I found a letter my mother wrote to her mother. She wrote it like I was the one speaking. I was under 2 at the time because my brother hadn’t been born yet. She talked about how I kept touching the magazines that were on a table and that I knew I shouldn’t do it or I would get a “spanking”. It was written like a funny story of her life as a mother. It made me sick to my stomach. I think a lot of us were being physically disciplined before the age of 2. I can’t imagine what my body had been thru and how much it has affected my mental and physical health. I thought it was normal.
Yes, the reality that most spankings happen between ages 2-3 (according to people who study families who use this as punishment) really struck me. The vast majority of people cannot access memories from the time period we experienced the most physical punishment from our caregivers, and that is truly sobering. The body (including the nervous system), keeps the score however. Even if we wish this wasn't true.
yeah, Dobson suggested starting at 18 months.... and other authors suggested starting even earlier. Just striking to think about how parents were discouraged from seeing their kids through the lens of simply being toddlers (or infants) who were exploring their world.
I don't have very many memories of my childhood, but my mom likes to tell a story about how we were loading the car to go somewhere and she slammed her hand in the door. It hurt, obviously, but I was standing on the porch, and had no idea what to do. I could see Mom was hurt and angry and I didn't go to help her. She tells it like a cautionary tale - that's when she knew I was truly defiant, with a hard heart. I remember feeling confused and scared. When mom was mad, it was usually at me, and meant a spanking. I was a kid and knew I wouldn't be able to help her, so I stayed where I wouldn't be in the way or get the raw end of her anger. How was I to know that I was supposed to go offer sympathy and condolences to a grown-up in pain? I grew up believing I didn't have any compassion thanks to that story. I literally spent years of my young adult life "learning" how to be compassionate (aka giving myself permission to feel emotions about hard things and recognizing my inmate empathetic instinct.)
This story sounds so familiar to me. Even that phrase "hard heart" . . . this was weaponized often in my home growing up. The parentification of children is so real in these contexts. We had to be more emotionally mature than our parents!
Hmmm that's a different angle of parentification. I'll have to sit with that a bit. But yeah, having a "hard heart" was def weaponized in my house. Bad guys in Bible stories had hard hearts, and look what happened to them. No real help was offered on how to have a soft heart, though, except to pray more. I certainly didn't see empathy or compassion modeled at home. No wonder I never knew what it looked like!
Hearing that I was inherently sinful and rebellious from an early age did a number on me. My mother would point out other children who were more polite, deferred to their parents more, were better at school, weren’t so “lazy” (aka neurotypical), and talk about how she wished my sister and I were more like them. It felt like I was trying so hard to be good and do everything right and nothing was ever good enough. Conversations with members of my immediate family felt like interrogations conducted in minefields. To avoid setting off an accidental explosion I ended just folded more and more into myself like a little origami swan of repressed feelings. My sister’s response was more outwardly directed. Lots of explosions ensued. We both grew up to have a ton of mental health issues and have been through a lot of therapy. I still struggle to feel relaxed at home and like I haven’t done something wrong all the time.
One of the offhand comments my mother has made has stuck with me. I was born on a Sunday morning, so she missed Mass and couldn’t receive Communion. Full of emotion about it, she said it was the only time in her life she missed the sacrament. I think she was telling me this story to illustrate the importance of going to church and receiving Communion every single Sunday, no matter what, but I internalized that I was a burden to her from the very moment of my birth.
"We were born into a debt we must work our entire lives to pay off" is a really good way to describe it. I said to a therapist once that it felt like it took everything I could do to earn my way back up to zero.
My parents love to recount how I would cross my arms and proclaim “I don’t want to!” to emphasize how strong willed I was and how difficult I could be as a child. I’ve heard this recounted SO MANY times over my lifetime. And I think they felt successful when they had me highly involved in various ministry programs through my teens and had convinced me that God had called me into youth ministry. Their disappointment has been passively made apparent as they’ve watched my apparent unraveling of their expectations from the distance I’ve put between myself and them.
When my kids were toddlers my mother loved to tell me how she successfully stopped me from biting by biting me back. I think that’s when I started having a clearer picture of their parenting besides the knowledge that they did spank my brother and I. I also have very limited childhood memories which I couldn’t understand why until I learned the correlation and got a CPTSD diagnosis.
I still get stories about "the face" i.e. the way I would look at people when they wanted me to do something and I didn't want to. Honestly, I still make that face when people are crossing my boundaries or generally acting like fools in my direction. Turns out, our innate "I don't want to" reflex was trying to tell us (and then) something important!
The sense of knowing memories must be there because of all of the surrounding evidence but not having clear recollection is so hard! It makes me question myself so much! Knowing that many of us have the same issue is even more evidence.
