Mothers in particular seem know that their children don't want to hurt them. Some mothers use this to manipulate their children. They will say "It will really hurt me (or "us" or "your father" or "your grandparents") if you do so and so."
What do you do, then, when you have to decide between doing something which will make you happy and doing something which your parents feel hurt about?
Here is a story to think about:
Katherine is in her last
year of university. She is thinking about what she really
wants to do with her life. She dreams of working as a
volunteer in a poor country. But her parents want her to
go to law school. She doesn't dare tell them about her
dream of volunteering. She knows they would never allow
it. But, still, she has to say something because the idea
of going to law school is causing her more and more
anxiety. Finally she calls home one day and tells her
mother that she is not really sure wants to study law
after all. As soon as her mother hears this she says:
What should Katherine say? What should she do? |
A lot of parents will call you selfish when you try to fill your needs. What they call selfish, I just call needy. When they call you selfish they are implying that this is a problem you have, and that you are responsible for having this problem, as if it were a character defect, which basically means it was genetic and it has nothing to do with their parenting.
But I believe it is more accurate to say that they are responsible for you being needy. They have failed to fill your needs, probably your emotional needs. They have probably filled your material needs. They may have even given you more junk than you truly need in an attempt to "buy" you or your obedience by making you feel indebted to them. They may also tell you that you are undeserving of all of these material things if they want to manipulate you with guilt.
It is true that when a person is needy they are thinking primarily of themselves, since they are trying to fill their natural needs. When you are starving physically or emotionally you won't be thinking too much of other people. This is natural, not abnormal. And it certainly is not a character flaw. I know one person who has been severerly damaged emotionally by her parents. She feels unloved, uncared about, rejected, unwanted, worthless. As a result, she is doing anything she can to meet her basic emotional needs. And for this her mother calls her "selfish."
So keep this in mind:
| When a parent calls a teen "selfish", they imply the teen is at fault. But to call the same teen "needy" implies the parents are at fault--which is more accurate. |
I never call teens who are emotionally starving "selfish." I call them needy.
And I don't criticize them for this. This would only make them feel worse. It would be like taking food from a homeless person.
Instead of criticizing someone who is already needy, wouldn't it be better to help them?
Who is really "selfish" then, the teen, or the parent who fails to help the teen in need? I suggest we drop the term "selfish" from our vocabularies. I suggest it is better to look at everyone as needy. If your parents are calling you selfish, this is a pretty clear sign they are emotionally needy themselves. Whether you chose to help them fill their emotional needs is up to you. I am afraid, though, that it will prove to be a mission impossible. I used to try to fill my mother's emotional needs. Finally, I realized I would never be able to do this. I would never make her happy. So I concentrated on my own life. To her credit, she has never actually called me selfish, though she has implied it. For the most part she let me go when I decided to leave her and the family which had failed to meet my emotional needs. Now we actually have a better relationship, but this required me to think primarily of myself for about 10 years now.
Some of you have been called selfish for more than this long. The sooner you start to see yourselves as not selfish, but needy, and then make it your goal to identify and fill your emotional needs, the sooner you can start living your own life.