How do you parent without control:
by first healing yourself of being controlled.
By doing your childhood repression healing.
by first healing yourself of being controlled.
By doing your childhood repression healing.
oh what a pity, the last of my stories!
on this page:
10) ... back at library
11) ... anywhere, everywhere
12) ... not another library? Yes. But a different one this time.
13) ... you bad boy; you naughty girl
10) … back at the library
Big James and I are standing in the library queue waiting to check out our books – we go to the library every Friday morning with Maddy. She helps Big James and me understand about our feelings, and all that’s happening to the other little children.
Two girls are playing behind us, swinging on the rope. One is older than the other but not as old as me. The mother is standing behind her big pusher and the older girl, whilst swinging on the rope, is talking to her. The girls are having fun and I’d like to join in and swing on the rope too, but they are girls – yuk! I know about girls now that I’m old enough. When I was little I didn’t know, so I played with them.
The girls are very happy, laughing, talking and singing; their mother is smiling. Then the man in front of us is called to check out his books – we’re next.
The mother asks the older girl to get into the pusher, as they will be going to the counter after us. The girl says no she doesn’t want to, she wants to keep playing. Her mother asks her again, and again she says no. She walks over near her mother who conspiratorially – that’s a big word, Big James had to help me a lot with it and even he didn’t know how to spell it, but Maddy did, she always knows how to spell words – asks her to get in the pusher, because if she does, then her little sister will follow, and she wants her little sister in the pusher so she won’t go running off when they go to the counter. But still she says no, and I can see she feels upset about having to do what her mother is asking.
Her mother then says to her, that she only wants her to do it so her little sister will follow her, and if she doesn’t and keeps playing then her little sister will want to keep playing too. The girl says that she doesn’t want to; she doesn’t want to get in pusher, and neither would I.
Her mother starts to get angry with her and tells her again but much more forcibly. Her mother, Maddy tells us later, obviously felt she was loosing control so had to assert herself with anger over the girls. She forced the older one to do what she didn’t want to do, and then still had to go running around chasing the little one to put her in the pusher, which made her even angrier. Both the girls were strapped in hard and then they started to cry.
Why did she do that to them? They were having a good time and I’m sure they would have been good girls helping her check out the books. What did she think they would do: run off when she was busy at the counter; or once they had finished, run out of the library getting away from her because they weren’t strapped into their pusher?
I don’t like their mother. She was using her eldest daughter manipulatively, making her give up her fun all so she could control the younger one. That is wrong, that didn’t make me feel good, and it certainly didn’t make the girl feel good either.
Maddy says that being the first child (and it's the same for Big James and me), she was made to often put herself aside, to stop enjoying herself; to stop doing what she wanted to do, because of her younger sisters, and that creates a lot of resentment and anger toward them. It’s not fair that we have to get the same treatment as them, we’re older and so should be treated differently, they should be treated how we were treated when we were their age. It doesn’t make any sense, and it doesn’t make me feel good to know that I too aren't cared about; that I too have to stop being how I want to be just so my brother and sister do what mum wants. And Gran, she always says that I have to set the example because I am the oldest, but that’s not fair either, it shouldn’t be my responsibility to ensure my brother and sister behave a certain way, that’s what mum and dad are to do, and I’m not a mum or dad, I’m only a child.
It’s not fair and it’s stupid. Those girls were having fun and now they are crying. In such a short time their own mother has ruined the fun they were having, and now it’s all horrible. Now they feel bad – now I feel bad, and all because of her. Doesn’t she want her own children to be happy and have fun? Why does she make it all go bad? She’s just like mum. Mum does that all the time to all of us and it’s not fair.
It makes me feel like she doesn’t care about me, about how I feel. She only uses me to look after the other two. I have to stop doing and being how I want to be, all so she can control them and make them do what she wants. It’s always what she wants and never what I want.
I don’t like coming to the library when I see things like that with the girls. To see their unhappy faces full of tears, crying out, and their mother ignoring them and telling them to be quiet, and to be good, when they were being good! What does she think they are doing?
It’s not fair that she has complete power and control over their lives, just like mum, dad and Gran have complete power and control over my life. It's no fun, my life, they ruin everything and I end up being like those girls, going from smiles to tears when there was no reason for it.
