?

From the age of 18 on I cherished these talks with my dad.  He was my go to  person for advice. I ran everything by him.  He was a great mentor.  It was only during my teenage years that I disliked these talks.  Probably because I didn't want to hear the truth.

 

Wow I have a lot of emotions built up right now the main on being regret for how I treated my parents.  I would yell at them, cuss them, storm out on them.  They always would take my outburst in stride and never lashed back.  

 

What do you mean by too permissive? Do you have an example?

 

Couple that come to mind are:

They let me hitchhike up to Berkeley California from Southern California for a Grateful Dead Concert when I was 17.

They let me go to parties.

 

They didn't approve of me doing these things and they told me so but I did them anyways.  I know I would never let my son who will be 17 in July do this.  Of course I say that but short of using force there is really nothing I can do if he really wants to go.  Maybe my parents knew that.  Some lessons we just have to learn for ourselves.

 

Assuming that the label "goody goody" is intended to shame, then I would argue that you WERE being punished by whomever you feared would shame you. Unless there was no reason to suspect that they would. In which case, that fear was instilled upon you from someone else who was punishing you in this fashion.

The person that comes to mind was my friend Scott who always called me a nerd and was constantly pointing out what I could or couldn't do as a Mormon.  He was not Mormon.  

 

One of the ways in which psychological abuse can be worse than physical is that it implants in you an inner-critic. A away for your abuser to continue to abuse you even in their absence, and almost without a trace. Though to be clear, "time out" is a form of physical abuse even if it's not as obvious in the moment.

I have heard Stefan mention something about time-outs as well.  I would be interested in any studies on this.  My Mom had 3 parenting books by a Doctor Peck all from the 60's.  I remember thumbing through them but don't remember if they said anything about time-outs. I'm sure that is where she got the concept but I'll probably need to research that.

 

The Inner-critic,  boy do I have one.  

 

With regards to your follow up post, I'm curious as to why you specify "home life." When you are born, your parents literally create your entire environment. If they send you to a (insert not-home here), that's an extension of your home life even though you're not home. Any abuse you suffered as a result of being separated from them, they are responsible for as they were the ones to expose you to it.

Sending me to public school was probably the worse abuse which could be a all new post in of itself..  I did chose my friends so I will take responsibility for any abuse I received by them.

 

Thanks for your response everyone.  I really appreciate it It has been a real eye opener for me.

[Frederik]

I have thought about it for a bit more and I came up with a theory as to why you had the desire to get spanked. It is the only theory that I see that makes sense of what you write. I will point out most of the inconsistencies and contradictions that I was able to identify and will boldly give my opinion as to why they are there. I cannot prove anything of this of course, but please let me know if it makes sense.

 

 

The first essential thing to keep in mind is, peaceful parents are not automatically great parents. Peaceful parents can still neglect, ignore, scorn upon, dismiss, criticize, manipulate, project, and reject, be hypocritical, bigoted, irrational, conformist, and dishonest, ... . A child that was never hit or yelled at can still suffer severe mental agony.

 

In fact, Stefan says repeatedly that children to whom the immorality of their parents is blatantly obvious through physical abuse have an easier time keeping their head straight - having the certainty of the validity of their despair and knowing that their parents are in the wrong - than children who were not physically abused, but instead verbally manipulated and thereby made to comply through a very subtle process of constant undermining of the child's integrity, leaving the child with great psychological pain that gets increasingly suppressed into the subconscious because the child cannot point out the actual evidence for what is so fundamentally wrong about the way he gets treated by his parents, and why the child often feels so angry and rejected...

 

 

You write that you remember being spanked by your mother, and unlike with your father you do not mention any apology, which is why I assume there never was one.

It doesn't seem to me as if you realize how horrible it is that your mother actually physically abused you when you were little and helpless. The fact that she actually looked at a young, helpless and innocent boy and felt compelled to use her sheer physical power to hurt and break the child when nobody was watching, is absolutely horrifying to me. The amount of self-work and deep connected conversations that would have been necessary for your mother to restore the trust and nurturing bond between you is staggering, and it didn't happen because you would have mentioned it right away. This tells me that your mother was clearly not dedicated to a loving, kind, peaceful and empathetic way of raising a child and that she has clearly not worked out her childhood trauma to a sufficient degree.

 

 

I do remember getting spanked once or twice by my mom [...]

 

I am forever grateful for my mom for taking that first step in breaking the cycle of violence.

