We’ve conquered our own true will, this producing masses of disease and dysfunction,
which we then in turn set about trying to conquer.
And we apply all such conquering techniques to parenting.
So, how do you think your child feels - how do you think you felt as a young child.
which we then in turn set about trying to conquer.
And we apply all such conquering techniques to parenting.
So, how do you think your child feels - how do you think you felt as a young child.
more of my stories
on this page:
5) ... at the library
6) ... behind the library
7) ... at the supermarket
8) ... at the hospital
9) ... in the bedroom
5) .... at the library
Big James and I were at the library today and this is some of what we heard and saw. Big James explains it all to me – what my feelings are – and we both do lots of imaginings. It’s fun, as he lets me tell the story, but it’s also not fun because most of the things we see make us feel bad.
We were both at the table with the computers that you use to check if the library has the books you want… oh yes… it’s called the catalogue. And while we were there a mother came over carrying her little toddler boy from the children’s group. I didn’t want to go to the group today. She put him on the table and said angrily to him ‘YOU MUST NOT DO THAT. IF YOU KEEP DOING THAT I’LL PUT YOU IN THE CAR AND WE’LL GO HOME. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? WHAT YOU DID TO THE LITTLE GIRL WAS WRONG. IT’S NAUGHTY – IT’S STEALING. THAT IS HER BOOK AND YOU CAN’T HAVE IT. YOU CAN’T JUST TAKE IT FROM HER. ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME – DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’
She was shaking him and at first he didn’t seem to be paying attention looking all around him, but then he looked at her and started to cry. She became more angry and said very loudly, even though she was trying to keep her voice down, ‘DON’T CRY. WE WON’T HAVE ANY OF THAT NONSENSE, NOT HERE, NOT NOW, SO STOP IT! AND IF YOU DON’T STOP IT WE’LL GO HOME – DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’
And what I don’t understand is how is he supposed to understand. He’s too young. He wouldn’t understand what stealing is, and what all those threats mean. Why does she say things she'd never do? That makes it even more confusing. How can he understand such things? He can only understand that his mother is suddenly making him feel bad. It’s all so confusing; it doesn’t make any sense to me, and he's much younger than I am. Big James says its manipulation, emotional scare tactics, trying to get him to do what she wants; to be how she wants him to be. But it’s not right to do that, is it?
She was scaring him by shaking him and being angry with him. He is probably too young to understand about taking the girls book and what stealing is. When you’re that little, as I can remember, there is only you in the world and everything you see you assume is there for you – even I know that. And why shouldn’t it be? What harm could it do? If parents put themselves in their child’s place more often, then they too would understand.
I also don’t understand what she expects of him. Does she really expect him to behave more like a grown-up than like the little toddler boy he is? She seems stupid if you ask me. Doesn’t she understand what her own little child is like – how he sees and perceives his world? Obviously not, because I don’t think he understood anything more than his mother didn’t love him and was being very mean, scaring him, and making him feel so bad that he started to cry.
And then she tells him off even more angrily for crying, so what is he supposed to do? Why do so many mums and dads treat their young children as if they are meant to be adults already knowing what the world is like and how to live in it? Why don’t they understand that when you’re very little you are totally self-absorbed, you don’t know the difference between yourself and another person, or what’s right and wrong. And you don't care, you don't want to know – you're not old enough for that yet. And does his mother believe that how she is treating him is the best way for him to learn? You don’t learn anything when you’re scared, I know that too. It only makes everything worse. And if she left him alone and didn’t interfere so much, he’d grow up and learn it all for himself when he needs to learn it. He’s not an idiot like she seems to believe, he’s only a little boy. She's the idiot.
