The Punishing Parent Within
Or does the American culture make us hate ourselves?
by
Robert Spencer Knotts
Imagine you’ve just made a mistake. Not a small private error but something big that troubles others.
You overslept and now run a half hour late for an important meeting. Or you backed into an SUV in the grocery store parking lot. Or you forgot your partner’s birthday.
You have a decision to make at such moments, we all do. Though for most of us it’s less conscious decision than automatic reaction. Do you rationally cope with the situation without forming harsh judgments about yourself, without allowing self-anger to swell? Or do you instantly judge and belittle and critique yourself for being … pick your adjective: stupid, careless, unreliable, thoughtless, lazy, unworthy. Or worse.
I think many, but not all, Americans fall into the judgmental category. Those who are less prone to such reactions, in my experience, tend to have a few characteristics in common. Generally they are less sensitive folks who don’t question themselves often and aren’t typically worriers. They roll with things.
But that’s not most of us. And it’s certainly not me. Despite my best efforts to bolster feelings of self-value all my life, I nonetheless far too frequently react with a seething contempt for myself when I make mistakes that feel significant to me, whether they affect others or not. That’s a hard thing to admit, but it’s true. Even harder because way back in 2005 I founded a federally recognized nonprofit group focused on inspiring self-worth in both children and adults, the Humanity Project. That mission is ongoing. And the admission is difficult too because I’ve written many works including poems, blogs, essays, musical compositions and an entire 600-page book called “Beyond Me” promoting the worth of the individual and of humanity itself.
Yet here I am, at age 72, still struggling with this conflict much more than I’d like. Why? Perhaps I was raised by parents who were quickly judgmental and punishing in response to my youthful missteps. To some extent, that’s so. My parents were both kind and loving people – but my mother typically was judgmental about everyone, especially herself. Her opinions, good and bad, included shifting attitudes toward me. My father also formed fast shallow judgments about others though not often about me. True, he slapped my face more than once for teenage sassiness toward my mother, yet I had a very close relationship with my father. To this day I feel he loved me unconditionally, with my mother loving in a way that seemed mostly conditioned on my immediate behavior and latest achievements.
Did my mother’s tendency toward severe judgments seep into my psyche? Without a doubt. Sometimes I can feel her commenting on things that I think or say or do. Yet I love her and she loved me. No, I since have realized that something more than just Mom was behind my self-critical nature.
The reasons are complex, as you would imagine. But at some point I noticed one unexpected contributing cause. I live, you live, in a very harsh culture here in the United States. And that culture fosters merciless judgments, vengeful responses, brutal punishments toward our fellow humans. This pervasive attitude infects many of us, not only how we deal with others but also how we cope with ourselves. Without our awareness, this becomes our default response to social imperfection and personal frailty. Including our own. It warps our thoughts and our feelings and our reactions toward ourselves during daily life as surely and insidiously as if we were struggling with the comments of an unforgiving parent.
For most Americans, we eventually become our own punishing parent. We instinctively feel that our mistakes must be harshly corrected – by ourselves. We create anxiety or depression, we grow suddenly ill, we sabotage a relationship, we suffer insomnia … or whatever manner of misery our psyche deems the most suitable punishment in the moment.
Clearly there are personal conflicts that coalesce in such reactions. But I’m suggesting another significant, much less obvious cause for our emotional struggles. In this country, we view our world through the social lens crafted during our hardscrabble frontier history. Conquer it, overpower it, overwhelm it, bully it. Shoot first, hang ‘em high. That’s our legacy. Compassion, understanding, forgiveness are not built into the American culture. Quite the contrary, these profound values often are viewed as weakness. This makes for a harsh psychological environment. Harsh for others we deal with, yes. But also harsh for each of us as individuals.
And that’s my main point here. Put plainly, the psyche of many Americans is damaged by our nation’s severe approach to life. Mine is. So, perhaps, is yours. But I believe making ourselves aware of this cultural phenomenon also allows us to lessen its impact. It’s possible to nurture more compassionate attitudes toward ourselves, and so toward others as well. I know this because I work at it daily and I have made progress. Much progress, I think. With much much work left ahead.
