#harmful parenting

As a child of 2 parents who were both obviously self destructive, its one of the first few coping mechanisms I learned. I now struggle with both of their behaviors as an adult. They have passed on their own negative coping mechanisms to me. I take pride in stopping cycles including those of self abuse, so while I take responsibility for my actions against myself and my recovery I also believe my struggle runs so deep thanks to the subconscious normalization of self harm from my parents.

What if 1 of the issues with parenting in the US is 1 Christian perspective that people are bad? I don’t think this concept is inherently Christian, I think at its core it may be Abrahamic mixed with a philosophic perspective. In my majority Christian country, and in my Christian household specifically, I’m familiar with the concept of original sin and I’ve even been in another church that took this a step further and suggested all of us on earth sinned individually before we ended up here. This concept seems like it could benefit parents who are cruel to their children, and when their children accept original sin into their belief system it benefits these parents if their children are brewing guilt over their existence after accepting humans are sinful by nature. While an adult can contextualize this belief and reckon with potential guilt resulting from it, children are not capable of the same level of logical reasoning as adults. Yet children are emotionally developed, and so understand the world according to emotions.

Mother knows best