 

You remember being spanked "once or twice"? What is it, once or twice? Every time I remember a caller saying something like this, the truth always was that it was way more than what was mentioned upfront. It doesn't make sense to me to be foggy about it, because either you remember distinct instances where something happened, or you communicate uncertainty about it and give clear reasons, for example not being sure if it was a dream or having some vague sense of being hurt when you were very little. I will assume that you fogged out there because your inner mother did not want you to tell the truth.

 

How did you feel when writing this sentence?

 

 

Another thing that struck me as odd was this:

 

One thing I will always be grateful to my mom and dad for is that they never threw religion in my face.

 

Of course it is good that they did not inflict religion onto you - interestingly (again, I am the son of a protestant preacher myself), the same exact thing happened to me, or not, rather. Still, it is a weird way of communicating it, because that is like being the son of a thief and saying "I will always be grateful for that my dad did not force me to join him on his nightly raids." Isn't that the least that you can expect from your parents? How does parents not inflicting their bigotry onto a helpless and dependend child make them good and virtuous? I don't get that.

 

 

You state right upfront that your biggest fear as a teenager was to be labeled a goody goody, which is aimed at (and I had to look this up) making you feel bad for being a good person. I find that very interesting, because which child that was raised by good and virtuous parents fears being called good and virtuous themselves? Something doesn't make sense here...

 

 

In my teenage years punishment came in the form of what I called "Lectures".  These usually my dad sitting down with me and him trying to convince me why such and such action was a bad idea.

 

You rightly call these lectures punishment. Sure, they are peaceful, but they are not empathetic. An empathetic and truly connected way of working out disagreements is for the parent to be genuinely curious as to why the child felt compelled to act in a certain manner in the first place. Your father giving a lecture about how unhealthy smoking is would have been more appropriate with some chain smoker on the streets that made him cough, than it was to lecture you. You are his child, and thus everything you do is so closely connected to his influence that it is ridiculous and unempathetic for him to not actually feel the deepest concern as to why in the world you felt the desire to harm yourself with a potentially lethal drug.

Him giving you a lecture about the harming effects of smoking was highly insulting to your intelligence. Of course you knew it was terrible for your health. A cigarette tastes disgusting to every child! I know first hand, because some idiot boys from my village tried to get me to smoke right around that age. Half a cigarette was all that I ever stomached! (or lunged? anyway...) Him telling you all about the science behind the health effects of smoking only told you how your father did not want to understand you...

 

In fact, you picked up this habit exactly to upset everybody around you, especially your parents! You wanted to see your father not asking you about how you feel! You wanted to see your father's total lack of genuine care and concern for you, and his own parenting. No, he didn't show one bit of doubt about how he raised you and that was exactly what you expected! Unfortunately, in a satirical sense, you didn't get all the certainty you longed for. Once again, you only got this lame-ass boring subtle rejection of rational ignorance. That wasn't enough. You really yearned for the full certainty about your parents that would finally make sense of all the despair and anxiety you had felt all your life, of being disregarded, not taken seriously with all your deep thoughts and emotions - being raised by cultish hypocrites that cared so much about their fellow church members but let their child get addicted to lethal drugs while not showing one bit of self-doubt...

 

Which child that was raised by good and virtuous parents fears being called good and virtuous themselves? You, if I may say so, did not want to be like your parents. You fundamentally despised your parents, and rejecting their religious bigotry wasn't enough. That wasn't doing the job, because they didn't care about that too much. Therefore, you needed to go much further. A lethal drug? That is great. That did the job, kind of. Your father was upset, but once again he didn't care enough. You felt so desperate! So desperate, in fact, that you actually asked him to straight out abuse you.   Wow! I struggle to grasp that you actually said that to your father. This is the most extreme thing I ever heard of that a child can say to a parent!

 

This is, I would argue, why you were struck so deeply when somebody pointed it out to you. It is the first time that someone actually recognized to what extreme your subconscious had brought you to when you were little. This is why this has kept you up at night. You write that this issue seems trivial, but I would not buy into that for a second. I would absolutely recommend that you seek out a great therapist and work through these issues. From what I read, there is a lot of unprocessed trauma within you about your childhood, which is why, I believe, so many things in your description do not add up.