Without question, the American culture we inhabit is brutal. As I’ve suggested, this cultural brutality cuts very deep in our society – far deeper than the callous indifference and intentional cruelty so much in evidence within the Trump presidency as I write this essay. I find his leadership despicable. But no, as best I can tell, the harsh brand of individualism that concerns me is as old as America itself.
I began to grow more aware of this cultural hostility when reading a social media post about a city where I lived for 14 years, Burlington, Vermont. I love Burlington and I love Vermont. The original Facebook post was about efforts to correct what many see as a growing problem in downtown Burlington: too many homeless, too many drugs, too much crime. I noticed that even in very liberal Vermont, nearly all commenters on the post suggested heartless cures. Carrying guns to deal with offenders was a common reply. So was hard jail time. Only one person put forward the notion of housing the homeless and providing more jobs to the unemployed. Otherwise there was no sense of compassion within this post, no caring for the unfortunate, no recognition of a social ill that requires community solutions. The prevailing sentiment was that Burlington suffered from troublemakers who needed punishment rather than help.
We see this attitude throughout social media and everywhere in our culture. Social media is merely an outlet for these feelings, not a cause. It offers an accessible anonymous release for our rage, in the United States and in other countries of course. We are far from being the only angry population on planet earth. I believe most human beings harbor vast amounts of repressed anger, one way or another. But not all cultures encourage extremely harsh attitudes toward their neighbors. Our culture does.
Just watch a John Wayne western or war film for telling evidence from past decades. Duke isn’t interested in explanations or subtleties. He hits first and listens after, if at all. Strength is the only meaningful force for change. Intelligence and compassion are for sissies. Wayne’s movies were and are reflections of the American culture. Trump’s MAGA movement has openly adopted these same values without apology: Don’t confuse me with the facts, don’t talk to me of mercy, don’t show kindness to anyone unlike me.
America is the only major western democracy to still carry out the death penalty. Demonstrably, the death penalty makes absolutely no sense. Studies show it’s not a deterrent. It doesn’t save money but instead costs much more than lifetime imprisonment. It’s wildly imperfect, imposed on the poor most often and sometimes on the innocent. Putting criminals to death is vengence, pure and simple. And oh so American.
Not everyone feels this way, obviously. Many individual Americans energetically strive to live with greater compassion and respect for others as well as themselves. I see this through my work with the Humanity Project. I try to live this way. But I’m saying that no matter our rational beliefs and chosen morality, most Americans at hidden psychic levels are influenced negatively by a culture that remains hard and cruel in its core values. Our society is especially unforgiving in its treatment of those without money or power. Money and power frequently become instruments of our judgmental culture, permitting the selfish dismissal of anyone and everyone in need.
So let’s put my theory to a small test. Just ask yourself a few questions, responding very honestly please: Is punishment usually the best way to change an individual’s behavior, in your view? How should children be handled if they behave badly? Do you favor punishments for most criminals, whatever their offence? Are you quick to blame yourself for your own significant mistakes? If you blame yourself, do you dwell on your mistake for hours or days? And do you typically blame others for their errors, whether or not you express your feelings to them?
Of course, it’s difficult to be so honest with ourselves about ourselves. But I believe many readers will find upon sincere reflection, as I did, that our American culture imposes ideas on us that deeply influence our attitudes and values – and affect the way we end up treating ourselves as well as other people. Most of us are unaware of that stealthy social influence.
It’s not only our parents who create a big part of what we are. So do the things all around us every day, our culture in the form of government and history, arts and social trends, other family members and friends and colleagues and strangers.
There is an undercurrent in any society, a throbbing vibe felt by all. In America, that cultural vibration includes a very harsh attitude toward perceived imperfection. Your imperfections, and mine. By strengthening our tendency to form unforgiving judgments, ironically, the U.S. makes many of its citizens just that much more imperfect. We are hard on others. We are much harder on ourselves.
