day26-The road less traveled

2019.3.11 己亥二月初五 星期一 晴

       Conversely,even above and beyond simple insensitivety or neglect,there is much that many parents do to hinder this maturation process.Neurotics,because of their willingness to assume responsibility,may be quite excellent parents if their neuroses are relatively mild and they are not so overwhelmed by unnecessary responsibilities that they have scant energy left for the necessary responsibilities of parenthood.Character-disordered people,however,make disastrous parents,blissfully unaware that they often treat their children with vicious destructiveness.It is said that "neurotics make themselves miserable;those with character disorders make everyone else miserable." Chief among the people character-disordered parents make miserable are their children.As in other areas of their lives,they fail to assume adequate responsibility for their parenting.They tend to brush off their children in thousands of little ways rather than provide them with needed attention.When their children are delinquent or are having difficulty in school,character-disordered parents will automatically lay the blame on the school system or on other children who,they insist,are a "bad influence" on their own children.This attitude,of course,ignores the problem.Because they duck responsibility,character-disordered parents serve as role models of irresponsibility for their own lives,characer-disordered parents will often lay this responsibilty upon their children:"You kids are driving me nuts." or "The only reason I stay married to your father [mother] is because of you kids," or "Your mother's a nervous wreck because of you," or "I could have gone to college and been a success if it weren't for having to support you." In such ways these parents in effect say to their children,"You are responsible for the quality of my marriage,my mental health and my lack of success in life." Since they lack the capacity to see how inappropriate this is,the children will often accept this responsibility,and insofar as they do accept it,they will become neurotic.It is in such ways that character-disordered parents almost invariably produce character-disordered or neurotic children.It is the parents themselves who visit their sins upon their children.

        相反地，甚至超越简单的不敏感或忽视，许多家长做的很多事情阻碍了这一成熟过程。神经官能症的患者，因为他们愿意承担责任，可能是相当优秀的父母如果他们的神经症比较轻微并且他们没有被不必要的责任压倒，他们吝惜精力承担为人父母的必要责任。性格障碍的人，然而，成为灾难性的父母，他们经常幸灾乐祸地虐待自己的孩子。据说“神经质让自己痛苦不堪；那些性格失调的人会让其他人痛苦。” 性格障碍的父母让人痛苦的人中主要是他们的孩子们。就像他们生活的其他领域一样，他们没有承担足够自己作为父母的责任。他们倾向于用成千上万种方式来抚养孩子而不是为他们提供必要的关注:"你们这些孩子把我逼疯了."或"我和你父亲[母亲]结婚的唯一原因是因为你，孩子"，或“你母亲因为你而神经衰弱 ，”或“我本来可以上大学并取得成功的如果不是必须支持你的话。”这样的父母实际上对他们的孩子们说 ，“你们要对我的婚姻质量，我的精神健康和我的生活缺乏成功负责。 ”因为他们没有能力看出这是多么不合适，孩子们往往会承担起这个责任，只要他们真的接受了，他们会变得神经质。在这种方式下，性格障碍的父母几乎总是产生性格障碍或神经质的孩子。是父母自己把他们的罪孽降临到他们的孩子身上。