 

Finally, I recently listened to a podcast that might help you in getting a better grasp of the issue. It deals with a teenager who seemed happy on the outside, but for some reason felt very attracted drugs. ODing on Invisibility - A Listener Convo

 

Hope it helps

[neeeel]

Wow that explains it almost exactly.  I did feel like it was something to endure and I didn't want to hear it.  Only thing is I don't think it was lack of trust.  I knew he had my best interest at heart.  I think it was because I knew my actions were wrong but didn't want to hear it.  I was doing more than just smoking I was also drinking and doing drugs ( Pot and LSD).  Perhaps I was in addict mode?

 

The more I think about it I was ashamed of my actions and couldn't stand the pain I was causing them (my parents).    

 

From the age of 18 on I cherished these talks with my dad.  He was my go to  person for advice. I ran everything by him.  He was a great mentor.  It was only during my teenage years that I disliked these talks.  Probably because I didn't want to hear the truth.

 

Wow I have a lot of emotions built up right now the main on being regret for how I treated my parents.  I would yell at them, cuss them, storm out on them.  They always would take my outburst in stride and never lashed back.  

 

 

Couple that come to mind are:

They let me hitchhike up to Berkeley California from Southern California for a Grateful Dead Concert when I was 17.

They let me go to parties.

 

They didn't approve of me doing these things and they told me so but I did them anyways.  I know I would never let my son who will be 17 in July do this.  Of course I say that but short of using force there is really nothing I can do if he really wants to go.  Maybe my parents knew that.  Some lessons we just have to learn for ourselves.

 

Something doesnt compute for me. People arent born rebels, they dont just " fall in with the wrong crowd". Addicts arent born, they are made ( in general). There seems to have been a strong disconnect in communication between you and your parents. That doesnt just come from nowhere. You cared about the pain you were causing your parents, and that made you ignore their advice and feel like you were being punished? And then suddenly on your 18th birthday you cherish the talks?  it doesnt add up. 

 

You knew your actions were wrong, but you did them anyway? Why? To spite your parents?

 

Im not really sure you did know they were wrong. I would guess that you knew that your parents thought they were wrong, but you didnt agree.

[dsayers]

I did chose my friends so I will take responsibility for any abuse I received by them.

A person is only as good as their training. By what criteria did you choose them? Where did you get this criteria? If your parents did not provide a good model for social interaction and did not prepare you for the undertaking of choosing friends, then how would it be your responsibility? Also, being in a school means you only got to choose your friends among other inmates, without any supervision or input from the people who sent you there. The people we choose to associate with reinforces who we are.

 

As for time outs, I'm not familiar with any particular literature. In lieu of that, just think about it for a moment. It's teaching the child to avoid consequence, rather than how to make better decisions. As somebody who was raised in that environment, I've done the bare minimum most of my life since it wasn't about providing for my future, but rather avoiding consequences in the short term.

[Jaeger]

It doesn't add up to me either.  That is the purpose of this post.  Could it be this "Preacher Kid" syndrome that I linked above?  Could it be genetics there are studies showing that some people are predisposed to addiction. 

 

http://www.addictionsandrecovery.org/is-addiction-a-disease.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1747704/pdf/v012p00227.pdf

https://ncadd.org/about-addiction/family-history-and-genetics

 

I didn't all of a sudden change on my 18th birthday.  My junior year in high school I got 5 Fs and in A on my report card.  My dad sat me down and told me about a test that I could take called the California High School Proficiency Exam (CHSPE).  It is similar to the GED but is for minors.  I always got A's on my tests so I knew the material but would never do the daily assignments which were 60% of the grade.  I went ahead and took the test and instead of going to high school I went to the local Junior college the next semester.  Once I started going there I didn't have the desire to want to party.  That was when I started reaching out to my dad for help and letting him know the full extent of my addiction.  Especially my use of LSD.  His suggestion was that I needed to get away from the friends who were holding me back.  He found a program that would send me to Hawaii to work in the pineapple fields for Maui Pineapple company.  They provided room and board so the check I got was put in savings which I wasn't allowed touch while I was in the program.  I worked there a year in which time I was able to clean myself up.  I turned 18 while I was there in Hawaii.  I have been clean ever since.

 

I wish we could all sit in a big room and have a group discussion.  I feel I could explain myself verbally better that in writing.  I want to make it clear I'm not suffering from addiction now.  I'm just curious as to what lead me to it in the first place in my teenage years.  Maybe it was a combination of things like feeling trap in a public school that didn't fit my needs, so a growing pressure to be that good kid. That led to me trying a cigarette that kicked in the gene the predispose me to become addicted.  Time-outs from my parents that made me want to avoid punishment even though they changed to talks instead. 

