News, The sin of the mothers (baby, parent, children, students)

[HH61]

I myself as a man, have no opinion on this im just delivering the news that i found intresting. Discuss.

The sins of the mothers

• Adele Horin
• September 15, 2008

When Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears ran amok, the public blamed their mothers. Their fathers - Lohan's had served time in jail and had addiction problems - escaped rebuke entirely.

Now an Australian study provides some evidence that bad mothering has a worse effect on children than bad fathering.

It shows that mothers who exhibit "toxic" behaviours - from being cold and indifferent to being abusive, manipulative or over-controlling - are far more likely to warp their children's outlook on life than fathers with similar behaviour.

Wayne Warburton, a research fellow at Macquarie University's Children and Families Research Centre, said: "Mothers have a really powerful effect on the way their kids view the world and themselves, probably because kids spend more time with their mothers, especially in the crucial early years."
Dr Warburton asked 441 university students to fill out detailed questionnaires on the parenting styles of their mothers and fathers, and on their own patterns of thinking.

He asked them to recall 72 parenting behaviours, including "making a child feel ashamed", being unloving or rejecting, and frequently telling the child they were stupid or would fail. He also asked questions designed to uncover destructive thinking patterns in the students, such as being "clingy" out of a fear of being abandoned.

He found young adults were two-thirds as likely to develop unhelpful patterns of thinking if the toxic parenting they had experienced came from their father rather than their mother.

If a range of poor parenting behaviours existed, they tended to be found in the same parent, the study found.

Just over 22 per cent of the mothers and 14 per cent of the fathers were classified as toxic.

Dr Warburton said he was surprised that toxic mothers outnumbered toxic fathers. "When I first saw the figure I thought many of the people came from single-parent families but that wasn't true. I'm at a loss to explain it."
He said while mothers had more influence on their children, it was surprising that fathers had two-thirds the effect of mothers, given their lower levels of contact. "Fathers still have a significant effect on the development of their kids' patterns of thinking."

The sins of the mothers

[925mine]

It's remarkable how the mind works. They say children's minds are like sponges, and that's not exclusive to knowledge, but self image and process as well. What goes in as a child, stays as an adult.

It's pretty pitiful when a parent says they love all their children equally and the same. That's not true. A parent can love all their children, but the child whose positive attributes are lacking in some way, and is treated differently, even subtly, KNOWS he/she is lacking because of the way a parent behaves toward him/her. That shapes who they become.

If a parent constantly talks with his/her child as the child is growing, it's so, so easy to shape that child's way of thinking. For example; politics, or acceptance of differences in others (sexual preference, color, religion, etc.). Of course the parent's views and attitudes rub off on their children. Even that parent's attitude toward the child. When a child is ridiculed, that child grows up feeling inferior.

Absolutely a parent, and probably yes, the mother if she's the main caregiver and major influence, can be an enormous toxic influence on a child.

[ADVentive]

I think that this is just because the mother tends to be the primary caregiver. If you looked at families where the dad is the primary caregiver, it's probably the other way for them.

[EEEPNJ]

I think in a lot of ways we've just accepted that a lot of men are asses when it comes to raising children. I'm not being mean, or harsh, or saying this is my opinion (because it is not). What I'm saying is we live in a society where there are A LOT of men who do not even stick around for raising their kids... but women are not expected to do this. I don't think ANY of it is fair. Just making a comment on how I see things today.

[borntobeme]

I think it all depends on the role that the parent plays in the childs life. I know some fathers that are really there for their children in every aspect.