Evil Children

sol·ip·sism  [sol-ip-siz-uhm]  Show IPA

in philosophy, formerly, moral egoism (as used in the writings of Immanuel Kant), but now, in an epistemological sense, the extreme form of subjective idealism that denies that the human mind has any valid ground for believing in the existence of anything but itself.

psy·chop·a·thy  [sahy-kop-uh-thee]  Show IPA

noun, plural psy·chop·a·thies. Psychiatry.

a mental disorder in which an individual manifests amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc.

so·ci·o·path  [soh-see-uh-path, soh-shee-]  Show IPA

noun Psychiatry.

a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

My apologies for the change in noun to a person as opposed to a state on the last one, but Dictionary.com did not have an entry for “sociopathy.”

The Shieldmaiden recently directed my attention to this motivational image from parentingbeyondpunishment.com in which the author asserts:

My Irish side calls, “Shenanigans.”  It’s the most polite of my sides on this one.  It’s the only side that offered an expletive that was G-rated.

I shall refrain from dissecting Parenting Beyond Punishment’s position on punishment.  That has been ripped apart by so many people over the last several millennia and demonstrated to be wrong for the same time frame.  No, I will be concentrating on this manifestly erroneous assertion that underpins their thought process.

Allow me to explain from two perspectives.  The first is a quick description of an emotional (albeit logical) reaction on my part.  The second is the logical/philosophical/psychological.

“You will never be this loved again,” implies that you will be loved less after this time.  If the assertion is true, it naturally follows that PBP thinks love is an inverse function of time.

PBP’s love, where X is time in years and Y is arbitrary love units.

I personally have found the opposite to be true (the impersonal trend will be explained later).  My love for my parents has increased over time, and will probably continue as my children provide examples of what my parents went through without putting me up for adoption (unless they did, failed, and never told me).

My love (same scale)

Now in the interest of honesty, the graph of my love has a dip around the teenage years.  In the interest of generosity toward the opposing viewpoint, in the PBP graph I used a curve that preserves the maximum amount of love for the longest period of time.

The people at PBP really need to hope to whatever their deity or impersonal-divine-force of choice is that their children’s love follows my curve, because on their curve, a child’s love will be approaching zero around the time he is deciding on nursing homes for his parents.

PBP, do you [redacted] not think about how [redacted] these statements are before you publish them?

Having established that they are, in fact, idiots, on to the more scientific analysis of their assertion.

PBP, there is a simple fact of life that you need to come to grips with.

Children.

Are.

Evil.

Notice how this is reflected in my graph.  The curve starts at zero.  Okay, so it starts one pixel off, but I was using Paintbrush, and I was in a hurry.

Zero point is solipsism.  A freshly born child has no idea that there is anything in his existence beyond himself.  He has the inability to grasp that other people exist.  He cannot grasp that anything else exists.  His life consists of himself and himself only.  This is psychopathy on steroids.  This is the true epitome of evil.

This state of complete solipsism does not last long.  It ends right around the time that the infant needs to eat.  Suddenly, he has some object stuffed in his mouth and it makes his tummy feel better.  A couple hours later, goopy stuff is adhered all over his butt.  Then, some strange force wipes it away.

For the next several months, the child simply exists in this semi-solipsic state.  He has come to the conclusion that there is some outside force, but it seems to exist solely to meet his needs.  Eventually, he realizes that this is a fellow human.  At this point he transitions to the next step:  psychopathy.

This is where other people exist, but they only exist to meet his needs, and they [redacted]-well better do it right now, or he’s going to make them pay.  Sometimes, this is as far as the human ever develops.  Some people always assume they have the right to take what they want by force or threat thereof.

Assuming you raise them in a half-way decent manner, however, children will mature to the next phase:  sociopathy.

The sociopathic stage is where the child in our example has learned that other people exist and have wants and needs.  He has also learned that the best was to get something he wants is to manipulate others by use of their needs and wants.  If this description makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, you are probably a cat person.

A great example of this was when the Dot learned that the two facts, "Dada like hugs" and "Dot like brownie" could be combined into a method of extracting treats from her easily manipulated father.  Of course, it could be argued that I facilitated her sociopathy by letting her sit in my lap and give me a hug despite the fact that her whole attention was quite obviously on the Sara Lee wrapper in my hand.  Which is why I quit doing so.

This is where even more people stop than at psychopathy.  This is the group that works, not through forced coercion, but through emotional manipulation.  When the Lump flutters her eyes in an attempt to get an extra serving of ice cream, it really isn't cute.  It's pretty much as criminal as some guy running a sham charity trading a false sense of love for hard-earned cash.

Fortunately, given a proper rearing, most children will move on to actual love.  They will develop attachments and appreciate and love their parents more, not less.

And then they'll become teenagers.  But if everyone involved survives that...

The simple fact is, children are not born good.  If you're just trying to preserve your child's status as the noble savage, you are failing as a parent.  Yes, they are, in fact, savage, but, no, they are not to any extent noble.  It's your job to add that part.

[Human] nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.

And if this seems like a cynical and pessimistic way to view children, allow me to point out that it implies that with proper discipline, persons can get better, whereas PBP’s view is that people inherently get worse with age and offers no hope to the contrary.

So while my summation isn't quite the stuff of Hallmark cards, who’s really the pessimist here?