You have lots of time to grow up and learn things for yourself. What is he supposed to do – have no fun being a toddler wanting all the new things for himself, and jump over this stage of his fun life and be all grown up? Why should he be like a grown-up when he can’t be anything other than what he is? Why doesn’t she accept him as he is, allowing him to be himself? None of it makes any sense to me. Doesn’t she see she’s trying to make him be someone other than who he is? Someone like a fantasy (that’s Big James’ word – I'm learning lots of big words from him) picture of a well-behaved boy she’s got in her mind. She’s trying to make him fit the picture in her mind and by doing so is stopping him from being himself, and it’s going to ruin him. When he grows up he’ll be living in his mind like she is, denying what’s really happening, and all of that will make him feel unhappy and might even make him sick. Big James says that’s what happened to him, and I believe him.
After we finished with the catalogue we went to the place were you book to go on the Internet. It’s close to the where you come and go in and out of the library.
A boy, younger than me, about three or four, suddenly ran into the library past us, then he ran – fast – back to the entrance, then ran back in again, then ran back out to meet his mother who was just arriving pushing the big pusher coming in the gate nearest to us. And when the boy saw her he shouted out ‘STOP!’ putting his hand up like a policeman. And she obediently stopped, smiling at him. Then he told her to go through the other gate. And she did what he said. She backed up and manoeuvred, which was hard to do with such a big pusher, around and in through the other gate. He excitedly yelled, turned around, and dashed ahead of her back into the library. She, laughing, followed slowly along behind.
Then suddenly I heard. ‘YOU STOP THERE! DON’T GO IN. COME BACK. WAIT HERE WHILE I GET ORGANISED. STAND HERE. HOLD ONTO THE PUSHER AND DON’T RUN OFF. STOP IT! DO AS YOU’RE TOLD. DON’T MOVE – STAND OVER THERE OUT OF THE WAY OF EVERYONE… COME AND STAND HERE, QUICKLY. JAMES, DO AS I SAY – NOW! I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO TELL YOU AGAIN.’
When she said my name I jumped. She is so nasty, so controlling of her boy, not like the carefree relaxed happy mother before her. She treated him how mum treats me. He can’t do what he wants. He can’t be free. I know what he feels and I can see the miserable look on his face. I too feel miserable when I can’t go running around. The first little boy was so happy. I wish I had his mother and was happy like him. Me and the other James are always being told off, criticised, always told: what to do, when to do it, how to do it; we’re never free to just do what we want, and when we want to do it. Mum never does what I say when I say to do it. I don't have a say. The first boy can have a say about how he wants his life to be, I can't. What's going to happen to me when I grow up and still can't have a say, all because she never allowed me to?
Now he’s walking into the library holding the pusher. We both look at each other. Neither of us smile – we both understand, we both know how bad he feels. I want to hold his hand but I don’t want to go near his mother. I don’t like her. She’s no fun. She’s like my mother always making me feel bad when I’m meant to be enjoying myself and having a fun time. He looks very sad. He’s not running into the library looking forward to story-time. It’s just another horrible experience for him, made worse, because I know how he feels, when he sees that other boy laughing, running around, being free, with his mother smiling at him, as he does what he wants.
Big James says that sad James’ mother probably believes she’s being a good mother by teaching him to behave in the correct way. He says she might believe running in the library is bad and other parents will think badly of her, as they might think badly of the happy boys mother, so she has to show what a good disciplined mother he has – a mother who cares a lot for him by heavily controlling him. A mother who believes her discipline will pay dividends (whatever they are) making him be a good responsible person when he grows up. And that may be so, however, I doubt he will be happy and feel free to enjoy his life how he wants to, something that Big James tells me happened to him and will happen to me because of how we have been mistreated. But I don’t want to be sad and miserable when I grow up. It’s bad enough being sad and miserable now. I don’t want a dull life because I’m not allowed to run around and be excited.
Why do so many mums and dads always tell their children how to be? Why can’t they leave us alone to be ourselves?