Why do mums and dads make us children’s lives so miserable, when we all could have such fun? Why do they have to control us so much? What do they think we are? What do they think will happen? We can’t they slacken the reigns? Why is it all about how we behave? Do they think bad things will happen to us or to them if we behave badly? And what is behaving badly? Not doing what they say?
11) … anywhere and everywhere
‘Now see what you’ve done! See what you’ve done! You are such a trial. You will be the death of me. Don’t do that! That’s not how you do it. How many times do I have to tell you? You can’t do it that way. If you do it that way you’ll end up making a mess like you’ve done. And I have to clean it up! Look out! Don’t touch it! Quickly, move out of the way. Go stand over there and wait until I come and wash your hands. AND DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!’
It’s the same, over and over, time and time again: ‘No not that way, this way. There is ONLY one way and it’s not your way, it’s mine’.
She has no idea of the damage she’s doing to me. She’s making me believe that there is ONLY one way to do everything, and that will cripple me in my later life. Forevermore there will ONLY be one way, and what if that one way doesn’t work as she says it does? What will I do? I won’t be able to change, adjust or adapt, because my behaviour and belief patterns are locked in place. And worse still, I won’t even know I’m locked into believing there is ONLY one way to do everything and that it is the RIGHT way. Forevermore I’ll be striving to live, even forcing myself and others to live, the RIGHT WAY – her right way – and the absolute WRONG way for me. I won’t be able to objectively see that if I am to make my life work for me, to he happy in it, I will have to do everything opposite to how I do, believing it’s right, when it’s not. So I won’t be able to change all the wrong things into being truly right. I won’t be able to do that because I’ll forever be trying to make her way fit my life, or my life fit her way, and I will end up so confused because of course life can’t be managed and lived like that. But I won’t even know that it’s what I am trying to do! I will just end up very angry that life won’t go my way... which is really her anger... AH! Is there no end to it?
‘Look out james, not like that!’
‘But why not Gran, you end up with the same result?’
‘No you don’t. You don’t do it like that because that’s not how it’s done.’
‘But who says how it’s done?’
‘Oh, I don’t know who first said it, but that’s how it’s always been done, and it’s always been done that way, because it works.’
‘But I don’t want to do it that way.’
‘Well you go right ahead and do it your way and see for yourself – see what happens. But I’m telling you it won’t work.’
Why is it so important to do it the RIGHT way? Why can’t I find out for myself? Why does she make me feel like I’m hurting her if I don’t do it her way? Why do I have to be made to feel like a criminal if I don’t do it her way? Why do I feel so guilty if I don’t do it her way? Why am I so unable to do anything for myself – my way? Why does everything have to be so right all the time? What’s so bad with being wrong? Why is it all so life and death? Does it really matter if I do it wrong but find out for myself what is right? And who knows, I might even discover a better way of doing it, or at least one that better suits me.
‘Just do as your mother says james, she knows what’s best and what’s right.’
‘But I don’t want to do it her way and I don't want to do what she says, I want to do it my way.’
‘Just do it her way, don’t upset her, she has enough problems as it is. Just do as she tells you, all right?’
‘But dad –
‘No buts, just do as I say, OKAY?’
I’m trapped, there’s no getting away from it. Hemmed in. It’s her way or else… her way or nothing. And so what happens as I get older and she’s not around to tell me how to do everything her way. What will I do then – panic?
Where is the freedom in my life? It’s an illusion. Just because she’s gone out and I’m left alone I feel free. Yes, but free to do what? Free to keep doing what she says… there is no freedom at all… oh how depressing, how miserable, how despairing…
12) … not another library? Yes. But a different one this time.
We’re at the library again. A different one this time – the Brighton library. Maddy’s down the back in the biography section. Big James and me are watching the young children with their mothers. There’s about eight of each sitting around children's tables off to one side. They are all colouring.
‘Geoff, come back sweetie. Back here to mummy. Come back sweetie, don’t go wandering off. That’s a good boy, come back and stay over here with mummy. Geoff, don’t go, stay here, be a good boy, darling. Stay here with mummy and do your drawing like all the other little boys and girls. Here, sit next to mummy, that’s a good boy… No don’t cry, not now, you know what happens to you when you cry. You get all blocked up and hot. You don’t want to get agitated do you? Stop it, don’t cry, that’s it… good boy, now settle down and do your colouring.’
