In Alice Miller’s book, Banished Knowledge, the chapter, called ‘the wicked child’ is the following.
“In Thou Shalt Not be Aware, I have demonstrated how precisely Freud’s “drive” theory and Melanie Klein’s theory of the cruel infant coincide with the traditional pedagogic view of the child. That which Martin Luther postulated four hundred years ago is still accepted today; thus, for instance, the psychoanalyst Edward Glover writes:
“Expressing these technical discoveries in social terms we can say that the perfectly normal infant is almost completely egocentric, greedy, dirty, violent in temper, destructive in habit, profoundly sexual in purpose, aggrandizing in attitude, devoid of all but the most primitive reality sense, without conscience or moral feeling, whose attitude to society (as represented by the family) is opportunist, inconsiderate, domineering and sadistic. And when we come to consider the criminal type labeled psychopathic it will be apparent that many of these characteristics can under certain circumstances persist into adult life. In fact, judged by adult social standards the normal baby is for all practical purposes a born criminal.”
“When I opposed this thesis of the cruel child, the alleged sexuality of the child is often pointed out to me. Without the moral attitude of ‘poisonous pedagogy,” which I describe in “For Your Own Good”, such a line of reasoning would be unthinkable for it assumes that sexuality is something bad and culpable. So far, psychoanalysis has not seemed to free itself from such evaluations. Although the assertion of infantile sexuality was declared the principal dogma of psychoanalysis, it is not clear what definition of sexuality this assertion is based on. The literature of psychoanalysis contains examples of very heterogeneous phenomena, such as childish curiosity and sensuality and the desire for physical closeness, for stimulation by stroking, for caressing and soothing, for gentle touching, for the physical warmth of another person, and for numerous pleasure experiences in the child’s own body, including the genitals. Yet all this doesn’t amount to sexuality, even though adults who were once raised with coldness and physical deprivation may like to call it that. In Sigmund Freud’s day, childish autoeroticism was punished with extreme severity, and the touching of the genitals was countered with threats of castration because the adults projected feelings of their own ‘impurity” onto the child and punished him for their own forbidden fantasies. However, this is not nearly the reason enough to equate childish autoeroticism, sexuality, and curiosity with sexuality.
“Sexuality is the copulative urge of human beings, who do not receive their hormonal directive until puberty. Proceeding from this biological definition, it is logical that I do not find this sexuality in children. It goes without saying that sexual abuse of children leaves its mark on its victims. Thus an abused child can simulate “sexual” behavior so as not to lose the regard of the adult. The result is a distorted picture. I have long been preoccupied with the question of why the plight of sexually abused children and their behavior are constantly being cited, in courtrooms as well as in psychoanalytic practice, as proof of their guilt. One reason is that the adults unload their ‘impure’ sexuality by ascribing it to the child through projection.”
“Even if the copulation urge were already active in newborn infants – which, of course, is utter nonsense – why should that be regarded as culpable? Sexuality is a natural urge that can’t be held responsible if some people resort to it to impair and destroy the lives of others. Such people become culpable, not because they succumb to the copulation urge but because in their history this urge was coupled with other factors such as cruelty, humiliation, and the exercise of power and because, on the basis of this history, they act destructively. When they include sexuality in their destructive acts, sexuality cannot be blamed for those acts. Taking the example of Jurgen Bartsch, I demonstrated in “For Your Own Good” how a person who was tormented in childhood becomes culpable and how misleading it is to hold his sexuality and alleged “uncontrolled drives” responsible. A small child cannot be cruel for the simple reason that he is defenseless and unable as yet to take revenge on others for the torments he has suffered – except perhaps on small animals. The child has not yet the power to destroy human lives, even though, of course, he can – and must- harbor murderous thoughts and vengeful desires in his imagination.”
“ A young pediatric analyst, who practices according to Melanie Klein’s method, once told me; “You obviously have no children of your own. Otherwise you would know that children are not, as you describe them, innocent, but have cruel imaginations. This can be observed even in the way an infant smacks its mother.” I didn’t immediately tell this young analyst that I am the mother of two children; instead I asked her what she meant by “smack.” She described a child who in a frenzy hit his mother’s face with his hands – with his fists even, she said. Although she herself had no children, she had observed such behavior on several occasions; moreover, mothers of children who were her patients had reported the same behavior to her. I tried to query her certainty: This smacking, I argued, might also be a harmless game; it depends on how the mother sees it. It is only if the mother feels humiliated and beaten, if she confuses the child with her own parents and resorts to pedagogic measures, that what began as playful behavior on the part of the child can turn into frustration and assume destructive traits. The child then feels misunderstood, and the only way he can express his frustrations is by hitting his mother with his fists. If I describe such a situation to someone who hasn’t been trained for ten years in the Kleinian theory, I am immediately understood. But this analyst looked at me with suspicion as she said, “Melanie Klein spent all her life working with children and her theories were based on her observations.”
