Unloved children: How to protect yourself from your mother’s quirks? Favorite children Unloved children

A long time ago, when I was little and my brother was even younger, it seemed to me that my parents didn’t love me, that they loved my younger brother. This is probably how it seems to almost everyone. I think that at one time it seemed to my brother that he was loved less than me. In fact, now I understand that we always received parental love equally. So do most people. However, not all...

I'll tell you a story that I witnessed. About 8 years ago I had a boyfriend. Let's call him Vanya. He was the middle one in the family, his older brother (let it be Kostya) was already divorced and had a little daughter. The youngest (let's say Igor) was finishing school.

It would seem that there are three people who should be equally dear to parents. But no! The eldest, Kostya, was stubbornly considered by everyone in the family to be a slob and an unserious person, perhaps because of his divorce from his wife, perhaps because of the wild life to which he was accustomed.

The youngest, Igor, was dubbed a klutz, although, as later life showed, he entered the university the first time, unlike his brothers, and in life everything turned out much easier for him. He was just secretive and silent.

But both parents were crazy about Vanya! “Vanya is such a great guy! You won’t get lost with him!” - they told me. And they constantly described his exploits, comparing him with his unlucky brothers.

If Vanya stayed late with me, my parents started calling me at home (cell phones were not very common then). For comparison, they didn’t look for Kostya like that, nor did they look for Igor. But they were shaking for Vanechka. It must be said that Vanya, to some extent, reciprocated their feelings - until the age of 23, he could not get out from under his mother’s skirt.

One day I tried to unearth this interesting situation. It turned out that this has been the case since when the boys were still very small. And in general, only Vanya was welcome in the family, the rest were random. That’s why everything happened approximately according to this scenario: if something didn’t work out for Vanya, then they told him “It’s okay, let’s help you, next time it will definitely work out!”; and if something didn’t work out for one of his brothers, it was because “his hands grow from the wrong place. But Vanya..."

Now, many years after those events, I found out that the older and younger brothers have moved away in different directions and almost never visit their parents. They do not consult with them, relying only on themselves. And they are still considered unlucky. And Vanya, as before, is a frequent and welcome guest in his father’s house.

It seems to me that this situation in the family was not accidental: the parents, in every possible way, from early childhood, showed love for one son, neglecting the feelings of other children. That’s why we got rebels, slobs, who, perhaps, are such only to their parents. And in their own, newly created family, they are wonderful and loving fathers and husbands.

To be honest, I can hardly imagine how you can love one child and not love the rest. When I was pregnant, I was very afraid that I would not be able to love the baby the way he deserved, although I really wanted a child. But when I saw my daughter for the first time, all my doubts crumbled to smithereens. And now I know for sure that they will crumble in exactly the same way with the second and third child - with any child, no matter how many there are!!!

To receive the best articles, subscribe to Alimero's pages on

Svetlana, 35 years old.

I grew up in a complete family, I have a brother.

1) How to stop feeling the fear of being a bad - rejected daughter and start living openly?
2) how to stop living according to the scenario “love must be earned”
3) how to stop living someone else's life?

We are all from childhood. Some articles I read earlier and subsequent observation of my emotions and feelings led me to a number of questions that I do not know how to solve.

I am the second child in the family. As a teenager, I was painfully aware of my mother’s coldness. I told her that she doesn’t love me and loves me more than her brother.
One weekend, my mother fed us lunch. Dad was at work. My brother, as always, didn’t want to eat and his mother started talking to him, stroking his head, asking if she should feed him with a spoon like in childhood...
I suddenly felt very painful in my soul and I said, I don’t want to eat, you don’t love me.
...
Then I was already in the corridor (I don’t know how I ended up there, on my own or my mother dragged me there). She shouted at me:
I'm a payment mother, so go away. Go and find yourself another one. Good.
I cried, I was scared!
And she ran into my room, grabbed dresses from the closet, ran into the corridor where I was sitting and sobbing and threw clothes at me, I remember how painfully the wooden hangers hit my hands.
Out of fear, I began to say:
Mom, I'm sorry, I won't do this again!
This topic was never discussed at home again. I was afraid and no longer dared to compare how much love and attention my mother gave to me and how much to my brother.