 

Well, My daughter wants me to teach her how to ride a bike so I better go help her.  Hopefully I will be a better parent and she will not have to deal with these kinds of questions.

 

Again thanks for all your input.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

I was struggling to think what I wanted to say about your post. Your provided a lot of information and my emotions were having a tough time keeping up. That's not your fault, but it makes me wonder that if I was having a hard time being emotionally available with the amount of information you provided me, I wonder what it says about your own process of writing this post and how emotionally connected you were to your writing. That said, I think I have something of use to add which ties into this very theme.

 

How many siblings did you have Jaeger? I think this may be really important for you. I know you have 8 children, which is incredible! But I think it is a basic fact that if you have 8 children, it must be a hassle to attend to them all in a manner which is not at least somewhat neglectful to each of their individual issues compared to if you had say 2 children. It must take a lot of structure. And that's fascinating to me because I that is the theme I see in what you have shared. From your early experiences with your own family, you were forced to adopt an inner critic. The inner critic is there to get your needs met, in a strange sort of way. It recognizes your impotence as a child, and it sees that you are facing needs which aren't being met, and which you think are practically impossible to be met. I think the need which was not met for you was emotional availability. This is interesting, because it does seem like your parents did provide at least some guidance. Perhaps it was guidance passed down to them. I think this is actually something you see in religious communities more than secular communities. Even if the parents are not invested to their children in an intense emotional way (because they in turn did not experience that in their child hoods), they still seem to have been smart enough to realize that they should not be overtly and horribly abusive to you. In lower IQ religious communities, the trend seems to be towards more abuse because they lack the intelligence to pass on their religion in a more successful manner. You parents were invested in you to become something, and you realizing that adopted a self critic to meet their expectations of you. This is a double edged sword unfortunately. It might mean that all the benefit you derived from your parents was not specifically for you and your value as an emotionally healthy and happy child as much as it was for you to fit their needs to become an image they saw necessary for you to become.

 

That's a hard pill to swallow, so I understand if that is hard to connect with just yet. But perhaps it does explain your inner critic and how hard it is for you to have complete confidence in your child hood. The critic is there to keep you safe, and to keep you from questioning certain elements of your experience if it is dangerous to do so. It can be distressful to make the first few steps towards recognizing when your critic is being abusive towards you, since it does indicate you were abused as a child. That is what your critic is trying to mask if abuse was indeed present (and emotional neglect I think is reasonably considered abuse in all modern cases, since parents have such an unlimited capacity for choice in this modern era). This is where it becomes tricky, because for your critic to understand that you are no longer in an abusive situation is very difficult after you have spent years with your parents being masked inside your head. I have found that slowly removing the mask can be helpful. Or quickly. It is up to you how honest you want to be with yourself about the true nature of your childhood. It would involve contemplating how a child could possibly be responsible for the actions of his/her parents.

 

You said you treated your parents miserably (something to that effect), but the truth is you were only an effect of your parents. You were born helpless compared to them, and they always had overwhelming authority over you. Even peaceful parents have overwhelming authority over their children, so that is why they are extremely delicate and careful not to control them with threats and authority which they naturally possess in the relationship. For the child to survive, it needs to conform to what the parents want. If you treated your parents miserably, they actually made you treat them that way. Again, a tough thing to swallow. It would be okay and even healthy to be angry about this. The anger is there already, but your critic is trying not to turn it on your parents, because that would have ended up really awful for you to really expose your parents as abusive to the fullest extent of the truth. It would have been a problem for them, because for them to change they would have to also undo decades of misunderstanding the nature of abuse from the point of view of a child. Empathy for the child is so important, but it is hard to achieve if you did not experience it. The child needs a secure bond. The extent to which there isn't a secure bond, there will be negative effects for emotional development that will have to be undone to re-learn what a secure bond is like.

 

