Mother is on another one of her rampages. She is mad at everybody but, as usual, she is most angry with her six-year-old son. “I wish you had never been born,” she says. “You’re always getting into trouble. You never will amount to anything at all. There is just something wrong with you.”
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A thirteen-year-old boy brings home his first report card from his seventh grade teachers. His grades are excellent: four A’s and one B. His father scans the grades, briefly praising his son’s good work. Then the lecture begins. “When I was in school, I never settled for anything less than straight A’s,” he tells his son. Thirty minutes later, he closes the sermon with these words: “If you want me to be proud of you, son, you will have to do a little better than this.”
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Something must be wrong with Dad. He has been lying on the couch for days now, crying off and on, too sad to go to work. This has happened before, but the children can’t remember it ever being this bad. Finally, the oldest child, sixteen-year-old Susan, asks her mother to please call a doctor. But Mother refuses to act. “You know we live in such a small town. If I call the doctor, pretty soon the whole town will know. What will people think of us?”
* * * * * * * * * *
“She’s such an ugly little brat. I guess I’m not cut out to be a parent. Every time she cries, I shudder. I can’t stand feeding her, and I want to throw up when she needs to be changed. I know I’m supposed to spend time with her, but after a few minutes I start to resent her. A couple of times I’ve lost control and smacked her, and she wasn’t even doing anything wrong.”
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Some families specialize in shaming. Dozens or even hundreds of times each day, members of these families say and do things that create and perpetuate shame. We call these families shame-based families.
In some families, one or two people are singled out for shame. These persons are the family scapegoats, the ones who get blamed for everything. Scapegoats are given the whole family’s shame. Meanwhile, other members of the family seem to be able to do anything they want and never get into trouble. Scapegoats often believe they will always be branded as bad, dumb, or worthless. They carry their shame with them into adulthood, expecting always to be judged.
Other families are so swamped with shame that everyone is affected. The parents think of themselves as failures, unable to earn enough money or to provide enough love. The children learn that there is little in these families to be proud of, and they gradually lose their spirit as they go through life. Everyone in these families criticizes the others. The daily routine is full of insults and personality attacks.
Families promote shame through the way the members act with each other. Children who grow up in shaming families often emerge as shame-based adults whose lives center around feelings of low self-worth and defectiveness.
We will discuss in this chapter how shame develops and becomes exaggerated in shame-based families. Since parents are in charge of these families, we will emphasize parental behaviors that cause shame. Before we begin, though, we want to give a few words of caution. First, remember that virtually no parents deliberately set out to ruin the lives of their children. Shaming parents often come from shaming families themselves. They simply may not know a better way to parent, or they may not realize the damage they do with their shaming attacks. Second, no family is immune from occasional shaming episodes. A certain amount of shame is inevitable and perhaps necessary for a family’s normal development. Shame-based families, however, cannot or do not control this shaming behavior. Members of these families often seem to attack each other.
One last word of caution to readers of this book who come from shame-based families: It would be easy to feel resentful as you read this material. It might also be tempting to blame your parents for all your problems with shame, even if you have not lived with them for years. Some of the exercises at the end of this chapter might help you with your feelings. Remember that as an adult you must take responsibility for your own shame. It is important to learn how your parents contributed to your shame so you can begin to alleviate it. Shame from the family of origin is painful and damaging, but it does not have to condemn anyone to a miserable life.
Children who feel defective often have been told over and over that something is wrong with them. Eventually they believe these messages — then they repeat them to themselves until they are certain that they are shameful.
Five messages are especially damaging to a child:
This kind of statement attacks a child at the very center of his being. It tells the child that he was born damaged, that he is rotten to the core, that there is something terribly bad about him and it can never be changed. Some examples of these messages are:
When a parent actually believes the statement, a child can do nothing to make a parent think or act otherwise. For example, a parent who believes his child is crazy can always find some evidence to support this. “Did you see how funny Joey looked when you told him we were going to the zoo? What a strange look. I thought something was wrong with him. Normal kids don’t do that, do they?”