2nd story:
In the summer I lived with my grandmother. I was about 10 years old. For some reason she stopped talking to me. And for several days she simply performed her functions: feed her, send her for a walk, and so on. Next... Cold, dry, silent...
I couldn’t stand it, burst into tears and asked for forgiveness, but I remember that in my mind I was convinced that I had been offended and I apologize for that.

3rd story:
We spent our holidays with our grandmother. My cousin and I were going for a walk. It had just stopped raining outside. I wanted to go in new leather closed shoes, colored like washed jeans. And my grandmother forced me to go in ordinary rag slippers. The argument was terrible and I ended up getting a slap in the face.

4th story:
My mother told me around the age of 12-13. About the fact that my father’s grandmother did not want me to be born, that she tried to persuade her to have an abortion.
I had very mixed feelings in my soul.

5th story
I was in my first serious relationship. 21 years old, he’s 26. Meetings until late, sex... We celebrated New Year’s Eve with my boyfriend. Mom didn’t know how to stop me from leaving, and I returned home at 10 in the morning. My mother found birth control pills in my purse. There was a scandal, tears: “oh, this is what my daughter does”...
Then hell came... If I was talking on the phone, she listened to me at the door, if it was him, she took the phone out of the network or she pressed reset. She fell into hysterics, screaming, stamping her feet and waving her arms... There was a feeling that she was crazy and needed a straitjacket.
I went to Moscow for a week. And when she returned, she met her boyfriend. Dad was happy for me. And mom again fell into hysterics.
My boyfriend and I broke up. There was still resentment towards him for not trying to talk to my parents and towards my mother for doing this to me. After 6 months, I entered graduate school and left.

6th story:
Grandma died. Mom became religious. She closed herself off and constantly walked around looking absent. Before school, she decided to take us to church. The brother meekly agreed. And I said that I didn’t want it (I had this in my heart - at first my grandmother carried it against her will, supposedly because my mother thought so, now my mother...)
As a result, my mother did not talk to me. When they were about to leave, I cried, “Can I go with you?” I remember how my mother smiled at me - this was the first smile of approval in a long time...

P.s. I heard comments from my father to my mother that my mother was too “lisping” with us, especially often about my brother.

All these stories caused a great shock, some of them related to my mother still bring tears to my eyes. It seems to me that I’m still trying to earn my mother’s love, I’m afraid to tell her about my relationships with men, and the relationships don’t work out... As if in them I’m still trying to play that role of “reject me, and I’ll do for you in return.” everything, and you will see how good I am and love me for it." Only men say something else: you are good, you do everything right, you are great, you make me happy. And they don’t like it!

It seems to me that I am constantly trying to earn the love of everyone around me. And that's why I do more for them than I should. It seems to me that I project all this (the child is rejected) onto relationships with men and this prevents me from being happy, men stop doing anything for me. Although at the beginning of the relationship they show care and attention

2) it seems to me that I really wanted to earn my mother’s love and therefore began to copy my brother. As a result, I have a number of grievances. About what they didn’t give me as a child... What I came up with and asked my mother for, and my brother received it. As a result, I had to go to graduate school on my own, live in rented apartments, etc....
I received an education like his, entered graduate school like him, tried to study well...
The acquired profession did not bring professional fulfillment

About dad. I think this question will be asked. As a child, I always heard from my mother that he loved me and there were even some notes of reproach for this. The reproach that he “always treated my brother with evil, but treated me kindly”...

Svetlyachok

Hello Svetlana. I read your story with a feeling of resentment and anger towards your mother. Instead of receiving unconditional maternal love, acceptance and a sense of security, you often became the object of unfair coldness, rejection and suppression, experienced the bitterness of misunderstanding, pain and fear of being completely without maternal care. Despite the fact that your father was kinder to you than to your brother, his love was not enough to give you the feeling “everything is fine with me.”
“I feel like I'm constantly trying to earn the love of everyone around me.” You're absolutely right about this scenario. Having problems with self-esteem (it is based on parental acceptance and approval, which your mother did not give you), you yourself have not learned to love yourself (“Since my mother rejects me, there is something wrong with me,” “I’m probably bad”) and Now, when you enter into a relationship, you automatically take the position of that unloved child who is abandoned by close people over and over again. The most effective way to build self-confidence, begin to accept yourself for who you are, and love yourself will be through face-to-face therapy.
You can start working independently on your inner state by reading the book “Stop Being a Nice Guy” by Robert Glover: it will answer all 3 questions that you posed at the beginning of your message.

