I grew up as part of one of the first generations who had the support of claiming “victim” status. If you are around 35 you know what I’m talking about – we were called generation X, no name no purpose and generally acknowledged that we’d have no future. Maybe that’s only where I grew up, a little town in the NorthWest. But it was almost like we were encouraged to think that nothing was our fault and that someone else had to be to blame for anything negative that happened in our lives.
The idea gave many of my classmates an excuse to become victims! Yes, in reality they are only victims of their own choosing, but look around – you’ll notice that it has created a few more generations that think that everyone else is to blame for whatever happens in life. Heaven forbid we actually take responsibility for our own actions and choices. I know that I’m ranting a bit, but I promise it will be clean and truthful!
Maybe at the heart of it all there was such a lack of parental involvement that many of my generation felt that if their parents found out they had made a mistake they would no longer be loved. Along the same lines, maybe the parents found it simpler to believe their child’s claim that everything was someone else’s fault so that they didn’t have to deal with anything negative in their child. It is very sad how much of a disconnect there was from parent to child in my classmates’ lives – the first generation where most children went home to an empty house after school each day.
It is so important that my boys DO NOT allow this mind set to take over their lives. Why? Well because it consumes you and rules your future and does not allow for healthy input, truth or improvement in life! It is basically a one way ticket to a series of failures and unfortunate circumstances. Successful people accept and take responsibility for their mistakes and problems. By doing so they are able to learn, correct situations and problems and make things better in the end. The “it’s all your fault” blame placing will never allow a child or adult to succeed and grow – it just digs a deeper hole.
My goal is to continually instill the reality of circumstances in my boys. That although sometimes others do things that can affect our lives, generally we need to take responsibility for what happens around us! If you have made a mistake you are still loved and can be forgiven, you just need to admit, correct and move on! An interesting observation here is that I have found with my boys that certain personalities actually tend to gravitate more toward the victim mentality than others. It really was a fascinating discovery. Sure children as a whole will try to place blame elsewhere, but when you try to bring it to their attention the reaction of some of them is far more extreme than others.
For instance, when my 11 year old does something dumb (what? yes ladies I’m sorry to say that boys often do things and their brain is completely absent in the process!), destructive, or thoughtless and I give him the look – I have quite a “look” I am told – he knows! Whether I like his reaction to my look or words he knows what he has done, that it was wrong, that correction does need to be made and that he has a choice in how he handles it – he cannot blame anyone! My 8 year old on the other hand obviously knows the second he has done something that needs correction and begins his defense! He would probably be a fabulous lawyer someday, but for now it is a pathetic attempt to shift blame onto anyone and everyone he can! There have been many instances where there is no question that he was the only one at fault – he’s 8 and loves harassing his siblings and sometimes gets way carried away! So begins a long drawn out affair of trying to get him to calm down first, put a zipper on his mouth second, actually hear the words coming out of my mouth and understand the problem then fix the situation. This feels like it could take DAYS sometimes! We swim through it, not happily or smoothly mind you, but you can see the difference in the reaction between the two boys.
Here’s the very simple differences in their personalities: 11 year old son is logical, down to earth, a bit more self-conscious – things are fairly concrete for him; 8 year old son is emotional (he’s on the rooftop one minute and in the valley the next), thinks the world revolves around him and everything is relative (his view depends on the situation) – things are fairly abstract. We’ll see as we go how this observation plays out in some of the younger boys.
Bottom line – we are responsible to raise our sons (with much help from Above!) to become healthy, functional adults and I think this is a pretty basic but clear area to consistently hold them accountable in order to see healthy results.