As Brigid ponts out -Parents have choices about how they treat their children and how they parent those children. It is not compulsory not is it automatic to blindly pass on some or all of the abuse that you suffered to your children. Therefor if parents do abuse their children, they are doing so in self interest or because they are too lazy to challenge and change the modeling from their own parents.
David,
It's pretty clear to me that you're not interested in an alternative viewpoint, but I'm going to offer one anyway. I've thought a great deal about this issue, and I have come to conclusions that are somewhat different than the prevailing wisdom here. However, this is just my own experience and thought process--no one is "right" or "wrong" in how they feel about this very sensitive subject, of course.
I do believe that my mother did the best she could at the time, although her best was often not very good--and was, in fact, quite damaging to her children in consistent, easily identifiable ways. There are four children in my family, and each of us bears slightly different versions of the same scars.
But after a great deal of thought, pain, and work, I've come to believe that she, like all of us, was a prisoner of her personality. She could only view the world through the lens of what her personality allowed her to see. It is the narcissist's tragedy that he or she cannot even perceive the need to change. Has any of us known a narcissist who said, "I am hurting the people I love, and I need to change in order to stop that"? I would sincerely doubt it. These people will go to great lengths to turn the pain they are causing into something--
anything--other than what it is: the consequence of their choices and actions. They are incapable of seeing the cause-and-effect connection between what they do and how people react to, or feel about, what they did.
Are narcissists capable of changing? Possibly. I really don't know. But I know that in the case of my mother, her behavior was consistent and deeply ingrained. She has always had remarkable unity of character. She does not apologize; she does not "own" her behavior without catastrophizing whatever consequences that behavior has wrought. She can't say, "I'm sorry I hurt you" and mean it. She has to say, "Oh, so now I'm the worst mother in the world." I'm sure you get the picture.
But. Despite her unmitigated narcissism, she has loved her family to the extent that her personality allowed. That doesn't undo the damage, but it does allow me to admit that imperfect love is still very real love. Her love was always distorted because it had to pass through her personality on its way to expression. But that does not negate its existence.
My mother has been critically ill. I am forced to admit that she probably won't be around much longer. All the things about her that drove me nuts for over 40 years are probably non-issues now and forever more. But I know one thing for sure: Love survives. Imperfect, barbed, and painful, but alive. I was alone in the hospital with her one night recently, and she turned to me. For one moment she was completely herself, and yet more than herself. She said, "My darling girl. What would I do without you?" And though I am damaged by how she treated me, I knew that I forgave her for everything. Not because it's suddenly OK, but because I knew that if I didn't, I could not let her love survive in me, and so I would not be able to grieve her.
Sometimes that phrase which you find so nauseating expresses exactly the truth. Some of us are capable of surpassing ourselves, of growing, of suspecting that we can learn to be different and reaching toward that difference as a plant reaches for light. Some of us are not, but they can love us to the extent their capabilities allow. Disability comes in many forms, I think, and emotiional disability is very real. Most of the time, I think narcissism is a prime example of it.
Just my $.02, of course.
best,
daylily
