Parental protectionism, middle/upper class child abuse? - Liberty.me

Parental protectionism, middle/upper class child abuse?

Tags: child abuse Childhood classism consumerism materialism middle class money upper class

Jack Wahlquist July 31, 2014 at 11:04 pm

I’m trying to get other opinions and feedback to expand this article I wrote, maybe into a book. I’m in an exploratory stage. I really want to get some good stats and stories. Get into the heads of other people, get the tangible evidence to shape my hypothesis.

Article here: https://heartbeatstoit.liberty.me/2014/06/17/platinum-cages-in-the-mind-of-millennials/

I feel like the biggest reason I was even able to form this perspective is because I am one of the few (or not few??) millenials who has rejected the school system-college path, questioned my family despite being middle class and not poor, and seen connections between myself and poor/urban/mixed race kids that have been abused.

Everyone talks about the welfare family, or the black family. Side note: not racism, I feel “black” and “white” have come to describe more than just race. Anyway, it seems like the helicopter parents, the coddlers, the kids who have such little freedom and such high sugary luxury, these stories are hidden. They are written off as “those kids had it all”. The abuse is invisible, and normalized. And justified.

Let me know what you think, or some good resources to further this.

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Steven Shafer August 13, 2014 at 10:07 am

Steven: First off Jack, very nice to meet you. You’re an excellent writer and this article does a great job of getting the point across. I think the extent to which middle-class and up families are perpetuating the abuse done to children, and the “bribing” done to children to keep them from bringing up the abuse is very important and not talked about much. Kudos.

I certainly had a similar situation growing up, nowhere near rich, but able to get a certain amount of luxury taken care of for myself. My parents were also horrible, abusive, manipulative “people,” and after years of being curious about, and trying to change the relationship, I chose to DeFOO (De-Family of Origin) about two years ago.

All that being said, what I did not get from your article was a sense of the magnitude of the abuse. For my family, the luxury was a tool to cover up physical attacks, verbal onslaughts, guilt tripping lies, etc. Although the luxury was also abusive, I didn’t get a clear sense from the article why luxury in some instances is bad and in others is not, and I think this is essential to make clear to the reader, or they may easily misinterpret that you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.

Here’s an example of what I mean: The abusive husband who beats his wife and then buys her flowers VS. the loving husband who just buys his wife flowers because he knows she likes flowers.

If I understand correctly, you’re talking about the first scenario, not the second. If so, I didn’t get that sense from reading the article, and I think that’s essential. I think you need to make a strong, moral case in order to not seem like you’re just anti luxury.

Obviously, I’m just some dude, take this all with as much salt as you need, it was a great article and I wish you the best down this path.

Thanks!

~Steven Shafer

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Jack Wahlquist August 13, 2014 at 5:46 pm

Well thanks for the feedback, but I wasn’t looking for the short term narrow view on this article as much as how to broaden it and conduct research to explore the idea more.

First, in response to your criticism on the ambiguity, I mean actual abuse, not luxury minus abuse. In some cases, there may not be abuse of one person from another, but more equal-based family problems. Either mutual abuse, or just bad relationships that result in disappointment and an empty family even if no abuse occurs. In any case, the luxury is used to cover up and make it look like everything is fine. I wasn’t as specific because I didn’t want to be too narrow or make assumptions; people for some reason interpret me as a black and white thinker, which I find viscerally ironic and downright wrong. So at any rate, I give room for people to insert their specific stories, truth, and ideas that would fit into my greater, generalization.

The feedback I was looking for was more on how to broaden and research these ideas for a potential book. This concept is so shunned and ignored, and I argue that so few people take my life path from those origins (abusive luxury) that they sometimes don’t even see it. Like a fish describing water. So of course I want to flesh this out and publish, and bring the issue out to many people. But I’m having problems with research and organizing the sub-points.

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Sarah Meyer August 14, 2014 at 4:05 pm

Hi there Jack, great article! I hope you do write this book. I agree somewhat with Steven, that while reading the article I sometimes couldn’t really tell if you were suggesting that my parents abused me in some way because we grew up in a nice house in a nice neighborhood?? For the record, no. There was no coddling, no hitting, plenty of freedom, plenty of love… plus a nice house and nice things. You have clarified your point quite well in your reply to Steven, so in a longer format (like a book) I’d work to make that clear(er).

Anyways – the whole reason why I’m commenting here is because I think it would be beneficial for you to research the outcomes. Look for statistics on drug abuse, alcoholism, poverty, physical abuse, obesity, etc… You could even make a case for cancer, as there are a lot of folks who believe cancer and other illnesses are caused by psychological wounds which have manifested physically.

My husband was a sufferer of the abuse you describe. Affluent father who gave him everything he ever wanted, even getting him out of trouble with the law on numerous occasions because he was well connected in the community. His father was also horribly abusive. I can attest to this, as I was subjected to his abuse on a few occasions as well. My husband died at the age of 33 from a meth overdose. It is stories like that which deserve to be told. (and I’m happy to tell it, in detail, if you’re interested) I believe his memory is best served by letting people know what really happened to him.

There is a lot of sympathy/empathy for the “poor” community, the drug abuse, alcoholism, lower life expectancy, etc… Nobody wants to talk about the rich white kid from California who couldn’t hold a job, was in and out of jail, and eventually killed himself with addiction at a very young age. He came from “privilege” as they would say – they would say he wasted his life, that he was lazy, that he made those choices. Maybe some of those descriptions are partially true, but let’s not lose sight of the tragedy of it all as well. His story was tragic, from day one, and no amount of money was going to fix that.

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  Jack Wahlquist August 16, 2014 at 2:34 pm
  
  I actually wrote that response before I went back and skimmed through the article again, and I don’t see where it’s unclear. I also wanted to keep the article reasonably shorter, I’m working on being more concise- more power in fewer words. I figured a simple separation between the luxury part and the abuse part was enough:
  
  “I was given an overabundance of ‘toys’ and ‘opportunities’ whilst being emotionally neglected and abused.”
  
  —> emotionally neglected and abused. Separate from the first half of the sentence.
  
  “After years in the school system, they have no human capital to upkeep the luxury they lived in childhood.”
  
  —> the school system, form of child slavery, also robbing one of a childhood to build skill and human capital.
  
  Many of the parents that started this trend operated from a protective-directive mindset. Coined and defined in his book “Free to Learn”, Dr. Peter Gray describes protective-directive parenting as follows:
  
  “Protective-directive parents do not limit children’s freedom in order to force them to labor in fields or factories… as directive-domineering parents did. Rather, they limit freedom because they fear for their children’s safety and futures and believe they can make better decisions for them than the children can for themselves…Directive-protective parents don’t beat their children, but use all of the other powers they have as providers to control their children’s lives.” (p.212)
  
  —> this one doesn’t need an explanation. In the article I also emphasized the way people only see physical abuse but don’t see how care becomes control.
  
  But I will definitely clarify that more and divide it up to go deeper into each section. Focusing on different types of abuse and how they are visible or invisible to society; how affluence affects this as well.
  
  I would be very interested to hear more about your story/husband’s story, you can keep it anonymous or send it via messages if you want. I think it could be a good starting point, I just don’t know what to look for or where to look.
  
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