6) ... behind the library
Big James, Maddy and me are warming ourselves in the sun behind the library. We’re nicely sheltered from the chilly winter breeze. We’re sitting on one of the two seats; sitting on the other one to our right is a young mother watching her toddler son. He is toddling around picking up things from the ground: leaves, twigs and chocolate bar wrappings, bringing them over and giving them to her. She is warmly accepting his little gifts without all the show, and superficial flourish, and false praise, and noisy talk that we so often see between mums and dads and their young children. She is very intently focused on him, leaning over giving herself to him. It’s as if in their world only the two of them exist, and it gives us all good feelings watching them.
The atmosphere feels loving, warm like the sun, with him freely doing as he pleases.
The little boy toddled down the grass toward the footpath and the parked cars. She walked with him. When he got to the footpath she acted as his guardian gently shepherding him away from any potential danger. This was all done so caringly, and obviously with him in mind more than the fear of the potential danger; with her efforts being reflected back to her by his smiling, laughing and making lots of happy noises. He looked and sounded delighted to be the leader; so happy that she was with him. And I felt really good too because she didn’t criticise him; didn’t unnecessarily scare him; didn’t get angry with him or repeatedly tell him, as if he were a moron, to not go near the road, to be careful, all of which he is too young to understand about anyway.
After some time she suggested, pointing, that they go back to the pusher. He understood, as he instantly started to fast-toddle toward it. Then he stumbled and she was him but didn’t interfere allowing him to get up by himself. Not like those other mothers and fathers I’ve seen who quickly rush in picking up their child, brushing off the dirt from their hands and knees, while saying all sorts of unnecessary words that they obviously think are loving and caring. No words were said by this mother; words didn’t need to be said. Her reassuring way by just being with him and completely there for him, giving him all her attention and being fully focused on him, was enough for him. He picked himself up and turned away from the direction of the pusher heading for the path to the library’s back entrance. And she just went with him. It was so nice to see a parent not in a rush, and not exerting her will and control over her child, something as Maddy said, was very unusual – and Big James and I both agreed. His mother seemed to have all the time in the world, and it was all for him – she was all for him allowing him to sally forth on his big adventure and exploration of life and his world about him.
When he was about to disappear around the corner, out of sight of the pusher, she gently spoke to him suggesting they go back toward it, and he led the way.
At the pusher she looked at his hands, wiped the dirt off gently with her hand – she didn’t get one of those horrible wet things and subject him to a harsh cleaning, like mum does before I can eat anything – then asked him if he was hungry as she offered him a couple of things to eat, which he eagerly accepted. I couldn’t see what it was that he was eating, but with it held in one hand he started to toddle off again around behind the seat to the four concrete steps that lead up to the staff entrance of the library. And she followed.
At one point he dropped what he was holding in his hand, and she just allowed him to pick it up and continue eating it, not like those other mothers I’ve seen, and my mother, who rush in and grab it out of their child’s hand telling them its dirty, saying ‘DON’T PUT THAT IN YOUR MOUTH, IT'S DIRTY, YOU’LL GET GERMS AND THEY’LL MAKE YOU SICK!’. And at the same time making their child scared of something they can’t know about, always making everything so scary. I’m scared of everything because mum and dad make me scared of everything, and so too are Big James and Maddy and they are grown-ups!
When they left she didn’t pick him up against his wishes, dumping him in his pusher and strapping him in. They left quietly, again with no big performance, she gently leading the way as he toddled along at her side.
It was such a nice change to see them together: no tears, no fuss, no hysterics, no fighting each other, so different to my life with mum and most of the other mums with their children inside the library at the children’s reading group.
We all thoroughly enjoyed our time with the two of them. Maddy said in some ways it was a privilege. And all three of us wished we’d been the most important one in our parents lives. That they might have given over to us for a little while all so we could enjoy being a free child.