Thank you very much for your answer! I'll definitely start by reading the book. I’ve been thinking about an in-person consultation for a long time. This will probably be the next step. Thank you!

Svetlyachok

Svetlana, I see that you have received some support on the forum, and I am very glad about it.
Read the book, try to take the first steps towards understanding what is happening and write about any questions that arise.
I wrote to you about the consultation in a personal message. Not saying goodbye.

Good afternoon, Maria!
Yes, I am very grateful to the forum creators and those who answer! I am glad that my questions, although not yet closed for me personally, have taken shape and understanding that we are moving, albeit slowly and hesitantly, but still in the right direction.
Thank you very much!

She has lost emotional stability... If she is able to experience it at all. Last night, a man finally wrote to me. He asked me to tell him what I thought. And I wrote that I’ve been thinking about him all this time, that I miss him and that I feel bad without him.
In response, I expected him to rush over or at least call me to a meeting today. And that's all day. I can't find a place for myself. She accepted the comments from management at work with absolute helplessness. And it doesn't matter. Trying to find some kind of peace. I watched a video about self-esteem and how a person later shows his love in a relationship. And I felt desperate pain! Something like I just do in every moment and conversation with my man (and obviously in past relationships) or: I was silent - afraid to ask for something or gave myself completely in the hope of receiving. And not meeting what I wanted (or hearing at work that I did something wrong) becomes my personal tragedy. It's like my life ends here. And new pictures surfaced in my memory of how my mother rejected me as a child, giving the same to my brother and not giving it to me!
There is so much pain in my soul, as if everything that happened in childhood and in subsequent relationships with a man has fallen on me now! Please help me overcome this self-pity!

The fluttering heart of an unloved child

He sat hunched over, huddled, huddled like a fetus, merging with the chair, and looked from under his brows at his mother, who was complaining that the boy had a cough that was keeping the family from sleeping at night. This started to worry everyone, although the temperature was normal. Can I consult my son? The pediatrician doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. Moreover, the cough was like this before, about a month ago, and lasted for a week. Vova even had a chest x-ray done. True, they found nothing there. No treatment. It happened again. This means something serious. What?

Having carefully examined and listened to the child’s lungs and heart, I also did not find any pathology on the part of the respiratory system, but just in case, I still prescribed him the examination I needed to clarify the diagnosis.

And suddenly, for some reason, the five-year-old boy, who for some reason had already begun to stoop and shrink like shagreen skin, unexpectedly turned into a completely different child, spreading his childish shoulders like wings. He looked into my eyes... with gratitude... He smiled like an old friend. And my intuition suddenly suggested that he was happy that he should be examined, although it seemed absurd. Even adults are unlikely to want their blood taken for analysis. Nevertheless, Vova wanted.

My mother asked me questions and lectured my son like a juggler, managing to do everything masterfully and at the same time. And the notations were for literally everything: sometimes I sat in the chair wrong, sometimes I shook my head, sometimes I purred silently... The mother’s voice, gentle with me, became creaky and angry when it came to the child.

This same rejection of my son flashed through my head. She is indifferent to Vova at best, and an unloved child at worst. This is obviously why there is total control, this inadequate demand for the child, as for a guilty adult.

Maybe this cough is a symptom of dislike, or rather, a lure to receive love. After all, when he is sick, his mother sits at home and feels at least a little sorry for him. And when he is healthy, he spends all his days without her only in kindergarten. May be…

Having persuaded the boy to draw drawings for me as a souvenir in the next room, I literally attacked the woman with my questions, clarifying the details and nuances of her revelations that only I understood. Unfortunately, as well as fortunately, my sad assumptions were completely justified. Unfortunately, because I felt sorry for this innocent baby from the bottom of my heart. Fortunately, his cough was purely neurotic in nature and no longer foreshadowed any serious pathology from the respiratory system. However, it was not predicted only for today. What will happen tomorrow? After all, an unloved child is a target for psychosomatic diseases, among which bronchial asthma, a capricious and demonstrative “personality”, whose obsession, in the literal sense of the word, can almost suffocate, stands out most for its tireless energy. And she will be happy to begin rehearsals with the child’s “unconscious” cough, eventually bringing them to perfection.