“That is precisely the point: What kind of eyes are doing the observing? A mother sees her frenzied, screaming child and is firmly convinced that the children must be disciplined. After all, that is what she learned from her mother, and those early lessons are extremely affective. Melanie Klein observed her child and the other children from her practice against the background of her own upbringing and apparently did not see beyond what she had learned in her own youth from her mother. Since time immemorial, gynecologists, nurses, and parents have observed screaming infants and have likewise remained blind to the fact that those screams are the expression of psychic distress and are altogether avoidable.”
“My assertion that the infant is innocent has nothing to do with romantic idealization, nor is it derived from this or that philosophical evaluation. It stems rather from the reality of the child’s situation: A baby is defenseless and as yet bears no responsibility for others; as yet, he owes nobody anything. But this fact does not contradict the frequently observation that children can behave very cruelly, just as cruelly as they have been treated by others. Erin Pizzey, the founder of shelters for battered women and children reports that there are even some three-year olds who cannot tussle playfully but fight each other as if to kill. In their behavior these children reflect in every detail the brutality they experienced at home and reveal unmistakably where they learned their destructive behavior.”
“I am often asked by worried parents whether children are learning cruelty from television. In my view a child
who harbors no pent up rage will show no interest in brutal and sadistic TV programs. However, brutal programs are avidly absorbed by children who have never been allowed to defend themselves against overt or subtle tormenting at home or who, for example, to spare a threatened parent. So they satisfy their secret longings for revenge by identifying with what they see on TV. These children already carry within them the seeds of future destructiveness. Whether or not this destructiveness will erupt depends largely upon whether life offers them more than violence: in other words, whether witnesses willing to rescue them cross their path. What is important to understand is that the child learns cruelty not by watching TV but always by suffering and repressing.”
“The school of cruelty is often coupled with sexual abuse. When, for instance, a twenty-year-old man masturbates a five-year-old boy, the destructive components of gratification of desire are imposed upon the child by the adult. The child will never free himself from this type of gratification and, as an adult, will be subject to the unconscious compulsion to avenge another child, in some form or other, the rape he once experienced. Thus destructiveness, with all its attendant rationalizations, is taught, learned and disguised.”
“It is only from adults that an unloved child learns to hate or torment and to disguise these feelings with lies and hypocrisy. That is why, when the child grows up, he or she will say that children require norms and disciplining; this lie provides access to adult society, a lie that permeates all pedagogy and, to this day, psychoanalysis. The young child knows no lies, is prepared to take at their face value such words as truth, love and mercy as heard in religious instruction in school. Only on finding out that his naiveté is cause for ridicule does the child learn to dissemble. The child’s upbringing teaches him the patterns of destructive behavior that will late be interpreted by experts as the result of innate destructive drive. Anyone daring to question this assertion will be smiled at as being naïve, as if that person had never come in contact with children who didn’t know “how they can get on your nerves.” For at least since the days of Sigmund Freud, it has been known in ‘progressive’ circles that children come into this world with a death drive and might kill us all if we didn’t ward off “the first indications.” Alice Miller
When we stop seeing innocent parents we will start seeing innocent children…Especially adult children need to look at their parents in reality and stop glamorizing their childrearing ways as without faults and failures.
And in order for the adult child who still suffers the affects from abuse, we need to rage against the proper person, the one who hurt us, and let it out, changing our ideas of who our parent really is compared to the version with our repression of rage.
When you see someone who has injured you and your repress your rage, you are then building up the steam if you will of repression and if you don’t direct it to the right source, you then get a distorted view of reality and any annoyance or disturbance that springs up, your unexpressed rage falls upon the innocent.
In my experience, my rage for my father and mother was poured upon my children, the moment they did one small thing wrong.
And I knew I was way out of control and that I was way overreacting to a minor infraction, but I couldn’t control it.
Once I was able to see and feel who my father really was, and not my repressed memory and rage, I was able to pour out of me my rage towards him, and it left my children out of the picture.
They just happened to be innocent bystanders in a long-standing abusive relationship.
I had to change my perception of who my parents were.
We do have this all backwards, for each person who makes it to adulthood, and who has a child, they can be rest assured that the rage within will spill upon the child, Unless it has been delivered to the abusive person who began this dance.
Children always arrive innocent. Always.
Adults are the only ones who can turn them into evil destructive people…people who will hurt themselves or others.
If each of us would just mine our own rage and vent it to the proper places, our whole planet would change. We are responsible for our own mother lode.
I M Perfect lady 