Parents who Love their Kids Cause PDs too
The belief, that only parents who absolutely despise their kids, can cause said kids to develop a personality disorder, is a dangerous misconception.
This belief majorly stems from the facts, that:
1. People think parents who love their children do everything right & parents who hate their children do everything wrong and
2. People think, trauma can only be caused intentionally & maliciously.
Which is both bullshit btw! Let me tell you why:
1. Parents who "love" (however you define that) their children often tend to think that this love is:
• always visible and obvious to the child => therefore the child never has to question that they're loved
• a sign that everything they do is done in the name of said love => therefore no action/behavior can be wrong/abusive/bad because they didn't mean it maliciously, it was done out of love
• a reason that the child should/will forgive them for any wrongdoings and that the simple existence of this love is enough to make the child happy => therefore the child has no reason to feel unloved, no reason to complain and no reason to cut them off
Many parents do not realize, that they rely on their child automatically knowing of this emotions existence to such a degree, that they fail to verbally communicate it often enough, fail to make their actions show said love and fail to acknowledge that something done out of love, does not equal it being good or non harmful.
To give you a personal example here: My parents love me, absolutely! They'd lay down their life for mine in a heartbeat.
But when I was growing up, their actions did not always reflect that. I went years without hearing the words and whenever I tried to communicate, that I felt unloved, I only got to hear that I was being ridiculous. According to them I had food to eat, a roof over my head and two living parents that didn't beat me, so I should be happy.
They expected me to know that they provided these things for me out of love and that that should be enough to satisfy my emotional needs. It wasn't and it rarely is.
Loving your child is worth shit, if you don't make sure to remind your child of that love frequently. Its worth shit, if you fail to pay attention and fail to show up for this child. Love alone doesn't win you the "greatest parent" award.
Similarly, a lack of love, doesn't immediately mean that you're a horrible parent. You can not feel love for your children and still make decisions that are benefitial for those children. You can not feel love for them and still be a parent that doesn't ever raise their hands against them, which will make you "better" than many loving parents who do raise their hands against their kids. The emotional feelings towards your children do not determine your ability to be a good parent, at least not inherently.
There is nuance, when it comes to children needing to have their emotional needs met and being able to sense whether its genuine or not, but if someone is good at faking emotions, one could make their child feel loved, without ever personally feeling that love (=> arguments can be made about whether or not the child will be able to understand the goodwill behind the faking and will be able to value that the parent did that for their benefit, instead of being sad about there not being emotional love, but thats not the point of this post).
What I am trying to say is this:
• parents who love their children are capable of not meeting their childs emotional needs
• parents who love their children are capable of doing things that end up hurting their children
• parents who love their children are capable of being so caught up in chores, work, relationship problems, etc. that they accidentally neglect their children
• parents who love their children are capable of doing things, that they may see as "good", "character building", "helpful for later", etc. but which will do more damage than good
• parents who love their children are capable of pushing them away by being too controlling, too smothering and too invested
Being a parent isn't easy, but love alone is not the recipe for producing non traumatized well adjusted children. Thats all I wanna tell you right here. Theres always nuance and reasons why things may go wrong, but in the end love doesn't protect against that.
2. Trauma isn't always caused maliciously & intentionally. That much is probably already obvious from the previous paragraphs, but I'll get into it regardless.
If a parent works two jobs, has arguments with their partner at the side, needs to do most of the chores and has two children (one maybe at toddler age, the other a teenager), one (or both) of those children might end up experiencing accidental neglect. Theres only so much a human being can do & devote their time to and while you can set priorities, sometimes you will accidentally neglect a child, because you have no time to do their homework with them, you have no time to go to the park and play with them, you're too tired to listen to them babble on about their interests, you're too distracted to properly congratulate them about their good grades and you're not present enough to realize they're always alone and barely leave their room anymore. Maybe you fail to realize health concerns, conflicts with their friends, arguments between the kids, etc. All the while you're trying your hardest to provide for your children and balance your own life. Accidental neglect is a thing.
If a parent was brought up by an emotionally colder parent or an absent parent or a combination of that, they may have never learned how one properly cares for a childs emotional needs.
They may think they turned out fine, because they have a job, they have a house and a family, everything they're supposed to achieve, so why should they bring you up any differently than they were themselves? Maybe they even saw some youtube videos and facebook posts on how kids these days are all sensitive little things and can't manage their lifes anymore. Maybe the parent makes it their misguided mission to make sure their own kids are resilient and strong, just like they are, so they have a good chance of success and survival.
