I could have titled this Parents and Children except it was the mothers who took the brunt.
The harm that mothers cause their children is a central theme in Bob's body of work. It was also a central theme in The Environment.
Women who were deemed to be struggling psychologically were invariably diagnosed as repeating the sins of their mothers. (Which could well be true in general. I'm not taking a stance on the theoretical concepts.)
Members of The E of all ages were strongly discouraged from having contact with their parents. There wasn't a formal rule. The discouragement came in group, after the fact: "You've been a mental case since that day you had lunch with your mother."
Quite a few babies were born in The E. With just one exception, the babies weren't raised by their parents. In fact, parents (mothers in particular) were strongly discouraged from having any contact with their children. Children in the E were taught a mantra that Bob originated:
Don't be a dummy -- stay away from your mummy.
The baby handover didn't happen on day one. It would play out over months. The mother would receive withering attacks in group, led by Bob and the inner circle...
You're smothering your baby!
Why are you spending so much time alone with her?
The way you hold her is weird!
The parents would invariably acquiesce and the baby would be transferred to surrogates. Permanently. I gained the distinct impression that several of the mothers were permanently broken (for want of a better term) by these happenings.
I mentioned there was an exception. The only babies who weren't separated from their parents were the children of Bob and Tam.
My point here doesn't have to do with child rearing per se. It has to do with the authoritarian nature of the E, the rigidity of Bob's concepts, and how people were coerced to conform.
1 comment:
I understand, in retrospect, that a fundamental aim of Bob's was to prevent all deep attachments (bonds) between people except for their attachment to him. He was to be the center of everyone's world. This was especially damaging to parents and children.
I was told that I was "poison" to my young son. No explanation or specific evidence of this was given to me. Bob just said that if I cared about my child at all I would support his being raised by others. Like the other children - except for the Firestone children - my son lived in several different households while growing up. It was rare for the kids to stay in any given household for more than a year since any apparent "bond" between adults and children was to be avoided. Thus, everyone - parents, children, caregivers -
was anxious and insecure about their relationships to each other. We were vulnerable and frightened. Just the way Bob wanted.
GMC
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