The child who receives “You are not good” messages may come to believe that she is inherently defective. She may think that her birth was a dreadful mistake and she owes the world an apology. This child becomes spiritually damaged, seeing no reason for her existence.
This kind of message is more subtle but just as damaging. A child gets the message that her behavior or personality is almost, but not quite, acceptable. She simply must do a little more. The child who cleaned three rooms really could have cleaned four; the one who came in first in the track meet should have broken the record; the child who did all the wash forgot to fold the clothes exactly right. Other children get the message that they are a bit short on brains or beauty, or that they are a little less likable than their brothers or sisters.
No matter what these children do, they cannot gain parental approval. Their parents always seem disappointed in them — but these parents are quick to point out that their children have great potential. If only they tried harder, they certainly could do more.
Children shamed in this way often believe that they will never be able to do enough to win their parents’ love or respect. Nevertheless, that does not mean they quit trying. In fact, they may work to exhaustion attempting just once to hear that they are good enough. They may carry this inner desperation into adulthood only to marry mates who repeat the same pattern of nonacceptance and disappointment.
Recipients of “You don’t belong” messages often feel different from the rest of the family. Something about them is unacceptable and sets them apart. Perhaps they are the only ones in the family with red hair, or maybe they are “too smart for their own good.” Possibly the mother or father failed to bond with this child at her birth. Whatever the reason, the rest of the family seems closer to each other than to this child.
Children who have gotten this message repeatedly may be very sensitive to nonverbal rejection. They notice someone’s small shrug of disinterest or concealed yawn. They may not be able to put what they feel into words, but they sense that they will always be a stranger in their own family. They desperately want to be accepted but have no idea how to make that happen.
This kind of message also contributes to a child’s sense of deficiency. A child depends entirely on being lovable. Nothing else can guarantee that he will be protected, sheltered, and fed. And yet not one of us can earn another person’s love. No child can make his parents love him. The child who discovers that a parent does not love him is bound to feel vulnerable. He is also very likely to conclude that something must be wrong with him. After all, other children are loved by their parents.
Unloved children are not necessarily physically abused or neglected. They might be simply tolerated in their families. They seldom if ever are told they are loved. The parents do their duty but never convey the idea that they treasure their children. Children shamed in this fashion may grow up believing they could never be deeply loved by another human being.
Some parents make a habit of threatening to withdraw their love. They say things like, “If you don’t do what I say, I won’t love you anymore.” They may also reject a child nonverbally by turning away suddenly or refusing to speak to the child. These threats and acts are terrifying, especially to the youngster who has no sense of time. To her, a few minutes of silence may feel like forever.
Parents who threaten to withdraw their love use the fear of abandonment to control their children. They may not realize that they are deeply damaging the child’s sense of worth in the process. They contribute to a child’s excessive shame when they imply that he is only worth loving when he behaves.
Many children may hear this message directly; for example, a parent might say, “I wish you had never been born.” Perhaps a woman became pregnant and it led to an unhappy marriage or economic struggle. Possibly a parent resents or even dislikes one child.
Shaming messages can trigger a strong sense of emptiness and nothingness. Thinking I should not exist drains the energy, leading a child to despair. The child who accepts this statement will have difficulty finding a reason to live. Then, or later as an adult, he might even consider suicide. Self-destruction reflects hopelessness. But, at the same time, it is an act of loyalty to shaming parents: Since you tell me I should not exist, I will cease to be.
The fear of rejection is a familiar theme in shame-bound families. Children may be left alone repeatedly, victims of parental disinterest or neglect. They may be ignored and forgotten even when their parents are home. Sometimes parents get so absorbed in their own lives that they have no time or love to give. Neglect is often extreme when parents are distracted by alcoholism, mental illness, or similar highly stressful conditions. Sometimes neglect is deliberate. For example, we have treated several adult clients who, as children, had parents who would not speak to them for weeks or months at a time.