I tried to explain all this to Vova’s mother as easily and delicately as possible, emphasizing endlessly, so as not to offend her, that her rejection of her son was just my guess as to the cause of her baby’s “illness.” She told me how to behave with him so that the cough would not reoccur. I explained everything to her, told her... and immediately regretted my frankness, having heard her conclusion, which was completely unexpected for me, that Vova was a malingerer.

The malingerer is an innocent five-year-old child?! Wow, how much he annoyed her! What kind of love could we be talking about? I had to stand up for the boy and continue the conversation with her again. And she finally admitted to me that Vova’s pregnancy was accidental, that he prevented her from going to college, that his father abandoned her after giving birth, abandoned her because of him - his son screamed as if he had been cut, did not let him sleep, annoying him all the time. And now he annoys her stepfather, her new husband, just as he once irritated her father. What should she do, what should she do if her son is a malingerer? It even imitates a cough. If his stepfather finds out about this, Vova will be in trouble, you won’t envy him. True, there is no point in feeling sorry for him. The belt will heal better than medicine, because it has already treated my son more than once.

And again and again I began to explain to Vova’s mother that her son was not guilty before her. Her lack of love is to blame. And he craves a little love and attention, understanding all this perfectly. A cough is just a trick, a hook for profit, and profit should at least be caring for a child during illness, because care is a reflection of love. For the sake of this reflection, he “gets sick”, subconsciously causing a similar illness, expecting that his mother will take pity on him, feel sorry for him and, perhaps, even understand how much he misses her warmth. And when he feels that he understands, he will immediately stop hurting. Vova is not a malingerer. Vova craves love, feeling unloved. It is in her power to finally give him this happiness of a magical feeling. For him it is like living water...

But in response, Vova’s mother remained stubbornly silent, looking at me in surprise, obviously trying to understand why I was so ardently and zealously defending the child, defending her own child in front of her. And then she said frankly: “I can’t give it as a gift. I do not like. And I will never love. He's a copy of his dad. And I hate his father. He ruined my life. You see... life..."

Vova again slouched and shrank in his chair, having learned that he was going to kindergarten tomorrow and they wouldn’t take any more tests for now. And then he suddenly began to sob bitterly and coughed... looking pleadingly at his mother... But she... ordered him: “Stop, stop squeezing these sounds out of yourself, don’t hope that I will pity you.” And then he completely wilted and went limp, turning into an amorphous mass, still shuddering either from coughing shocks, or from not entirely tamed crying.

I had to feel sorry for the boy. I picked up the stethoscope again and asked him to lift his T-shirt. I started listening to the child again, and then told the puzzled mother that when Vova coughed, I still heard wheezing. He needs to be examined in our hospital. You can now visit it every day, immediately after work, from five to seven. And she can wear the packages in the morning. He should now eat tangerines, oranges and apples more often... And also buy something new from those toys that he likes, because all children are brought toys to the hospital. Why is her son worse than others?

Fire flared up in the boy’s eyes, and his shoulders straightened again, as if they were wings. I gave him Hope again... Maybe his mother will still love him...

An unloved child... A child with a tear-stained heart... and with a soul where the eternal rain falls... An unloved child... what could be more bitter than your bitter tears and suffering, your bitter fate... You are not just unloved, you... you... unwanted, and that means , uninvited, unnecessary and superfluous in your own family, visiting it despite the reluctance of the people closest to you on the planet and, most likely, your own mother.

An unloved child is the path to an unloved adult. And your whole life is made up of continuous dreams that someone still needs you, and the pursuit of the ghost of someone’s love. But your pursuit is unsuccessful, because you simply do not know what you are looking for, what love is, for you it is only a mirage. For a mirage to turn into reality, you have to try it. But how and where? How will you try something that is inaccessible to you, something that you cannot get, something that is not around... Something that has not yet existed.

An unloved child is a child with a tear-stained heart, from which you will then squeeze the tears, like from a sponge, throughout your unloved life, sometimes humiliating yourself.

An unloved child is a child whose soul is constantly drizzling. Dislike is not a label, but a mark for life on the soul and heart of such a child. This life with the scar of your bad luck, with unforgiven forgiveness of your grievances. This is life when you come to terms with it without being resigned.

This is life when you are defeated and broken already at the very beginning of the path, without even taking your first step, because you entered it without steps, but descended to earth from some heights, the clouds of which were your mother. And suddenly, suddenly he turned out to be unnecessary to her here.

