From the moment a child is born, they are completely dependent upon their parents. Every aspect of the child’s well-being, including self-worth, is derived from their parents.
I recently stumbled upon a very informative video on YouTube about this very subject, titled “How Unloving Parents Generate Self-Hating Children,” by a creator called The School of Life. They produce several very informative videos and I highly suggest watching the video below.
With that being said, in the video, they explain that since children are helpless from the moment of birth, they look to their parents for their needs. In a way, they charm their parents into caring for them. Inherently, their only power is to “attract love that ensures they will be fed and clothed, protected, and kept alive.”
Children offer their unconditional admiration to their parents in exchange for their help and their love. No matter what a parent does, the child will love their parent instinctively.
Because of this, children recognize when they are not being shown, love. While love and admiration from their parents provide a sense of security, when they are not shown love, it rattles their sense of self. “What am I doing wrong?” they wonder.
The creators of the video word it so well by saying, “At this point, our biology initiates a desperate yet darkly logical process. The young child starts to try a lot harder. It redoubles its efforts to charm, to be good, to do what could be expected of it, to smile, and to ingratiate itself. It wonders what may be wrong with itself to explain the parental disapproval and harm – and doesn’t feel any alternative but to search in its character and behavior for answers. ”
Rather than being able to understand their caretakers are at fault for their lack of care, for their lack of love, children don’t dare ever let such thoughts cross their minds.
Instead, they turn their hatred inward. “What have I done to make this happen? There must be something inherently wrong with me.”
While the parent may be an addict or sociopathic, it doesn’t matter to the child. To them, their parent is admirable. The wrong, they insist, is within themselves.
Only later in life, when the child who has grown into an adult can explore the inner workings of their past, are they able to reconcile that the negative feelings they have about themselves aren’t because there is something wrong with them? Later, once this dark truth is brought to life, the dark truth that their parents dropped the ball on providing love and care to them, they can work past this and become happier with themselves.
If you, like many others were emotionally neglected by your parents who were supposed to love you, please know that there is nothing wrong with you. You deserved the love you needed so badly. Your parents were at fault- not you.
Please watch this beautiful video, I highly suggest it. And others listed on their channel.