A child experiences betrayal when promises are repeatedly broken. A noncustodial parent who schedules visits but fails to appear betrays his children. So does a parent who frequently promises to take time with the children but never gets around to it.
The rejected child will often believe there is something wrong with her that triggered the rejection. But each rejection mentioned may encourage slightly different feelings and thoughts.
The common theme is shame — the sense of inner defectiveness that makes rejection inevitable.
No parent can always pay attention to his children. The shaming patterns discussed here will not occur just because parents happen to occasionally forget or ignore their children. The rejections that promote excessive shame are those that are important, traumatic, or repeated.
Physical and sexual abuse of children by family members can be powerfully shaming events. Victims of these assaults think that they cannot control their own bodies. They may fail to develop a strong sense of who they are because they can’t establish boundaries that will be respected between themselves and others.
Victims of physical abuse are treated with contempt when they are punished. They may be told that they are bad or horrible. It is very difficult for that child to fight off those messages while being physically overpowered. Long after her physical wounds have healed, she will still feel ashamed. She may also experience the humiliation of being too weak to avoid a beating.
Victims of sexual abuse frequently feel dirty and disgusting. Shame and sexuality are closely connected, and the person with a healthy sense of shame will normally also have developed a capacity for sexual modesty and discretion. A parent who sexually abuses a child pollutes that child’s sexuality. The shame that accompanies sexual abuse can severely damage a person’s sexual identity.
Shame-based individuals fear exposure. They don’t want others to see them too closely because they are afraid their inner “badness” will become obvious. They often seem to wear masks — assuming roles that nobody can see through — to protect their fragile identities. They are too ashamed to reveal their deeper selves.
Shame-based families operate the same way. Their most important concern is reputation. The answer to the question, What will the neighbors (my mother, her boss, et cetera) think? is critical, sometimes more important than the need to face reality. It is as if community approval is crucial and community censure is unthinkable. The image of respectability must be maintained.
Parents who control these families maintain pressure on their children to conform to community expectations. Sometimes, this insistence on propriety is a positive force that helps a child learn and appreciate group standards. At other times, when those pressures are too strong and rigid, a child has to sacrifice great chunks of her individuality in the name of fitting in. The child learns that she can avoid shame only through sacrificing her real self.
Shame-based families often keep secrets. Any number of things may be hidden: a relative’s senility; Mother’s pill dependency; Dad’s problems at work; the trouble a son or daughter is in at school or with the law; a family member’s pregnancy, depression, or disease. Children in these families are told (either directly or indirectly) they shouldn’t talk about any of these things. If they do, they may be punished for bringing shame to the family.
In secret-keeping families, parents control the flow of information, telling each child only enough so they won’t say something embarrassing. Certain members may receive more information than others. Children begin to keep their own collection of secrets, since by now they have decided that secret-keeping is necessary for survival.
Keeping a lot of secrets can make a family sick with shame. People who grow up in these families think there must be something wrong with the family. Who can feel proud of a family that is perpetually in hiding?
Very few people who grow up in shame-based families can grow to adulthood unscathed. Most carry their excessive shame with them. When they marry and have families of their own, they are at risk of becoming shaming parents who continue the legacy of deficiency messages, rejection, and secrecy. Remember, many parents in shame-based families are themselves deeply ashamed.
Can shame-bound families recover? We believe they can. We have seen families replace mutual shame with mutual pride. They have done this by substituting praise and appreciation for criticism and attacks on each other. Adults can heal their wounds whether or not they are still involved with their families. We will see how to heal these wounds in Section Three after we explore the remaining sources of shame.
Do you believe that you are not good, not good enough, don’t belong, aren’t lovable, or shouldn’t exist? Have you felt this way a long time? If so, you may have been shamed as you were growing up. See if you can identify which messages you received, from whom you received them, and how you received them. Notice the examples given to help you.
Abuse comes in many forms, including some ways we might think are normal. Shame-based persons often believe they deserve abuse. Take time now to look at what happened in your family of origin.