When you can learn what a secure bond is like, you can offer yourself the empathy and emotional availability towards your own self to mourn your childhood and acknowledge the difference in responsibility between you and your parents when you were a child. By doing this, you will be forming a more secure bond with your own critic from the ground up, and it will eventually produce a critic which will provide scintillating analysis that will help you in every aspect of your life as an adult. Instead of punishing yourself for thinking certain thoughts, you will be brave enough to take in information which is uncomfortable and utilize it to make your relationship with your children even better. If we want to do best for our children, this requires growth.  What our children will respect in us is if we can acknowledge our mistakes and hep them understand the mistakes so they cannot repeat them. As I said before I admire the consideration you have given your children already. But I think a lot of motivation can be drawn from the fact that you still have considerable doubts about your own child hood. That is natural and healthy, and it is something we all go through. But I think your opportunity to increase your heroism is to tackle and understand the truth about your own child hood and how it may have been missing emotional availability, and how this may have produced a critic. If you passed any of that on to your children, I think it would be a helpful experience for them, for you to grow to understand the importance of emotional availability and how avoiding the root of emotion can cause distress and frustration. Your children will have the opportunity to learn from you and will have even less overall distress and frustration (which again is natural and healthy part of life) if you have the head start on understanding how to deal with it in an effective manner. I hope that is helpful. I also hope you are gentle with yourself reading this, since you have already done so much that is great in terms of deciding to school your children from home. Not many children are blessed with a parent who is willing to grow, and I hope you appreciate that. It's really an act of great pride and bravery that you would recognize the danger of public schools for your children, and your non-conformity to the masses of parents who lack your heartfelt considerations is something I respect deeply. 

[Jaeger]

Fred Black Fox and Matthew,

 

Thank you so much for your replies.  I just want you to know I did read them and do plan on replying.  I'm in the middle of a project for work and I have a deadline this Friday.  I want to do your replies justice but will not have the time until this Saturday.  For some reason when writing reply's in this post it takes me forever just to write one paragraph.  I don't know if it me trying to emotionally distance myself from this topic or what.

 

Fred,  I think you nailed it.  The more I think about my mother the more I'm convinced she is the source of my rage.

 

Matthew,  there was three kids in my family and I was smack in the middle of them,  My parents also had custody of one of my cousins for about 6 or 7 years.  I appreciated your comments about the inner critic.

 

Until Saturday Farewell.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

Fantastic post Frederick. I admire your courage to say that. In fact I am in awe of how precisely written your post was about such a difficult topic. 

 

Jaeger I am appreciative of your comments. You decide if you would like to reply, but honestly I feel humbled to defer to Frederick after his post. He really seems to have connected with your childhood in a magnificent way. He went deep on this one for you

[Frederik]

As much as I feel humbled by your words of appreciation, Matthew, I must say that I absolutely loved your post! It was very interesting to read about your insights on the inner critic. Combined with the additional information you have about Jaeger, it gave me an even better understanding and clearer picture of the situation - and hitting enter every couple of rows would make it even better!

 

Indeed I felt that I had connected to his childhood in a special way. In fact, it was today that I realized through the participation in this thread that I was raised with standards that would described as peaceful by this community (ACE score of 3). Just to provide some additional information, I was never ever hit by my parents, hardly ever yelled at, but predictably not raised in a truly kind and compassionate way. My parents did a lot of mistakes and do not want to own them, which is why I have no respect for them. I was the youngest child of four, and my parents seperated when I was 7. I was a highly "troublesome" kid in school in my first four years, and I was lightly depressed (dysthymia) throughout my entire childhood up until just two years ago (I am 23).

 

I really respect your courage and openness with which you embrace this process, Jaeger. It is fantastic to see great fathers like you sharing some of their deepest thoughts, fears and emotions! Your children are blessed to have you

[Matthew Ed Moran]

"and hitting enter every couple of rows would make it even better!  ;)"

 

I literally laughed out loud at this. Don't look at my recent posts! The amount of text wall barricade will scare you! I imagine it was a giant wall to keep the idiots out of FDR land in the same sense Donald Trump envisions keeping out illegal immigrants. Okay, just kidding I will remember to add in some breaks next time

 

I think I see what you mean now in regards to how you were parented, Fred. Perhaps it was "peaceful" if that means only the absence of hitting and yelling, but I'm truly sorry about your parents splitting up. Also, neglect is a form of abuse so you might want to consider if a parent could be peaceful if they are also being neglectful in a punishing sort of way. Neglect can be used as punishment, and if that were the case then I think the idea that they were peaceful would be a use of the word that I am not entirely sure is accurate, to say the least. By the way if they did yell at you sometimes, that is also not completely peaceful. I definitely sympathize with what you shared about not being treated kindly or compassionately, and I am sorry that was not the case. Despite you being treated that way, you have developed a wonderful sense of kindness and compassion from what I see in your post, so all credit is due to you for achieving that. Another hot latte delivered by Stef for your accomplishments in virtue coming right up!

