Once upon a time, you were a newborn baby. You had just spent about 9 months in an amazing biological isolation tank – with 24/7 womb service. Although you were immersed inside your mother for those months, you were pretty much on your own.
From birth onwards a totally new situation arises. In the womb, you kind of did whatever you wanted. Now there are adults taking care of you who want you to do what they want you to do, and not necessarily what you want to do.
If the adults could manage to be sensitive to this amazing new arrival, they would naturally do their best to respect whatever the child wants. It is their life, not ours. This little child is just built for rapid learning: their brains are creating 1 million new connections a second! So, it can quickly learn that we are doing our best to help it do what it wants to do, so that when that is not possible, it will accept that too. A natural child-adult bond based on love and respect is perfectly possible.
Of course, that presupposes that the child is really wanted, and welcome from the start. If, as often happens, their arrival is simply accidental, any ambivalence in our part will only poison the process.
Sadly, even our “yes” has a limit, and we end up imposing our preferences onto the child.
How do we manage? It might be a grimace instead of a smile, or a very slightly rougher handling with colder hands than usual. It might be a change in the tone of our voice – any one of so many ways our inevitable discontent can show through our veneer of “love.”
Babies even know when you are looking in their direction whether you are looking into their eyes or somewhere else.
They are super acutely aware of every nuance of your behavior and feel each rejection, no matter how subtle.
How is this possible you ask? How could those idealized people, “our mums and dads” possibly do anything but love their children?
It works like this. Every time you want the baby do one thing, and the baby wants to do something else, you need a way to persuade the baby to follow your instructions. Obviously. Our “love” for others is always conditional when it comes down to the wire – it is the only love we have ever known ourselves.
So, we inevitably start to manipulate the child into doing what we want.
Whether we like to acknowledge this or not, this is a battle of wills. The adult isn’t intentionally punishing the child for not doing what the adult wants. The process is largely unconscious. And is exactly how the adults were treated when they were babies, so what is the big deal? It is just a normal upbringing, right? Or a down-bringing?
Some babies are more rebellious than others. Some adults are less aware of what they are doing than others – and behave in a way that would provoke any baby.
Just imagine all the different ways this process can escalate over time. Perhaps a little less time on the breast? Or a less rapid response to those tears…. Sometimes the baby is even given a good shake to help it realize that it needs to do what is required. As time goes by, maybe a good smack is needed…. And later even a beating or two….
Most of us don’t want to start being violent with our children, although out of frustration it happens.
In one study of nearly 5000 incidents of abuse, 300 children died.
It is a very unequal power struggle. The baby is totally vulnerable and helpless without the support of the adults. The child doesn’t just “want” the adult’s love and appreciation. It is critical for the child’s survival. “Failure to thrive” is the natural result for any child who doesn’t receive enough nurturing. With the death penalty as the ultimate sanction!
Instead of any overt violence, we opt for the subtler means of expressing our pleasure or displeasure as the carrot-and-stick method of persuasion.
Whatever approach we take, the child receives the same message:
My smile, my warm loving hands, my soft gentle voice that I know you so appreciate are only available – but only if you do what I want.
You are made to feel unworthy, inadequate, not as lovable as you could be. In short, not good enough as you are.
It is so subtle that the perpetrators themselves don’t realize they are doing it. They don’t realize that it was done exactly like this to them when they were babies. They are unconsciously repeating an age-old ritual.
As the poet Loudon Wainwright lll writes, and sings, in “Be Careful There’s a Baby in the House”:
Be careful, there’s a baby in the house
And a baby will not be fooled
It’s a thing brand new, does what it wants to
Until you get it schooled
That schooling starts from birth.
What does every child take from this?
You are not ok as you are. But you could be. And the price? Obedience.
The Christians – the Golden Rule of do-unto-others people – even embellish this message of unworthiness with the notion that the baby is “born in a state of sinfulness” – the original sin.
And what was the original sin? Disobedience.
Go figure.
The child is so dependent on the adults, so vulnerable, that the situation is made very clear to the child: If you want to survive you need to shape up!
In reality, this is the original crime scene. The moment our unique beings are drowned by the demands of the society, the culture – the collective we happen to land in at birth.