Your first impression is the impression of dislike. You understood this immediately, looking into her eyes. You looked at her and she turned away?! I was afraid that you would understand everything.

But you understood anyway, you... felt it... even before you were born. And now I’m once again convinced that all this is really so. And now this feeling is with you all the time, your life is one penumbra, you have not yet seen the sunny side, the sunshine of your mother’s eyes. And you always miss the long-awaited place in the sun of love.

Although, apparently, the main thing is that you are not abandoned in the maternity hospital, you live like others. That he was fed, shod and clothed. But all this is just for you as a proscenium. Behind the scenes there is pure heartache. And you can pass it on by inheritance, just as it was passed on to you, as if it were a family relay.

But why? For what? Why and where?

But really, where do unloved children come from and why the seemingly paradoxical ideology of childfree - this “voluntary childlessness” - today enslaves not only modern youth and teenagers, but more and more wise people. Maybe, in fact, it is more honest for us not to give birth to children than to give birth to unloved ones. And how do children even know that they are unloved if they are not told this?

Why tell them this? Their intuition, like a locator, captures all the nuances of the emotions and feelings of their loved ones, and especially their mother, with whom they became close before others, living in her, developing in her body.

And her dislike for the child is an open secret, a secret that they have already known about since birth.

True, they do not know that even “the sun has spots.” Well, if the sun allows itself to do so, then what can we say about people?

After all, even the beginnings of conception are different for all children, although there are several more or less common scenarios. For long-awaited children, these are one thing, but for a child who is a by-product of sex, if one can even put it that way, although there is a significant amount of truth in this, they are completely different.

Of course, it is the children who were conceived as a “by-product” who are then more often than others the victims of rejection and dislike. True, this is not one hundred percent. And such a mother can be pierced, like a cupid’s arrow, by the instinct of motherhood.

And a desired child is not guaranteed to always be welcome in the house. Unfortunately, our life is made up of “surprises” and metamorphoses. And no one is safe from them.

Of course, abortion “saves” from a future unwanted child. But not every woman is capable of this. And there are many reasons why. But... even just thinking about abortion, the expectant mother is already rejecting her unborn child with these thoughts. And the more often during pregnancy a woman has mood swings because of this, the worse the conditions for the development of the fetus in her body and the less viable the baby will be born, as if taking revenge for everything on the mother with her whims and intolerable character, as well as her lack of contact. .

True, you will experience this standard revenge of an unloved, unwanted and not invited into the home of a baby... Well, if we look into the soul of a child... It is very unfortunate, of course, that this is only possible for now only allegorically, because, probably, this soul is all eaten away by moths before birth.

What awaits such a child in our lives? Will his mother leave him in the maternity hospital or will she “invite” him to her house?

If he leaves in the maternity hospital - life without the joys of childhood, in government houses, on government beds with the soullessness of adults, with the composure of all the pressures of life, in the meat grinder of her “upbringing”. In a meat grinder that convinces you, confirming all this with examples, that you are superfluous, unnecessary, worthless. You are an outcast in this society, a victim, just a random passerby... And no one else.

And it is precisely the feeling of uselessness from the first days of the birth of such a child that is obviously the main “value” of his worldview.

And so his whole life, living to old age, unable to understand what warmth is, even if he throws logs into the fireplace... He lives without living, existing, even pretending that life is a success, that he has achieved everything that is very I wanted, even more, to spite all sorts of vicissitudes of my terrible fate. Yes, indeed, he can achieve it out of spite... But his soul is bleeding...

And the other version of the failed lives of unloved children is mainly criminal. If only you knew how much you want to take revenge, mercilessly, cruelly, all your life... for the fact that since birth you have always had only a “trough” “broken” by life without hope of goldfish.

So it’s not easy to be abandoned, abandoned, like a slightly smoldering cigarette butt, but if it’s smoldering, it hasn’t gone out yet. Well, what if it bursts into flames again? Which one? Question. Everything depends, most likely, on how life will suddenly turn out in the future... An orphanage, maybe even a family one in the “SOS Children’s Villages”, created more than half a century ago by the charity of Hermann Gmeiner, a young Austrian who could not see the unfortunate post-war orphans . But those children did not have mothers. And our social orphans today... have a gentlemanly set of all sorts of relatives.

However, an unloved child is not always abandoned in a maternity hospital or thrown under the doors of children's institutions, and sometimes even into garbage cans, not to mention the more sophisticated tortures of human abuse.