It’s like colonialism. Except instead of fighting for physical land they are fighting for occupation of our hearts and minds. That’s even more threatening when parents are emotionally unstable. No wonder why I feared death. Either I give permission for this crazy person to have ownership of my thoughts and feelings and then I will remain fed and clothed or I fight for my actual sense of Self and not get my basic human needs met. I think I actually remember that conundrum. My parents didn’t start doing battle until I was about 5. I had a somewhat formed sense of Self by then. I quickly learned that my dad was untrustworthy. I remember knowing that they were trying to crush my spirit. I’m grateful that I had a chance to form a sense of Self before they tried to destroy it. Although I know that meant the beatings were a lot worse. So bad that they are mostly blocked. But I knew what I was fighting for. In a lot of ways that process destroyed me, but I don’t think they could ever fully overcome my sense that I should rightfully have sovereignty over my internal world. They got to me too late and my mom’s natural instincts before I was 5 were too good. RAP turned her into a bad mom in a lot of ways.
I’m thankful for this. It’s putting meat around those tough memories and validating a lot of my childhood that everyone wants to deny.
I view this entire movement (white evangelicalism in particular) as an extension of colonialism myself. We were raised in a propeganda-filled movement that needed us divorced from our bodies and emotions in order to continue on the oppression. But we remain strong-willed and are learning together in community to grieve and mourn and be fully present to our reality!
Our family stories are typically about my "strong-willed" older siblings. I was such a well-programmed little guilt robot, I washed my own mouth out with soap when I was 3 or 4 because I said my older brother was stupid, and nobody heard me say it.
The 'funny' story that comes to mind is when I was around pre-school age, my Mom became concerned that I might have a hearing problem. If I was watching PBS, and she said it was time to brush my teeth, I wouldn't respond. She shared her concerns with Dad. He entered the living room without saying a word, and I immediately hopped up bee-lining for the bathroom. He laughed, "there's your hearing problem."
There was spanking, and washing kids' mouths out with soap, though the latter was mostly at school. (Parochial school, K on up.)
Was talking with my sister about anxiety lately. She said, "Life, eh?" and I said "Life with PTSD and ADHD and being a high IQ maladjusted kid in an Inerrant Literal Word of God environment....Yeah."
It was particularly difficult to muster up the gratitude and praise that was considered a proper response to them disciplining us. Surrender was not enough. Agreement and gratitude and praise were required. It was a lot of work to get there, and a lot of blotting out or burying our actual feelings.
I found a letter my mother wrote to her mother. She wrote it like I was the one speaking. I was under 2 at the time because my brother hadn’t been born yet. She talked about how I kept touching the magazines that were on a table and that I knew I shouldn’t do it or I would get a “spanking”. It was written like a funny story of her life as a mother. It made me sick to my stomach. I think a lot of us were being physically disciplined before the age of 2. I can’t imagine what my body had been thru and how much it has affected my mental and physical health. I thought it was normal.
Yes, the reality that most spankings happen between ages 2-3 (according to people who study families who use this as punishment) really struck me. The vast majority of people cannot access memories from the time period we experienced the most physical punishment from our caregivers, and that is truly sobering. The body (including the nervous system), keeps the score however. Even if we wish this wasn't true.
yeah, Dobson suggested starting at 18 months.... and other authors suggested starting even earlier. Just striking to think about how parents were discouraged from seeing their kids through the lens of simply being toddlers (or infants) who were exploring their world.
I don't have very many memories of my childhood, but my mom likes to tell a story about how we were loading the car to go somewhere and she slammed her hand in the door. It hurt, obviously, but I was standing on the porch, and had no idea what to do. I could see Mom was hurt and angry and I didn't go to help her. She tells it like a cautionary tale - that's when she knew I was truly defiant, with a hard heart. I remember feeling confused and scared. When mom was mad, it was usually at me, and meant a spanking. I was a kid and knew I wouldn't be able to help her, so I stayed where I wouldn't be in the way or get the raw end of her anger. How was I to know that I was supposed to go offer sympathy and condolences to a grown-up in pain? I grew up believing I didn't have any compassion thanks to that story. I literally spent years of my young adult life "learning" how to be compassionate (aka giving myself permission to feel emotions about hard things and recognizing my inmate empathetic instinct.)
This story sounds so familiar to me. Even that phrase "hard heart" . . . this was weaponized often in my home growing up. The parentification of children is so real in these contexts. We had to be more emotionally mature than our parents!
Hmmm that's a different angle of parentification. I'll have to sit with that a bit. But yeah, having a "hard heart" was def weaponized in my house. Bad guys in Bible stories had hard hearts, and look what happened to them. No real help was offered on how to have a soft heart, though, except to pray more. I certainly didn't see empathy or compassion modeled at home. No wonder I never knew what it looked like!