So, not only are we crushed as an individual and turned into an obedient slave of the system from the get-go, we but we are also taught that we are essentially unworthy, unlovable, and unacceptable. An unfortunate status that can be remedied only by doing what the collective expects of you.
Or, as Osho puts it:
“You have been conditioned to hate yourself, to condemn yourself, to reject yourself…. So from the outset, rejection.”1
Have you ever wondered why “temper tantrums” happen? Doesn’t each one of us want to rebel against this insult to our existence.
What do the experts tell us:
“Tantrums are a normal part of your child’s development. They happen as a child learns to become more independent,” the Cleveland Clinic reassures us.
And:
“Tantrums usually last between two and 15 minutes. Violent tantrums that last longer than 15 minutes may be a sign of a more serious problem. If your child has lengthy, violent outbursts, talk to your healthcare provider.”
And happen “an average of one a day.”
So, violent freak outs once a day of less that 15 minutes is “normal.” It is nothing to do with the child being forced into psychological servitude. It happens as the “child learns to becomes more independent” we are told.”
George Orwell! Where are you when we need you.
“Children often outgrow tantrums by the time they enter preschool, at around 4 years old,” the same clinic confirms.
Slowly your rebellious spirit is crushed as the parents do the fundamental grunt work for society, after which the education system takes over.
Now it is so easy to persuade you to identify with any view of yourself that is “correct.” That you are Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish…. Canon fodder for the religions. That you are German, French, American…. Communist, Fascist, liberal…. Cannon fodder for the politicians.
You need to behave like a good girl…. Or that boys don’t cry, they “control their emotions” – and provide cannon fodder for the psychiatrists.
Yes, we now fill you with the “necessary illusions” as Chomsky calls them: beliefs you will now accept as your own.
As everybody around you believes them too, you don’t even notice that are totally arbitrary, supported by no evidence at all.
Central Castings is waiting for you. We have a limitless selection of approved outfits for you to parade around in, identify with, feel proud about…. The real “you” emerges, with just enough make-up here and there to conceal the inevitable cracks in the façade.
It is called your “personality.” Like the actors of ancient Greece who spoke their lines through a mask they called a persona that they held up in front of their face.
Of course, we are all persuaded that this personality is our individuality.
In truth that original individuality lies moribund on the cutting room floor with the scars of our early struggles to survive.
This primal crime scene is so cleverly camouflaged. The intelligentsia even promote a serious debate about whether society isn’t now “too individualistic” rather than the alternative proposition of being more “collectivist.”
The truth is everyone has been successfully indoctrinated by their parents, their schools, and their peers. By the politicians, the media, advertising….
To be well-trained robots, brainwashed to believe all these identities were “freely chosen” because I live in a “free society.”
A world of semi-detached imposters paying allegiance with their lives to a false reality where there are no individuals anyway. And only an integrated individual respects others. So, there is no “community” or collective either.
Only alienated, stressed, and often sad and lonely people – the wretched of the earth come home to roost.
And the solution?
“Protect the child from others who can influence him; protect him at least up to the age of seven. The child is just like a small plant, weak, soft: just a strong wind can destroy the plant, any animal can eat it. Put a protective fence around it, that is not imprisoning, you are simply protecting. When the plant is bigger, the fence will be removed.
“Protect the child from every kind of influence, so that he can remain himself – and it is only a question of seven years because then the first cycle will be complete. By seven years of age he will be well-grounded, centered, and strong enough.
“You don’t know how strong a seven-year-old child can be because you have not seen uncorrupted children; you have seen only corrupted ones. They carry the fears, the cowardliness, of their fathers, mothers, their families. They are not themselves.
You would be surprised to meet a child who has remained uncorrupted for seven years. He would be as sharp as a sword. His eyes would be clear, his insight would be clear.
“And you would see a tremendous strength in him which you cannot find even in a seventy-year-old adult….”2
END
1. Osho, The Transmission of the Lamp, Talk #43 – The Monkey Is Dead
2. Osho, From Darkness to Light, Talk #3 — Help Your Child – Protect Him from Yourself!