Big James and me play this game. He’s better at it, but I am getting better too. And what we do is try to see what hidden messages the parent is giving to their child.
Okay, so do you want to play too? You can, we’d like that, and all you have to do is write a list of the hidden messages. Big James allows me to write his list, as I enjoy practizing my writing.
My first message comes when she says things like ‘come back here, next to mummy’, and, ‘sit here with mummy’ – why do parents always say with mummy or daddy? Why don’t they say with ME? Come back to ME; sit with ME. The message Geoff receives is he’s always kept away from the personal – the person. He’ll grow up with this mummy and daddy thing, not relating to real people, not being a real person in his own life. He will relate impersonally to everyone, not being straightforward, direct and personal in his self-expression. She’s keeping him at arms length, not fully engaging him, not inviting him in to really sit and be with her, so he will never feel like a real person that anyone wants for himself; wants him as the true and real person he is. She is being false and unreal; it’s all this sweet voice mummy thing. Where as mummy, really, is fucking pissed off (I can say those words most people say are bad, when I’m angry, just as Big James and Maddy do) and angry yet again at him, for doing something he wants to do and not what she wants him to do. So how is this going to affect their relationship? How has it all already affected their relationship? And how will it affect all his future relationships, unless he happens to have another person or people in his life that come in before it’s too late. People who are more personal, and do treat him as a real person and not just this thing you have to keep ordering around.
Big James adds to this saying that’s how he grew up and now he can’t even look anyone straight in the eye saying it’s you and me communicating with each other. He has to see them as something else, and something not threatening. Nothing he says or does is ever very personal. He’s impersonal in his communication, just making statements about things. He’s all too separate, contrived and false. And Maddy is always pointing out to him just how shut-off from the person, from himself – his own feelings, and from her, he is; all because his mother said and treated him in the same way, corrupting the words: sweetie, darling and honey, making them sound superficially nice but loaded with hate.
‘Mummy’ becomes this thing other than his mother and he learns to resent her. Mummy orders him back; mummy is always telling what to do – a lot of what he doesn’t want to do. Mummy does it ever so sweetly calling him hon – that’s short for honey, I know that – darling, making it sound like she’s so loving, but she’s nothing more than a dictator demanding he does what she wants, when she wants it, and how she wants it. So what message is he receiving and what is he learning? You can figure that out for yourself, but for me, what’s important is how much he hates her controlling him. And he will never know how much he hates and resents her until, like Big James has done, he does his childhood repression healing, because of all the sweet words that suck him in making him believe he is loved by her.
So Big James’ next hidden message she is giving him is how much she hates him. How much mummy hates being with him. Doing these moronic things like colouring with him, having to come to the library, acting like a good, loving, kind and caring parent. How much she probably hates putting on the show, and yet how powerless she feels unable to stop doing it. It’s easy to see and feel it in her words, to feel with my feelings, that she’s not here at the library for him; for him to enjoy himself being free to do whatever he wants: wander about, colour or not colour. She’s here because she believes she should be here doing the right parenting thing – but she hates it. And she can’t allow herself to feel such feelings, to admit that she hates it, that she herself is still being told what to do by someone else – her mother. So she has to do all she can to get through peacefully and nicely without loosing it. She has to put on the show, to say the nice sounding words with the right inflection, sounding loving and caring, all learned, all untrue. It’s so easy to say darling, sweetie, hon… and yuk I’m going to be sick with the insincerity of it. So, as she is false and untrue to herself, disrespecting all she is truly feeling; refusing to allow herself to feel such bad feelings, so too will he follow suit denying all his feelings, being just as false in his way. And neither of them can be any different, there simply doesn’t exist for them another way. And besides, she doesn’t want another way, she’s not at that point in her life of not being able to put on the act anymore, yet one day it will come, but it will be all too late for Geoff.