7) … at the supermarket
‘JAMES! STOP THAT! DON’T DO THAT; COME HERE! How many times have I told you! How many times do I have to say it! L-E-A-V-E IT ALONE! DON’T TOUCH IT! It’s not for you. It’s not yours; you can’t have it. And don’t touch that either. PUT IT BACK! I don’t want to have to tell you again. Do as you are told. If you don’t we’ll go home and I’ll tell your father and he can deal with you. Now come here. Be a good boy and do what I tell you. Stand there and don’t get in the way. Oh you are such a nuisance, I’m not bringing you along again. DON’T TOUCH THAT! You can have one to eat later – when we get home, so put it back, we’ve already got enough at home. Yes get that, we need that, no don’t put it there. Oh not like that, like this. Put it there on top of the cans – oh be careful, PUT IT DOWN GENTLY, you can’t just drop it like that. Now go and get the backed beans you like, if you want to be helpful, they’re over there. You can choose whichever ones you want. No not those, you don’t like those, remember. Here these ones, you like them, put them in the trolley. No! Not on top of the eggs – you know that. You’ll break them, really, are you stupid or something, why don’t you use your brain – LOOK OUT! Get out of the way. Look what you’re doing, we’re not the only ones in the world you know!’
‘Sorry about that!’
‘No, that’s all right, he wasn’t in my way.’
‘Now stop getting in other peoples way. Just be good and do as you’re told. Come on, we’ve got to hurry up or we’ll be late. COME ON WOULD YOU! NO! I’ve already told you, you can’t have those, they’ll rot your teeth.’
‘But I want them.’
‘Well you can’t have them.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I say, that’s why not. And I’ve already told you.’
‘Can’t I have one packet?’
‘No. Now put it back and stop messing around. You know you can’t have those, we’ve been through it before and I have explained why, and I’m not going to explain again. So just do as I say – put them back and come on… Now smarten up, don’t scuff your feet, walk properly. I just bought you those new shoes and I don’t want you to put holes in them already. And pull your pants up. Where’s your belt? Do I have to do everything for you? Oh well we can’t worry about that now, come on… JAMES!
Now I ask you reader, do I have a life? – a life of my own. She never stops talking; never stops criticising me; never stops telling me what to do. She is always the centre of attention; she is always the important one; she always has everything her way.
What sort of life can I have? Would you like it? And she never stops, from when I wake up until I go to bed. I hate my life. It’s never been any different, and I know it will never change – how can it?
She’s always cutting me down and making me feel scared. I bite my nails with worry. I try to hide inside myself to protect myself, but she’s too invasive. I never have any peace and I can’t do what I want to do unless she’s not there. I want to be left alone, and I wish she would leave me at home. I wish she wouldn’t bring me to the supermarket like she threatens. I wish she would leave me at home with my toys, but she never does. It’s all too mad, and makes me feel so miserable.
‘JAMES! Hurry up – what are you doing now? Oh don’t touch that, put it back; behave yourself would you. Come on behave yourself, I don’t want to make a scene here in the supermarket, so just be good. You’re old enough now to help me, so be a help. Stop making things more difficult then they already are…’
And we haven’t even finished with one isle! How many times has she criticized me? She never draws breath. She’s so tiring, I feel numb with it all. Aren’t children meant to have a fun time – she doesn’t let me do anything. What am I supposed to do? I hate my life.
8) … at the hospital
I want out! It’s time. I can feel it, she can feel it – we both know it’s time.
I’m looking forward to it. It will be hard and may even hurt but it will be exciting – gee, to think that this is it! What I’ve been preparing myself for. To be born! To arrive into the world and take my first breath of air – me, by myself. How exciting, what an adventure. I’m apprehensive, but more excited than anything. Mums nervous and everyone is fussing around her. I can hear them. The nurse is telling her to relax and that she'll be all right; that she can do it. She says she can’t and doesn’t want to. I don’t know what all the fuss is about and the doctor is talking about something that sounds like caesarean, whatever that means. It won’t be long now and I’ll be able to forge my way, using my will, into my life… BUT! WHAT! What’s happening – this isn’t how it’s meant to be? No! NO! NO! Not like this, NO! I’m supposed to do it. ME! Not you. I’m supposed to will myself into life. I’m supposed to get myself born, me and mum, together, she’s supposed to help me. It’s my big moment and you’re depriving me of it. Put me back! I’m not meant to start life this way. I feel so angry, so upset, so disappointed. I feel so powerless – NO! Not like this. I don’t want this! You have no right. I hate this. I want to stay in control. I want to do what I want to do; I want to have a say in my own life.
