When I started therapy in 1978, long before many of my readers were born, our mom muttered bitterly, not quite under her breath, “…the ‘blame your mother’ generation!” I have no idea why I even told her. From then forward, my therapist ever retained her reign as “public enemy number one.” Blame is not my paradigm – that I want to underline – and my purpose is anything but that! Rather connecting perhaps counterintuitive dots, that might lead to better self-understanding is my wish. And admittedly, sharing insights that might be interesting to me.
Similarly, “Refrigerators, Helicopters and Tigers” (oh my!) may seem to evoke Dorothy exclaiming the perils of a terrifying world or a bad joke (what do the three have in common…) So, bear with me please as I seek to elucidate more less than obvious expressions of neglect.
Again, the deepest and most injurious sequela of neglect is the rupture or failure of the primary, most important attachment(s,) most notably with the mother whose body houses the child at first, and ideally would continue as a home and source of comfort, regulation, and protection from the perils of that dangerous world.
Perhaps the most integral and the first vehicle of comfort and regulation is the “simple” experience of being seen. Gazing into the face of a present and loving (ideally calm and regulated) other is foundational. Brain development begins with the resonant dance of the gaze and evolves into being accurately heard and responded to. Not perfectly of course. It seems so simple, no? A no brainer in more ways than one. Sadly, it is so very often lacking. Missteps and mistakes, of course, are part of the deal, but with repair, we are actually better for them. Confidence or knowledge that repair is possible makes the inevitability of imperfection bearable and survivable.
The most devastating impact of neglect is the deathlike loneliness of not feeling seen, but even worse, not being or feeling known. When I am known as me, as distinctly, uniquely ME, this means I exist. This feeling or sense that I exist may, with luck, evolve to a sense of self, and with even more luck, a sense of self-worth: I exist, and I matter. Without it, we may drift unmoored in a foreign world, wondering what is wrong.
Gazing into the face of a present and loving (ideally calm and regulated) other is foundational.
Refrigerators
I recently encountered the term, previously unknown to me, “Refrigerator Mom.” (If not for the chill factor, I would associate such a label with an abundance of food!) I came to find out that, in 1943, Austrian psychiatrist Leo Kanner theorized that cold, unresponsive, and emotionally inattentive parenting resulted in children who failed to develop and retreated from social contact. Kanner identified the child’s aloneness from early in life as the explanation for autism. In the later 1940s through the 1960s, Bruno Bettelheim, renowned psychologist, researcher, and educator at the University of Chicago, advanced further acceptance of the theory with the medical establishment and with the wider public.
Although understanding of autism has evolved since then, I find it interesting that some time ago, the connections were already being drawn between maternal emotional distance/absence, the young, developing brain, and subsequent social withdrawal. I also think that my serious, intellectual, decidedly cool-tempered, proudly Oxford-educated grandmother might have qualified as a refrigerator mother to our mom. She was stiff and unaffectionate, undemonstrative and matter of fact. She certainly was not a fairytale baking and gift-bestowing type of grandmother, either, and when our mother was a child, pre-Holocaust, being of substantial means, I am sure nannies contributed to the distance. No wonder our mom, from my point of view, was disconnected and lacking in emotion, presence, and warmth.
Confidence or knowledge that repair is possible makes the inevitability of imperfection bearable and survivable.
Helicopters
In our part of the world, hovering in the shadow of Silicon Valley, where many over-achievers are made, horizons are crowded with the so-called Helicopter Moms. These are the micro-managing moms that are on top of the child’s every move, pushing and pulling, prescribing and buzzing, or roaring as it were around the suffocated and overstimulated child. The hovercraft is everywhere, researching and making decisions for the breathless little one, who has no opportunity to even see what the choices might be. Play dates, after-school activities, sports teams… These are the parents overzealous in the stands, cheering the child on as if their lives depended on winning the championships.
In his 2017 book, The Matheny Manifesto: A Young Manager’s Old-School Views on Success in Sports and Life, professional baseball manager Mike Matheny describes in detail the behavior of these roaring sports “chopper” parents, many of them trying to compensate for their own mediocrity, or failure, living vicariously through their young jock child. Mothers are far from immune. The incidence of Tommy John shoulder surgery, once unique to elite professional pitchers, has proliferated among younger and younger kids, being allowed and perhaps overly encouraged to practice and play too much.
Helicopter mothers are of course not limited to athletics, but it is a good example of the child being micromanaged, controlled, pressured to perform in some way that does not originate with their own will and preference, and too much. The same can be true for playing a musical instrument, some other form of art, academics… anything really. In effect, the child is a foil or surrogate, an alter-ego, and not a unique and treasured individual. Treasured most specifically for their exquisite uniqueness.
Tiger Mothers
The term Tiger Mothers was originally associated with Chinese mothers who mercilessly pushed their children academically to the point of illness and injury. In effect, it is a variety of abuse. Although that is where we got the term, I am more inclusive in how I would use it, having seen examples of these poor, exhausted kids across national and ethnic borders. I have been amazed hearing what kids had to do to be accepted to a local high school, in the way of not only academics and sports, but additional extracurricular activities (not to mention the application process itself and the tuition costs of such schools!) I would be breathless and wiped out from merely hearing about it! Perhaps the mothers did not roar or bite, but ferocity of the wild feline often sadly did seem to fit. I would find myself uncertain as to whether it was good news or not when the final acceptance or rejection from the school arrived.
It may seem counterintuitive to recognize profound neglect in such seemingly attentive, “involved,” seemingly child-centered parents. It is similarly painstakingly challenging to help such a child of any age recognize their experience as neglect. Some may be blindly “successful” in their honed abilities and live dissociated and detached socially and/or emotionally: Kanner’s autism. Some may crash in their struggle around partnering, finding the fulfillment of the marriage and family part of the script beyond their super capabilities. Some may be like the superstar Miss USA, Cheslie Kryst, who seemed to have it all, and shocked the world when she committed suicide by jumping from a high building. As Amy Tan powerfully stated, “loneliness is not about being alone, it is about not feeling understood.”
In spite of being seemingly swaddled with devoted attention, when what is being seen is not really me, it can be some of the most devastating, life-destroying iterations of neglect. Especially as the child, whatever their age, feels so guilty and unentitled to feel bad.
I recently heard an interview with Michelle Obama, talking about her new book, The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times. She said that we can create authentically independent, strong, and self-actualized kids by being present as long as they need it, then showing them that we trust them enough to let them do it their own way. Parents evolve, she said, from “managers to advisors,” thus enabling kids to grow into, and feel free/able to manifest, their own unique authenticity; kids that have the delicious opportunity to say with pleasure and pride, “That’s me!”
Today’s song:
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.