And perhaps the worst message she was giving him was for him not to express his feelings. Don’t cry… blah, blah, blah… if you do cry, all these bad things will happen to you. And what about the things she is doing to him to make him cry in the first place? What happens to them? Nothing is said about them. That all gets pushed aside, it’s not even seen or acknowledged. Instead he’s now doing this very bad thing to himself. He’s the bad one, the bad boy, and what a fool doing it to himself. So she says he must stop, and look after himself, yet more of mummy seeming to be so loving and caring, alerting him to this fact about what he’s doing to himself. And yet she’s the one who’s making him cry! She's doing the bad thing so she can then be seen to look good.
He receives this message loud and clear: he’s the bad one; mummy’s the good one. Does mummy know how competitive she is? How much she has to be the winner? How much she has to stay in control? She makes me feel bad. He’s done nothing wrong, only not doing what she wants, and yet he gets beaten up all by her seemingly loving, caring attention. It’s all so evil, so wrong, so mean. I want to go and smash her; tell her to leave her boy alone, and show her how much she is manipulating him, using him to gain power… YUK! YUK! YUK! And all the while mummy is so loving, so sweet, such a darling, such a hon to him… such guile! And he’s totally naive and innocent. If she actually honoured and did love him, and did allow him to do what he wanted, then she wouldn’t be stuck in her pathetic, puerile patterns. He’d be helping her to set herself free.
But instead she loads him up with fear. He is made to become scared of himself; scared of what naturally happens when you cry – scared of crying. What insidious means of emotional manipulation is she using on him to deny his feelings, all of which, because he will never be able to cry, will remain buried deep inside him eventually killing him. And all the while he suffers in life, but probably not even aware of it. He'll probably go through his whole life loving his mother, dedicating the novels he'll write to her, helping to fill the library with yet more sad delusion. And all because he won’t be able to express his feelings. Because he is not a true, real and fully self-expressive person. And strange and bad things might happen to him but he’ll never understand why; that they have to happen, all in response to the self-denying, self-hating, negative patterns he's forming in himself - that she's making him become.
She is making her own son hate parts of himself, all just a ploy by her to have absolute control over him. And all done putting on a great show to the other mothers, sounding like she’s the loving caring mother and not the evil witch she is. And she is very pretty with her perfect make up, and her lovely long blonde hair, and her smart clothes; and he is dressed in his nice designer children's clothes; and she drives one of those big black tank-like BMW’s, and probably lives in a lovely big Brighton house. And it’s all a show, all a con, all a fairy-tale, make believe; making him believe the same untruths, the same self-denial that she lives. And every time something happens to make him feel really bad, he will unconsciously stop himself, his mind learning to control his feelings so he doesn’t make himself feel even worse – get hot and have a runny nose! So he won’t even know he feels so bad, that really he wants to cry.
She's killing her own child before he’s even begun his life. It seems such an ordinary scene at the library, one we see often, and one most people it seems, take for granted as 'that’s parenting'. But what really is it? Torturing?
And with that Big James and I will leave you now, because Maddy’s come back and it’s time for us to go. Perhaps there are other messages you’ve seen. And if you’d like to tell us about them on the forum we’d love to hear from you. BYE!
13) … you bad boy; you naughty girl
‘Stop that! You bad boy. You’re a bad boy james, how many times do I have to tell you!’
‘She made me do it.’
‘She’s a naughty girl – you’re a naughty girl making james do that. You know he’s not to do that. The two of you are as bad as each other!’
BAD BAD BAD
And who wants to be called bad? You don’t feel loved. You feel very BAD: rejected, unwanted, uncared about. You feel scared of what’s going to happen to you. You feel angry because it’s not fair; because you are NOT a bad boy or girl.
0Imagine if now in your adult life, the one you love, or believed you love, kept telling you you’re a BAD man or a BAD woman – how do you think you’d feel? How would it make you feel about yourself? How would you feel about them? Do you think your relationship would continue for very long if over and over they accused you of being bad, and being angry with you for the bad things you were doing or saying? Do you think it would take long before you wondered why you were in a relationship with someone treating you in such a way? And could you say it was a loving relationship?
So now put yourself in your child’s place: how do you think your child feels?
Here is your little child. Your little person who loves and adores you; who can’t love you enough; who longs for you to reciprocate such complete UNCONDITIONAL love; and yet all you can do is reject it, accuse it of being bad, hate it, and not love it at all. All you can do is CONDITIONALLY love it – on the condition that it is good and obeys you.