[Frederik]

I climed the wall and am glad that I did

 

I completely agree on everything that you have written! Indeed neglect was used as punishment - what immediately came to my mind was that in multiple instances I expressed my dissatisfaction with the meal when I was about 15 years old and then my mother got so upset she chose multiple times to just leave the kitchen right away, saying very little, or even nothing! She left me sitting there all alone feeing bad about myself. Plus, I didn't learn anything from that!

Regarding the yelling - I misinterpreted the term. I cannot remember being yelled at, and actually I also do not remember any specific instance where a raised voice was directly aimed towards me, though voices probably were being raised by my father against, say, my oldest brother every couple of weeks or so. On very few occasions my mother raised her voice when we lived together, but again, I cannot recall specific instances. As you can tell, I am quite uncertain about this, and becoming much more specific about my anger that I have towards my parents is something I have on my list.

 

The reason for which you doubt whether my parents can rightly be called peaceful is the same reason for why it was not until yesterday that I had come up with the thought that my parents could be called peaceful by the standards that I thought Stef had communicated - I do not remember him being more precise than "Don't hit or yell" in general, and I fully agree that this alone is not enough. I only brought this up because the OP called his parents peaceful.

 

So what is the "FDR-definition" of peaceful parenting?

 

PS: This is the first text that I am writing on a completely different keyboard layout (Colemak), so this post is the result of over one hour of brain-melting gruellingly concentrated work. I hope you appreciate xD (I really didn't think it was going to be that tough.)

[Matthew Ed Moran]

Note: This is off-topic

 

At 15 you are still a child, and for your mother to do that to you is to punch you in the heart. It is not excusable, since she herself put you in a situation with divorced parents. She cannot claim that you rejecting her food is a bad thing, but you missing out on a two parent household is not. It's cruel to do that. It is not peaceful. I want to tell you how sorry I am for that, and that I wish you had more caring parents who would not resort to cruelty with their inherent authority as parents to get what they want. It's simply not excusable or moral in any way to resort to that kind of behavior. I think you do have good reason to feel anger about this. Hypocrisy in my life has always produced a lot of anger, and I respect my anger for pointing out when I was being shafted as a child by the adults around me. Since your parents had already inflicted you with far worse than rejecting a damn meal, then I reject their appeal to scorn and bully you so that you could not speak out about what was being done to you, and so that they could remain in denial of the problems which THEY caused. My sympathy is with you, because that bluntly is a fucked up way for your parents to treat you. They set the standard for how you expected to be treated, but they were so cold that they couldn't even have compassion for how long lasting the effect would be on you. I think it would be an insult to most peaceful parents who listen to the show to include your parents in that category (I am not saying you have insulted anybody I have complete compassion for how difficult it is to emotionally accept the true nature of your parents. I actually went through a phase where I thought my mom was an example of peaceful parenting and I thanked her for how I was raised. For anyone who doesn't know, my ACE was an 8, so now I spit in the face of that statement because she was anything but peaceful)

[Jaeger]

Wow where to begin.  Lets start with my mother.  Frederick you are absolutely correct I did leave out much about my mother and it is almost like you said "My inner mother didn't want me to tell the truth." So much so when I proof read my statement about lectures from my dad I noticed that used the plural  "they" but then changed it to "him".

 

When I wrote:

 

In my teenage years punishment came in the form of what I called "Lectures".  These usually my dad sitting down with me and him trying to convince me why such and such action was a bad idea.

 

It was originally written like this:

 

In my teenage years punishment came in the form of what I called "Lectures".  These usually my dad sitting down with me and they trying to convince me why such and such action was a bad idea.

 

I guess at the time I edited it, I was thinking it was for grammatical reasons.  If that was the case and I didn't have an inner mom I probably would have edited as thus:

 

In my teenage years punishment came in the form of what I called "Lectures".  These usually my dad and mom sitting down with me and they trying to convince me why such and such action was a bad idea.

 

The more I think about it, I wasn't resentful towards my dad because of these "lectures", but the fact he let my mom be there for them.  She would usually say something that would throw me in a rage.  Things like "You are better than this",  " remember who you are", or "we raised you better".  Latter when I decided to reach out to my dad about my addictions the conversations with him were one on one.   He must have known at that point that bringing my mom into the equation would have been a bad idea.  As an adult I always felt I could go to my dad for advice, but I never felt that way with my mom.

