Saturday, June 10, 2006
The Wayward Ward
GUILT
I remember when I was a kid, family and friends used to good naturedly joke about giving each other a "guilt trip"
So when my kids were growing, I used to facetiously give them so called "guilt trips" while half joking, just as my mother did to me. Now I’m wondering if I didn’t in fact create a couple of monster’s, (my guardian’s) , who no longer feel guilt when they are responsible for another persons misfortune. I know that their mother brought them up with the idea that "nothing" was ever her fault. It was always the other person’s fault when anything went wrong. I have a gut feel that some of that type, of that additude, has been downloaded from their mother’s genes.
I often wonder about how adult children can profess to love their father, but decide on courses of action which demeans their father’s life, making it hardly worth living. I guess it must have to do with how much you are willing to go out of your way for your parents’ happiness. Lack of the feeling of guilt, causes feelings of responsibility to diminish to non excistance.

PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME?
IN ADULT CHILDREN?
In my quest to find an answer to the question of why some adult children do things to make their parents depressed and despondent, and show no guilt about it, I have looked at the possibility that their subconscious may be affected by something called Parental Alienation Syndrome.
Usually this affliction is found on children whose mother continuously expels hostility, distaste and disrespect for the non resident father. The profile of a child with PAS is probably a little different than that of an adult. As a matter of fact, I can’t remember ever hearing of an adult being characterized as having PAS. Of course that doesn’t mean that its equivalent doesn’t exist.

Also, another thought ran through my mind, in an attempt to understand why things do not get looked at from the perspective of the competent elderly.
Has anyone ever heard of "Munchausen’s by Proxy Syndrome"? This affliction is frequently found in mothers who call attention to, and over emphasize, real or imagined affliction that their children may or may not have. It’s been found by psychiatrists that a root cause for this syndrome is to draw attention to the parent, and they end up with the feeling of power for their apparent taking charge of the situation.
I see the possibility of something like this, in my children. Especially since they have never had any children of their own, to have power over. It looks as if I may be their surrogate child. Great, just what I need at age 68, to be acting childlike and dominated by bird-brained kids. Or, for that matter,by the burocracy flunkies who maintain the broken healthcare and judicial systems.


Richard Tuniewicz "The Wayward Ward"

richardtuniewicz@yahoo.com