So how do you think this little person is going to feel about its relationship with you?
Here it is stuck, trapped, with you. It can’t pack up and go like adults can when they’ve had enough. It can’t turn its back on you and do what you are doing to it: reject you, and stop loving you. It doesn’t understand all that’s going on. It’s totally dependent on you for everything: its survival, and its survival through love.
Can you begin to imagine what horror it would feel like to have your survival, your very existence, threatened by another person? Put yourself in a WWII death camp for a few moments: you’re trapped and the authority despises you. You feel totally powerless and unloved; your very existence is threatened in every moment. So why is it any different for a child? And yet as an adult you still have your own integrity of will, but not so for your little child whose will is not as yet fully formed. You can at least die with some dignity and sense of yourself, but can it? And it won’t be able to until it’s around six years old. Up until then it isn’t fully aware, but it still feels.
So try to imagine the sheer terror, the absolute horror your little child; your beautiful little person – YOUR CHILD; the one whom you so dearly love, is being subjected to – BY YOU – during all those early forming years when to you it’s nothing more than a BAD boy or girl. Can you feel the sheer agony, the ruthless pain – the eternal tormenting torture of your ongoing rejection of it? And all it feels is a zillion times worse than what you as an adult in the worst state of powerlessness and abject humiliation could feel. Its feelings are pure and raw. It’s whole being is wracked by them as its soul is torn apart. And you can hear the terrible, terrible pain it’s suffering as it screams, hitting that pitch where you feel your nerve endings are being flayed. And that’s how you feel when you hear the sheer agony of the terror it's suffering. How do you think it FEELS?
And it feels that way all because of YOU. So do you feel proud of your achievement? Do you revel in the glory of the power you can have over another soul, one as helpless and totally dependent on you as your small pure and perfect child is. The small pure and perfect child you are corrupting and perverting, all because you have been corrupted and perverted by your mum and dad.
And do you still say you are a loving parent? And does your little innocent child feel that – oh so great love; your love that it so desperately wants when you’re rejecting it; your love you are withholding as you tell it, it is a BAD girl or boy?
Can you begin to imagine what it might be like to be told during your most vulnerable time of life that you are BAD? Can you begin to imagine the adverse affects this will have on you right throughout your life?
Can you imagine just how much work you would have to do on yourself to convince yourself that you are not bad, so you can live a sociably acceptable life, and not one in which you commit all sorts of heinous atrocities because you BELIEVE – all thanks to your ‘loving’ parents – that you ARE BAD?
And actually you don’t have to try too hard to imagine such things at all – and do you know why? Because you are that person. You don’t have to imagine at all. Because you were that child. That BAD child just as your child is bad. Because isn't that how you were treated by your parents? So really, hidden away within you somewhere, you do know how your child feels, only you choose not to remember. And why is that do you think? Could it be possibly because of how horrendous those bad feelings were that you experienced back when you were accused of being bad? When you felt unloved and unwanted by your mum and dad.
And if you feel like arguing with me saying, ‘yeah so, I’m not that bad. I didn’t turn out as bad as you’re saying, so my child will be all right too. I don’t feel unloved by my parents even though they said I was bad and naughty’. I will reply: exactly, just take a good look at yourself. At how shut-off from your feelings and how feeling-repressed you are. And look at how much you are denying your bad feelings. And who do you think it was who made you deny them? And what could you possibly be afraid of if you were to allow all your feelings to be? Could it be those same dreadful feelings you felt as that BAD or NAUGHTY little boy or girl? Those same dreadful feelings your child is feeling now?
But I can’t stop controlling my child. I have to make it do what I want. How else is it going to be able to grow up and fit into the world. Ah, and therein lies the problem. To fit into the evil controlling world of no love such that our world is, requires control, starting from the first moment of our life. To live free of such control, can only be achieved by healing our childhood repression and so negative state of mind and will. And once living true to all we feel - true to ourself, then we will naturally parent our child with such freedom of self-expression and true love.
But to heal my childhood repression will take me too long, I’ll be past child-bearing age before I do. So what can I do? Follow your feelings - that is all you can ever do.