 

I used to think my mom didn't spank because of the abuse she suffered as a child, but now I'm not so sure.  I'm now beginning to think it was she didn't spank us when we were younger than eight years old.  In the Mormon faith children are not born in sin and are considered innocent and incapable of any sin until they reach the age of accountability, which is eight years old.  The first time I was spanked it was because me and my sister who was 7 at the time and I was 9 left some puppies that our dog had in the inner fence where the pool was.  That night a couple of the puppies fell into the pool and drowned.  I got a spanking but my sister didn't,  when I asked why, my mom said it was because my sister hadn't reached the age of accountability.  I know this wasn't passed down from her parents because my grandparents would spank us if we acted up at their house when they watched us.

 

The second time I was spanked it was because I poked holes into the wicker of the chairs that went with the formal dining table.  I was probably about 10 then.  My mom was only 4' 11" and probably at the time weighed 100 lbs max so by the time I was 12 or 13 I was as big as her or bigger.  In addition to the spankings I do remember her pulling my hair at the back of my neck to make me comply to her wishes when we were at Dodgers stadium.  I was running up ahead and she wanted us to stay together.  I was probably about 12 or 13 then.  Over all when I was 8 -12 I was a fairly good kid and rarely got in trouble.  That may explain why so few spankings.  My sister on the other hand, butted heads with my mom so I do remember her getting spankings.  I do not remember her ever spanking my older brother who is 3 years older than me.  Then again he was her pride and joy and could do no wrong.  Meow meow meow.

 

Wow now that I'm choosing to not listen to my inner mom I'm remembering all kinds of stuff.  Man I have a lot of resentment towards my mom and brother.  He was like my mom's enforcer.  If he felt I disrespected my mom he would come downstairs to my room and start a fight with me.  Even though he was three years older than me by the time I was 14, I was 2 inches taller than him but he probably out weighed me by 10-20 lbs.  Over all I say we were pretty evenly matched.  If I could keep him off me I usually ended up winning or at least a draw, however if he ever got me in some kind of hold then the fight was over.  I know my mom heard these fights as we were pretty vocal.  They didn't happen usually when my dad was home if we had a fight when he was home he would break it up.  I don't know if my dad really knew how much me and my brother fought. I doubt my mom told him as my brother was her little champion willing to come to her rescue.

 

This post was not what I originally intended. I was going respond to Frederick and Matthew but rather ended up mainly reflecting on my childhood.  I have reached a level of feelings that I have repressed for over 25 years.  I think at this point I should take Frederick's advice and get therapy.  I started this post at about 11 pm and it is now 2:30 am so I have been doing more thinking/feeling than writing.  I'm not trying to run from this I just not sure how to put it all in to words.

 

Matthew, your post ties in so well with Frederick's.  Inner mom/ Inner critic.You expanded on it so beautifully.

 

neeeel, dsayers,  thanks for the push back as well, I really needed it.

[Frederik]

I think it would be an insult to most peaceful parents who listen to the show to include your parents in that category (I am not saying you have insulted anybody I have complete compassion for how difficult it is to emotionally accept the true nature of your parents.

 

As much as I appreciate your concern, I do not quite understand why you feel such a strong need to discuss my childhood. Again, I agree with everything you have written, but it doesn't seem to me that I was clear enough on that I never ever felt that my parents were peaceful parents - "I do not remember [stef] being more precise than "Don't hit or yell" in general, and I fully agree that this alone is not enough. I only brought this up because the OP called his parents peaceful."

 

Again, I don't know the appropiate definition of peaceful parenting - the insufficiency of "Don't hit or yell" was what I wanted to point out, or rather how meaningless it is to call parents peaceful only because they do not hit or yell. The information I provided was aimed at helping in raising questions about the OP's validity of the claim that his parents were dedicated to a peaceful method of raising children.

 

As much as it is helpful to get an outside perspective on my childhood, I did not want this thread to be about me and my childhood. It is Jaeger and his childhood that deserves all our attention in this thread. That is why I asked what the "FDR definition" of peaceful parenting is, to bring this thread back to topics that are directly relevant to the OP's issue.

 

That said, I think I am not alone if I say that I await with great curiosity your report of what has been going on for you, Jaeger!

[Frederik]

I have reached a level of feelings that I have repressed for over 25 years.

 

Thank you for sharing what was going on for you! I find it is very courageous of you to open up your heart and share these intimate details that seem largly new even to yourself.

 

At this point I personally do not feel like I have anything more concrete to add.

