I was talking with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
we_are_spc a couple weeks ago about neglect, and it got me thinking (like you do) about how academics need to publish in nonacademic newspapers and magazines synopses of recent work in their field written in plain language so that there is not a huge divide between public and privately held knowledge. Especially knowledge that affect everyone.
The popular understanding of neglect is that it happens when parents leave their kids alone for long periods of time, or don't feed them, or don't get them medical attention, or don't let them play or go to school. It's big, obvious stuff. You can tell when a kid is neglected.
Well, sort of.
Neglect is also when parents fail to respond appropriately to their child's emotional needs. A child is "crying it out" while the parent leaves the room and "doesn't reward their being manipulated for attention"? That's neglect. That child does not have words for how they need to be supported, so instead of letting them ask for support nonverbally, by crying, parents often just expect children to "be a grownup about it". I have seen this done with children who were ridiculously young. I have heard of this being done with babies and not had other people in the forum say a word against the parents.
You know that thing that parents do where they watch their kid fall down and then they try to distract the kid to keep them from realizing that they are hurt because then the kid will then cry to seek reassurance? That is neglect. It's a subtle form of gaslighting to treat people like their pain doesn't matter if they can be distracted from it. Children are tiny people, and this is a foundational experience of their pain not mattering to the most important person in their lives. And it will happen in a hundred ways throughout childhood. Most of us are raised this way. Most of us are set up to assume our pain is not important to others, or to assume that other people aren't going to care about our feelings even if they tell us that they love us. Because when we were little, the people that we trusted the most didn't want to hear it.
And now we have grown up, numb, hiding from our feelings because we can't put into words "I think something vague and insidious happened to me when I was a kid, but I can't put my finger on what because our culture treats it like that's normal." So we assume that our parents were correct, and we treat other people the way we were taught to: casual about their pain if we can distract them from it. Refusing to respond to nonverbal requests for reassurance. Thinking that being distracted and emotionally unavailable for long periods of time still counts as an appropriate relationship. Gaslighting people about their feelings in subtle ways because we don't see what the big deal is, because we are so out of touch with our own feelings.
we_are_spc a couple weeks ago about neglect, and it got me thinking (like you do) about how academics need to publish in nonacademic newspapers and magazines synopses of recent work in their field written in plain language so that there is not a huge divide between public and privately held knowledge. Especially knowledge that affect everyone. The popular understanding of neglect is that it happens when parents leave their kids alone for long periods of time, or don't feed them, or don't get them medical attention, or don't let them play or go to school. It's big, obvious stuff. You can tell when a kid is neglected.
Well, sort of.
Neglect is also when parents fail to respond appropriately to their child's emotional needs. A child is "crying it out" while the parent leaves the room and "doesn't reward their being manipulated for attention"? That's neglect. That child does not have words for how they need to be supported, so instead of letting them ask for support nonverbally, by crying, parents often just expect children to "be a grownup about it". I have seen this done with children who were ridiculously young. I have heard of this being done with babies and not had other people in the forum say a word against the parents.
"Trauma early in childhood can result from a range of things such as living in domestically violent situations, or being raised in situations where the parent’s needs – such as drug use or alcohol abuse – influence their ability to provide for their child’s needs.
Complex trauma may come in the form of neglect. Not responding to a baby or not having the skills to do so, for instance, means the baby’s developmental needs may not be met."
You know that thing that parents do where they watch their kid fall down and then they try to distract the kid to keep them from realizing that they are hurt because then the kid will then cry to seek reassurance? That is neglect. It's a subtle form of gaslighting to treat people like their pain doesn't matter if they can be distracted from it. Children are tiny people, and this is a foundational experience of their pain not mattering to the most important person in their lives. And it will happen in a hundred ways throughout childhood. Most of us are raised this way. Most of us are set up to assume our pain is not important to others, or to assume that other people aren't going to care about our feelings even if they tell us that they love us. Because when we were little, the people that we trusted the most didn't want to hear it.
And now we have grown up, numb, hiding from our feelings because we can't put into words "I think something vague and insidious happened to me when I was a kid, but I can't put my finger on what because our culture treats it like that's normal." So we assume that our parents were correct, and we treat other people the way we were taught to: casual about their pain if we can distract them from it. Refusing to respond to nonverbal requests for reassurance. Thinking that being distracted and emotionally unavailable for long periods of time still counts as an appropriate relationship. Gaslighting people about their feelings in subtle ways because we don't see what the big deal is, because we are so out of touch with our own feelings.