I read the article first and then I liked reading your comments and what you took from the article. Personally, the article really bugged me because it seems to overlook a lot. Who the hell defines what a “good parent” is anyway? Does this supposed “good parent” who raised a bad child have absolutely no wounds from their childhood that they subconsciously passed on to their child without even knowing it?


“the fact remains that perfectly decent parents can produce toxic children.”

I don’t like that quote AT ALL!

A little bit of background- My mom has 6 kids in her family, and it is a common fact in my family that her mother is a psychopath. From the time I can remember, I’ve known that my mom hated her mom. I’ve heard tons and tons and tons of stories about all the awful things her mom did to her growing up. In their family my mom likes to proclaim that she turned out to be the only normal child. She means that she was the only one who got married, had 2 children, lives in a nice house, has a stable income- all of that. Everyone else in her family are seemingly more screwed up than her. On the outside, and to everyone else looking in, my mom would seem to be a perfectly decent parent. I know that my cousins are confused why I have problems when I grew up well in a nice house with a mom and a dad and lots of money. So according to this study my mom is one of those perfectly decent parents who produced a toxic child. BUT SHE WASN’T PERFECTLY DECENT. She has MANY MANY wounds from her childhood that she has passed on to me. How could my mom possibly think that despite having a horrible mother she was magically going to be a great mom herself? MAKES NO SENSE WHAT SO EVER!!!! She thinks that she is nothing like her mother BUT SHE HAS DONE SO MANY THINGS TO ME THAT ARE EXACTLY LIKE HER!!!!!

I’ve blamed myself a lot for turning out so screwed up when I came from a “decent family” and this article doesn’t help at all. I think if I had read it before therapy I would have felt even more horrible for turning out screwed up, but I think I’m strong enough now and I know that my parents both have their own issues and their own mistakes in raising me that other people looking in from the outside might not see. I know that my mom did the best she could raising me, I’m just ranting.

Anyway, I think it would be interesting to hear what other people got from the article because I know my response is very specific to my own experience in life.

off the real subject, but does anyone remember the movie 'the bad seed'...i know that made an impact on my childhood, as i thought that i was like that little boy, maybe, that THAT would explain why no one loved me, at least in any way that COMPLETED my childhood yearning to be loved.

Same as MacLove, this triggered a bunch of things.

One quote from the article that I want to point out:

quote:

But there is little, if anything, in peer-reviewed journals about the paradox of good parents with toxic children.

The term "good parent" is so ambiguous. There are plenty of parents who may think they are being good parents when they are just blind to what they are projecting onto their children. This is unavoidable to some extent, but doesn't change the fact that it can be damaging. There is so much overwhelming empirical data that shows the powerful influence parents have on their kids. I'm recently learning how much of an effect my mother has had on me, and I know it was never intentional. Honestly, I think she has no clue.

Also, doesn't it seem unfair that the parents are talking to this psychiatrist, and he is making judgments and publishing articles based on what they told him? Everyone has filters through which they see the world, and parents will use these filters to judge the actions of their kids. And then it seems like this psychiatrist is taking what the parents tell him as an absolute truth, or close to it.

Now, say we give them the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps one of the kids in this article is just a "bad seed." (Ridiculous) Well, I had a professor once that had a sign on her door that said "The plural of 'anecdote' is NOT data." No way that this one case can speak for everyone else.

UV ~
This articles bugs me a bit too.

I think your comments were really good. I love what you wrote here:

quote:

I think the whole thing that troubles me the most is wanting to assign blame. It seems to me that cause/effect are hugely important here...

well said!

I agree that the labeling of good and bad seems really BAD. I don't like that it is labeling good kids and bad kids. Or good parents and bad parents. It’s sometimes not that simple... And a kid being a bad seed? Argh! and saying any kid is a “bad seed,” just seems so wrong to me. It doesn’t help anything either.

I am speaking very much from my own stuff here - which means this might be all over the place, or really screwed up perspective.

I've worked with a lot of kids in a couple of jobs (even as a case manager.) Many of them had serious behavior problems like ADD or other things. It's never so simple to say the kid is struggling because the parents skills are lacking, or another kid seems to be doing fine, because he has good parents. "Bad" kids doesn't always mean parents are totally responsible. Parent do affect their kids, deeply so, and sometimes terribly badly. Parents can also do all the “right” things, and still have a kid who is struggling. Which doesn’t mean the kid is a bad seed!

AND a 'good' kid doesn't always mean good parents either. I was a considered "good kid" all throughout school, and yet I was struggling so deeply. "Good" kid or adult, it doesn't always mean that there is no emotional battle that they need real help with.

Plus, it seems like there is something missing in how to respond to a "bad" kid - even if you have a "bad" kid and “good” parents (whatever the heck that is supposed to mean) THAT FAMILY *STILL* NEEDS HELP, SUPPORT, EDUCATION, HEALTH CARE... every family needs that, so they can handle their own and their child's struggles in the best way possible for themselves and the kids.

My parents had awful parenting skills, but they also didn't have the education or emotional support for themselves on how to parent better, and handle their own stuff better. They had a responsibility to seek it out - at the same time, they my parents grew up dealing with much worse conditions and parents, so things in our family seemed better to them. It was the best they knew of. My own understanding of the childhoods of my parents had, has helped me understand why they acted the way they did - but I don't *blame* my parents behavior on my grandparents.

and, both my parents seemed like very 'good' parents to the outside community, partly because their kids seemed 'good' too... so when our family started to struggle, and it was clear to others things were not ok, STILL no one did anything that they normally should do in the case of kids who were struggling like my brother and I were, because we had "good parents" afterall, surely they would do the right thing to get our own family help.

but my parents didn't.

no one helped us until it was too late and so much damage was done that it was impossible to ignore... (and it makes me mad to this day.)

Most of all, what is very striking to me is how this article reflects (maybe perpetuates?) the temptation that whenever someone is struggling/hurting/in pain/ doing what people don't like and people don't know a way to fix it - people (even sometimes me!) look for an easy answer, someone to blame, someone at fault, some way to make sense of it, control it, even feel assurance it isn't our fault, to get rid of guilt, to have it be a simple easy answer like A+B = C... and thus, out of this drive to seek answers that are neat and tidy, there are probably some parents who get blamed by others for kids behavior too much and probably told things like to just do better (and a lot of good kids who don't get help for them and their families that they need!)

This article was probably written with intention to reassure parents who have been blamed for kids behavior when that's not always the only thing going on, and rarely helpful to blame or not blame the parents! (It is very much so often a cause and effect issue - just like you said so well UV.) The author seems to go in the opposite direction, and makes the same error, trying to simplify a very complicated topic too much.

She may be a very good author, but this is such a complicated issue... and simplifying it into blame or no blame, sorta misses the dangers in doing that.

Kids are deeply affected by their parents. My parents and grandparents and I are great examples of it. And it's dangerous to start blaming people or not blaming them - the real dynamics are too often overlooked, and the support and help is missing...

ugh. ok, now I have totally ranted and probably gone a bit off topic. just my perspective.