They don't tell the kids they love them. They don't comfort them when they're sad. They don't hug them. They don't allow big emotional tantrums. They harshly punish bad grades and mistakes, because if the kid is to succeed and survive, the parents needs to help it stay on the path. That parent loves their child and expresses this love in a misguided attempt at helping it succeed in life and be even better off than they were. Accidental/misguided emotional neglect (and abuse if u wanna call it that) is a thing.
I could go on about this for ages! Theres a million different situations in which parents try their hardest and best to give their kids a good life and help them succeed, but still have their children turn out traumatized.
Theres side factors like being marginalized, bullying, a lack of resources, other relatives being unhelpful/abusive, kids & parents being disabled in some way, etc.
All the love a parent holds for their child, cannot save the kid from being traumatized and it cannot save the kid from developing a personality disorder later in life.
If love (the emotion) is to be effective, it needs to be followed up by actions. Meeting a childs emotional/physical/developmental needs isn't done by holding a certain feeling for the child & especially not if you never make sure the child understands how you show & give that love to them.
By now, you might be thinking "Yeah okay sure, I suppose I already knew that much, but why are we talking about it this in the first place?"
Good question and theres multiple answers to it:
• Some parents will still not acknowledge that they have the capacity to hurt their kids. Many of them place more value in being labeled as/feeling like a "good parent" than they do in actually...producing a healthy well adjusted child. They believe themselves immune to causing their child trauma, simply based on "loving the child" and "providing food/shelter" and thats dangerous.
• Many people regularely get invalidated in personality disorder centered spaces, or also trauma spaces in general, if they have contact with their parents/have now build a healthy relationship with them, etc. Even other PDers/trauma survivors have not understood, that being loved by your parents doesn't equal a good childhood and doesn't mean that you can't be traumatized by them to the degree of developing a PD.
• Many professionals do not realize the amount of impact, that emotional neglect can have and often blame the patient for hiding in their room, being too hard on their parents, being sensitive, etc.
• Many PDers/trauma survivors also invalidate themselves because of this! They may think "was it really that bad if my parents loved me?" or "is it even valid/am I allowed to be hurt by it, if my parents didn't mean to do that?". Its challenging to hold space for both: the acknowledgement that they were loved & the pain wasn't caused intentionally, as well as their own valid feelings of having been/still being hurt by it.
• Additionally theres many people who worry that their muted emotions/difficulties developing actual bonds, may cause them to be bad parents, since they cannot love their children in the conventional way. For them it might be important to hear, that actions usually speak louder than the emotions they were motivated by and that loving your child doesn't equal being a good parent, so not loving it doesn't equal being a bad parent.
• "love" is used here in the "societal definiton" way, or more the way people seem to use it to mean "unconditional lovey dovey feelings towards one or more people". love, is of course deeply personal and for many already includes the actions one takes to show said love. I use the general idea of it here, since thats often the way parents kinda mean it when they say it (+/- the part of providing the survival essentials of shelter and food or other material things..yk for arguments sake)
• everyone has a different opinion on whether or not children can/should be brought up by people, who can't feel love for them and whether said people can meet the childrens emotional needs. I think that if ppl who do love their kids are sometimes not capable of meeting their childrens emotional needs, having or not having the capacity to love, seems to not be an inherent guarantee to excell or suck at meeting a kids needs. therefore theres no reason to think that every person with an incapacity for emotional love will suck at meeting someones emotional needs. I mean its the same as with empathy, having a lack of that doesn't make you inherently suck at comforting people or being a good friend now, does it? its always individual.
• in the place of every "parent", you can of course put "caregiver" or whichever word fits your situation! its easier to just do the arguments with parents here, but it does of course extend to any person who takes care of a child.
• this is also not meant to be a post, that tells parents they always suck, or tell them that their love is worthless or whatever. you can see it more as a reminder, that love alone isn't enough if its just what you feel for someone. I mean...no romantic or platonic relationship will work well if you just love your partner/friend and pay rent and maybe cook a meal here and there. partners/friends have emotional & physical needs they need met and so do children. an emotion alone doesn't do that and especially not if you assume that its always known how you feel! children are individuals that have & understand different love languages and being a parent doesn't inherently mean you know what your child needs. you gotta actually ask it and interact with it in order to get to know your child and then act on that knowledge.
first posted on my instagram (same @)