It’s not right. At the first moment of entry into the world I'm thwarted, everything being taken out of my hands. It’s not right! It’s not how it’s meant to be. Nobody asked me. You can’t deprive me of my birth. I need to do it. Don’t you understand? It’s very important. It galvanizes and awakens my will, and without the struggle I am nothing, a nothing will-less person. A failure. I won’t be able to do anything for myself because all power has been taken from me. It’s not right, everything is wrong – you must understand! You can’t just step in and override me taking control out of my own hands, taking over because you think you know what’s right. What about me, about what I feel? You didn’t consider my feelings. You don’t care about me – and I don’t want a life with a mother and father and people who don’t care about me. You don’t love me. You don’t respect me – I don’t want a life like this! I don’t want to go on. It’s all over before it’s even begun. What’s the point of living if I can’t be self-determining, self-governing; if I can’t have a say – the say in my own life? What am I gong to do; what’s going to happen to me? Are you mum, going to make it up to me, to give me what I’ve now lost – the beginning of my life? And now I’ll never be able to do anything for myself, always having to be dependent on others. Don’t you understand the pattern you are forming within me? I am growing, experiencing NOW! This is what I am becoming; this is how my life will be and what I will expect of it. You are interfering with my natural growth; you’re damaging my self-expression. You’ve stopped me from expressing myself through my own birth, and that’s a huge hole you’ve created in me and how will I ever fill it. You’re depriving me of so much – my beginning.
Life won’t work for me now. How can it, when I’m not working correctly; when I’m going to be deficient, living in denial of my own effort to get myself down the birth canal with mums help.
Now it’s all gone wrong. I was ready, then suddenly I’m lifted out by my feet, smacked on my bum, and it’s all over – nothing happened. What an anticlimax. One moment I was warm, the next I felt a coolness, and nothing more – only my anger and frustration once I’d recovered from the shock. No great effort of will; no mobilisation of all my being, of my spirit – no birth. You’ve denied me of one the most important experiences of my life. Now I will never know what it was like. Now I’ll never feel like a real and complete person, someone who is the master of his own destiny. Now I’ll never know the feeling of triumph, of willing myself into my life; the greatest feeling of achievement, my finest hour; a sense of my own power, of my own self – good feelings about myself. Now all of that has been denied me. Now I will never know. I’ll forever be waiting for my birth; forever waiting for my life to begin. And because of that, I’ll only be a part person. Never feeling like I’m fully here – an outsider; always looking in, always wishing I could be different; that my life could be different – normal – and always wondering why I can’t be like everyone else. And why I can’t do and make my life how I want it. Wondering why I feel so fundamentally powerless, useless, unworthy, and so unloved. A life in which I don’t naturally command respect, all because I have learnt I can’t expect to be respected. For how can I, being so abused and traumatized in my first moments of life. How can I ever expect to be cared about or loved or to ever feel wanted?
A life of deprivation is all I have to look forward to, a wrong life; all so wrong and all because others said they know what’s best for me – they now better than I do. Everyone knows better than I do about my life. And I will never know. I will never know what life – my life – could have been like had I had my full will and determination, and not always having to rely on others to take control and organise if for me.
9) … in the bedroom
Well this IS my big moment. This IS when it ALL begins. And look at them: my mother and father to be.