Hearing that I was inherently sinful and rebellious from an early age did a number on me. My mother would point out other children who were more polite, deferred to their parents more, were better at school, weren’t so “lazy” (aka neurotypical), and talk about how she wished my sister and I were more like them. It felt like I was trying so hard to be good and do everything right and nothing was ever good enough. Conversations with members of my immediate family felt like interrogations conducted in minefields. To avoid setting off an accidental explosion I ended just folded more and more into myself like a little origami swan of repressed feelings. My sister’s response was more outwardly directed. Lots of explosions ensued. We both grew up to have a ton of mental health issues and have been through a lot of therapy. I still struggle to feel relaxed at home and like I haven’t done something wrong all the time.
Neurodivergent kids in these frameworks could never, ever win. "A little origami swan of repressed feelings" is so accurate!
One of the offhand comments my mother has made has stuck with me. I was born on a Sunday morning, so she missed Mass and couldn’t receive Communion. Full of emotion about it, she said it was the only time in her life she missed the sacrament. I think she was telling me this story to illustrate the importance of going to church and receiving Communion every single Sunday, no matter what, but I internalized that I was a burden to her from the very moment of my birth.
Feeling like a burden or that we were born into a debt we must work our entire lives to pay off . . . this is very relatable.
"We were born into a debt we must work our entire lives to pay off" is a really good way to describe it. I said to a therapist once that it felt like it took everything I could do to earn my way back up to zero.
My parents love to recount how I would cross my arms and proclaim “I don’t want to!” to emphasize how strong willed I was and how difficult I could be as a child. I’ve heard this recounted SO MANY times over my lifetime. And I think they felt successful when they had me highly involved in various ministry programs through my teens and had convinced me that God had called me into youth ministry. Their disappointment has been passively made apparent as they’ve watched my apparent unraveling of their expectations from the distance I’ve put between myself and them.
When my kids were toddlers my mother loved to tell me how she successfully stopped me from biting by biting me back. I think that’s when I started having a clearer picture of their parenting besides the knowledge that they did spank my brother and I. I also have very limited childhood memories which I couldn’t understand why until I learned the correlation and got a CPTSD diagnosis.
It is pretty wild to hear these "funny" stories once you are older and have had the chance to be around some toddlers yourself, isn't it?
I still get stories about "the face" i.e. the way I would look at people when they wanted me to do something and I didn't want to. Honestly, I still make that face when people are crossing my boundaries or generally acting like fools in my direction. Turns out, our innate "I don't want to" reflex was trying to tell us (and then) something important!
The sense of knowing memories must be there because of all of the surrounding evidence but not having clear recollection is so hard! It makes me question myself so much! Knowing that many of us have the same issue is even more evidence.
Definitely heard these war metaphors growing up. A major undercurrent in my childhood. May we all find healing!
It’s like colonialism. Except instead of fighting for physical land they are fighting for occupation of our hearts and minds. That’s even more threatening when parents are emotionally unstable. No wonder why I feared death. Either I give permission for this crazy person to have ownership of my thoughts and feelings and then I will remain fed and clothed or I fight for my actual sense of Self and not get my basic human needs met. I think I actually remember that conundrum. My parents didn’t start doing battle until I was about 5. I had a somewhat formed sense of Self by then. I quickly learned that my dad was untrustworthy. I remember knowing that they were trying to crush my spirit. I’m grateful that I had a chance to form a sense of Self before they tried to destroy it. Although I know that meant the beatings were a lot worse. So bad that they are mostly blocked. But I knew what I was fighting for. In a lot of ways that process destroyed me, but I don’t think they could ever fully overcome my sense that I should rightfully have sovereignty over my internal world. They got to me too late and my mom’s natural instincts before I was 5 were too good. RAP turned her into a bad mom in a lot of ways.
I’m thankful for this. It’s putting meat around those tough memories and validating a lot of my childhood that everyone wants to deny.
I view this entire movement (white evangelicalism in particular) as an extension of colonialism myself. We were raised in a propeganda-filled movement that needed us divorced from our bodies and emotions in order to continue on the oppression. But we remain strong-willed and are learning together in community to grieve and mourn and be fully present to our reality!
Our family stories are typically about my "strong-willed" older siblings. I was such a well-programmed little guilt robot, I washed my own mouth out with soap when I was 3 or 4 because I said my older brother was stupid, and nobody heard me say it.
The 'funny' story that comes to mind is when I was around pre-school age, my Mom became concerned that I might have a hearing problem. If I was watching PBS, and she said it was time to brush my teeth, I wouldn't respond. She shared her concerns with Dad. He entered the living room without saying a word, and I immediately hopped up bee-lining for the bathroom. He laughed, "there's your hearing problem."
There was spanking, and washing kids' mouths out with soap, though the latter was mostly at school. (Parochial school, K on up.)
Was talking with my sister about anxiety lately. She said, "Life, eh?" and I said "Life with PTSD and ADHD and being a high IQ maladjusted kid in an Inerrant Literal Word of God environment....Yeah."
It was particularly difficult to muster up the gratitude and praise that was considered a proper response to them disciplining us. Surrender was not enough. Agreement and gratitude and praise were required. It was a lot of work to get there, and a lot of blotting out or burying our actual feelings.