 

I would like, however, emphasize again that there seems to be an overwhelming amount of childhood incidents and beliefs that were formed in that time that you have not yet processed. This is essentially why I had experienced such a strong reaction when I read the first post, and I must say I found it quite sad, even heart-breaking, to read your Intro post where you said that you were regularly yelling at your children

 

Your children suffer under the burden of your unprocessed trauma. You cannot truly love your children if you describe multiple beatings, paternal neglect, perpetual physical aggression, emotional unavailability, and the like, and in the same breath talk about your parent's "dedication to peaceful parenting", your father's "unconditional love", how you say you have a zero ACE score, etc.

 

Your children suffer because of that. I can one-hundred percent absolutely and completely guarantee that your children's emotional development is hampered as a direct effect of your unprocessed trauma. This is not something you don't already know deep down, but it is crucial that you get into the forefront of your head what this is really about. This is not so much about your personal happiness---how you interact with your children is life-defining for them and I know that if what you write can make me cringe like nothing else, your children will also have a lot of questions about you when they are adults. You don't want to end up telling your sons exactly what your dad told you on his deathbed!

 

I think it would be a great idea to call into the show. You have great depth and humility, and discussing what is going on for you would be tremendously helpful for thousands of fathers and sons to hear! It would be a great joy for me if you would do that. Will you give it a thought?

 

The most, most, most important item on your list now, however, should be to get yourself a good therapist as soon as possible! You have young children whos life-long happiness depends on your mental health! Here is a podcast on how to find a suiting therapist that might be helpful:

 

All the best, and pleeease let me know how it goes

[Matthew Ed Moran]

I agree the focus should be on Jaeger's child hood, since that is the point of this thread. Sorry for losing notice of that, Jaeger. I plan on reading your latest post soon to see if there is any perspective that I can offer. 

 

I hope it is clear to everyone that neglect cannot be considered peaceful, since the child is dependent on the parent for survival. Neglect is the opposite of parenting. It would be like a nurse threatening to pull a plug on a patient, or not showing up when the patient needs attention, and calling it medical care.

[Jaeger]

Thank you for sharing what was going on for you! I find it is very courageous of you to open up your heart and share these intimate details that seem largly new even to yourself.

 

At this point I personally do not feel like I have anything more concrete to add.

 

I would like, however, emphasize again that there seems to be an overwhelming amount of childhood incidents and beliefs that were formed in that time that you have not yet processed. This is essentially why I had experienced such a strong reaction when I read the first post, and I must say I found it quite sad, even heart-breaking, to read your Intro post where you said that you were regularly yelling at your children

 

Your children suffer under the burden of your unprocessed trauma. You cannot truly love your children if you describe multiple beatings, paternal neglect, perpetual physical aggression, emotional unavailability, and the like, and in the same breath talk about your parent's "dedication to peaceful parenting", your father's "unconditional love", how you say you have a zero ACE score, etc.

 

Your children suffer because of that. I can one-hundred percent absolutely and completely guarantee that your children's emotional development is hampered as a direct effect of your unprocessed trauma. This is not something you don't already know deep down, but it is crucial that you get into the forefront of your head what this is really about. This is not so much about your personal happiness---how you interact with your children is life-defining for them and I know that if what you write can make me cringe like nothing else, your children will also have a lot of questions about you when they are adults. You don't want to end up telling your sons exactly what your dad told you on his deathbed!

 

I think it would be a great idea to call into the show. You have great depth and humility, and discussing what is going on for you would be tremendously helpful for thousands of fathers and sons to hear! It would be a great joy for me if you would do that. Will you give it a thought?

 

The most, most, most important item on your list now, however, should be to get yourself a good therapist as soon as possible! You have young children whos life-long happiness depends on your mental health!

 

All the best, and pleeease let me know how it goes

Frederick,

 

Thank you so much for all you have contributed  .  I am flattered that you think that whats going on with me would make a good call in show.  I will definitely think about it. 

 

I'm just in awe about the depth of knowledge here on this forum.  I feel like someone has turned the light on and now I can see things more clearly.  as a result I have learned the following and I'm sure its just the beginning.

 

1.  A free society will only come after peaceful parenting.  When I first heard this concept from Stefan,  I just knew it was true.  That is when I knew I have to become a peaceful parent so that my kids will become peaceful parents and so on down through the generations.  To the point there is no need for the state.

 

2.  Peaceful parenting can only fully implemented after one has gain self knowledge. Your comment "You have young children whos life-long happiness depends on your mental health!"   Is so right on.

 

When my father told me that I needed to be a better father than him, I thought it was good fatherly advice,  now I see it for what it is, regret.  On my deathbed I don't want to feel compelled to tell my kids they need to be better parents.  I don't want any regrets.