There’s dad, he’s been at the pub after work and has had his usual few. Now he’s running around the bedroom, naked, erect – he’s always erect! – pretending to be Tarzan; while mum, half-undressed, is trying to be coy. It’s just sex he wants and what she believes she should want – although she doesn’t really know yet, not having had enough experiences and still caught up believing she should play the role of the ‘good wife’ giving her husband what he wants, when he wants it.
And all he wants is sex. Sex, sex and more sex. She believes she wants something more. Her mind is full of fantasies about love, marriage, having children, a family, a nice house, two miniature poodles, nice clothes, Italian leather shoes… the list goes on and on.
What is missing is anything about me. Sure they want children – kids, as he calls them – and that is inevitable because after all that’s what you get married for isn’t it; but as to my pending arrival – not a thought.
And that’s the truth of if. I can see it now. I’m about to arrive into the lives of two people who don’t really want me. They don’t really love each other, only being caught up in yet more fantasy about what ‘being in love’ is like; but they don’t know each other, nor do they want to. And worse still, they don’t know how to, yet believe they are getting to know each other and do want to. How can they know each other? How can they know anything? They both repress so many feelings, and she is so subservient to him and hating it, but well trained never to say a word; nothing to stop him paying attention to her even if it is only being chased around the bedroom.
And he is so dominating, but only to put his erection in her and satisfy his lust and desperate need for power. He feels so utterly powerless otherwise, needing his wife – any woman – to use for sex; to have power over; to show to himself (and the world in his mind) that he is NOT the pathetic little boy his mother made him feel he was, but is the Great One! And her condescending to allow him too, agreeing to play the game, when she senses how pathetic and sad he really is, but of course never truly admitting such feelings to herself.
And this is what I am coming into; this is what my life will consist of. This is the best I can expect. So no wonder… it explains everything. And is that what I want? But do I have say in what I want? Well, I suppose I do, surely I must in some way… but then in another way, perhaps I don’t; but such issues are too big for me to contemplate now because he’s got her on her back and is pumping away.
He is lost to his pleasurable feelings, to his conquest; he’s totally self-absorbed, lost in his oblivion. She no longer exists if she did at all: in-out, in-out, harder, faster, more, more, don’t stop, don’t interrupt, one-way, one end, one outcome – must have. And she is lying there – again – thinking, is this it? It this all it is about? It is sort of pleasurable, but the alcoholic breath – do I have to suffer that as well? And what about the loving, the tenderness, the beautiful union, the ‘making love’? What about all of that? Where is it? This can’t be all surely, the same every night.
Now he has come, she hasn’t, he doesn’t care, and she hasn’t learnt to care about herself yet. That will come later, after the three kids, when she starts to grow up and take control of what she likes and dislikes, finally getting rid of him. But all that is later, and for now it’s my time, and without a single thought about me or the consequences of their actions.
And this is all I have to look forward to. To enter into the fantasies of: ‘happy family’. To take up my role and act out the play. All so superficial and filled with feeling-less ‘I love yous’. All just a show, keeping up the pretence. Nothing real; nothing true. No one caring about me or wanting me or making me feel loved. No one wanting to know me - what I feel.
So right at the very beginning of my life the story has been written. This is it – now. He: puffing and panting; pleased he’s done a good job; happily satisfied – sleep coming quickly. And she: glad it’s all over, unsatisfied, but also feeling something different this time, something deeper within her, could it be? – she allows herself a moment to consider. Then other feelings flood back in: there’s no one to talk to about her day, no one interested, if only… but aren’t we a happy loving couple. She has to keep up the delusion… and I do love my new red shoes, they’re so soft. And he said I could buy the green ones too…
We either have a good trainer parent, or a bad one.
If good, we end up enjoying our life, feeling relatively happy and loved.
Yet still we’re not meant to be trained.
So we’re not TRULY happy or feeling loved.
That's why we feel bad.
If good, we end up enjoying our life, feeling relatively happy and loved.
Yet still we’re not meant to be trained.
So we’re not TRULY happy or feeling loved.
That's why we feel bad.