Don’t Let Your Children Do Anything That Makes You Dislike Them

There is this idea that Jung had which I really love
Which is the idea of the shadow
Which is the dark side of humanity
Its roots reached all the way to hell
He meant something very specific by that
The metaphysical element was
He meant
Hell
Literally and metaphysically
But he also meant
That if you were able to understand your dark side
Then you would see in yourself a reflection of the behavior
That was present at Auschwitz
And that the reason that people don't take the dark side of themselves seriously
At all
Even confront the fact that it exists is because no one wants to see
That reflected within them
And no wonder
Pursue what's meaningful and you'll encounter that which you least want to encounter
And that's
Well, that's the dragon

The dragon is also something that lives inside you
It's not
Something that you
Take the encounter with lightly
See I kind of knew this
When I had my kids I'd already undergone that to some degree
And understood
What it meant to be a bad person
A terrible person
And I knew that it was easy for people to hate their children
Even though they mouth the words that they love them all the time
You don't want to
Set them up as an enemy against you
You don't want to allow them to engage in the kind of hierarchical challenge
That makes you irritable and resentful
That's not a good idea
And if
The things they do make you dislike them
The probability that they will make other people dislike them is extraordinarily high
You need to know what sort of monster you are
If you're gonna be a good parent
And if you think ”oh, I’m not a monsters” it’s like ”oh yes you are”
You're just an unbelievably unconscious monster
And that's actually the worst kind
Your fundamental job as a parent
Especially of a child from zero to four
Is to make that child eminently desirable socially
You're a successful parent if
When your child is four
All sorts of other children want to play with him or her
And so, then you think
Well, what have you done for your child?
We've opened up the entire world of children to them
So, because they know how to play
Everywhere they go other kids like them
And will include them in their play and play is the way that children develop

The literature on this is crystal clear
If your child is an outcast at the age of four
The probability that anything can be done about that is almost zero
No matter what you do
And then the other thing is if you don't allow your children to engage in dislikable behavior
Then adults will like them
And the thing is if you're good to your kid in a real way
You can help maintain that tremendous attractiveness that they have as young children
And then
Wherever they go adults welcome them and teach them things
And pat them on the head and
Smile at them genuinely, instead of saying
“Oh my god, here comes that couple with that god damn brat again”

That’s a horrible thing to do to a child
That’s a horrible thing to do to a child
Because then everywhere they go
All the goodwill is false
And then there's nothing that you can do to someone
That's more terrible than
To put them in a world where all the goodwill directed towards them is false