They often take it home and even try to squeeze out of themselves, like a toothpaste tube, something similar to the feeling of love. However, we can imitate anything, but not the sincerity of our love. You and I are all intuitive tasters of it, and the child is no less experienced, it’s like an instinct for him... And he feels the falseness of all our imitations, distinguishes which Potemkin village is. So we can hardly deceive him. Feel lighter. And many mothers throw on the robe of motherhood instead of a ball gown. But under the robe there is more space to hide the feeling of guilt for your dislike, for his undesirability, undesirability for which you yourself are to blame. These feelings push us to make amends and to show off this to the uninitiated - expensive toys, expensive clothes from an early age, even from couturiers, everything, everything, everything that is most valuable for consumption... everything, everything, everything... except the feeling of love.

But, but the feeling of guilt gives rise to aggression, endlessly provoking conflicts in the family. In general, a vicious circle, where once the beginning was undesirability, and then dislike, the one that you are unlikely to hide under the makeup of love.

And again, your baby feels this falsehood, despite the care and implementation of all kinds of temptations. Your endless “don’ts” and “don’ts”, rejection of pranks and pampering - indicators of the norm of childhood development, criticism of all his inept skills, even without physical punishment, still open the child’s eyes, although, in general, what’s special here.

The baby knows when you are indifferent to him, indifferent, without knowing how he can force you to pay attention to himself again, at least for a while, realizing that this is almost impossible, but they will pay attention to pranks and pampering.

An unloved child, not yet born, already knows very well about stress. He knew it in the womb, absorbing the feelings of his mother or father, because catecholamines told him about this, being in the umbilical cord, in prohibitive quantities for simple peace of mind. Well, what if mom and dad’s emotions were associated only with his rejection?

Almost all the latest data from scientific works on perinatal psychology, which studies the mental life of the fetus, are filled with all sorts of sensations concerning unwanted children. It turned out that in these children, after birth, more often than in their peers, but desired, along with a host of psychological problems, various somatic and psychosomatic disorders also predominate - from endlessly recurring acute respiratory diseases to enuresis and stomach ulcers.

In his book From Embryo to Child, Piontelli, talking about the dominant-subordinate relationship between twins in the fourth month of the mother's pregnancy, even suggests that the fetus has consciousness. Observing the development of the fetuses of two twins, experts noticed that every time the dominant twin pushed or hit the inferior one, he only moved away from him, placing his head on the placenta. Continuing to monitor these same children after birth, scientists were convinced that even at the age of four, the relationship between the twins practically did not change, and in response to the aggressive actions of the dominant child, the inferior twin immediately went to his room and, as once on the placenta, now laid your head on the pillow.

These stunning observations once again demonstrate the importance of the perinatal period in the development of a child. And naturally, if during this period the mother is overshadowed by her thoughts about the future of the child, which she can do without, her depression is transmitted to the fetus.

Scientists have proven that if the expectant mother does not develop a positive attitude towards a sudden pregnancy, then the embryo also develops a feeling of rejection. And after a pregnant woman’s unsuccessful attempt to have an abortion, the fetus is so frightened that it seems to “realize” that its life is in danger.

According to a number of researchers, an unborn child feels that he will not be the gender that his parents want.

And the feeling of rejection develops into a constantly tormenting feeling of rejection for the already born child.

In recent years, scientists have begun to pay more and more attention to the so-called “prenatal syndrome” - a unique complex of various psychogenic symptoms closely related to the influence of negative emotions and thoughts of the mother on the course of pregnancy.

So the destructive role of all negative emotions and feelings on the development of the embryo is no longer just guesswork, but real scientific data.

However, even more interesting assumptions, based on ongoing research in perinatal psychology, are put forward by scientists regarding the fact that the early emotional experience of the fetus in the first trimester of pregnancy can be reproduced later in the future life of an already born child. Moreover, this experience is reflected not only in children’s illnesses, but even in their interpersonal relationships, as well as in the answers to all the questions that concern the child - from “what is the meaning of life” to “why was I born,” etc.

Based on these data, it is not difficult to imagine what thoughts come to the mind of a child who is rejected even before birth and unloved after his birth.

Unfortunately, if a mother rejects a child, she also “rejects” the maternal instinct in herself, the main feature of which is the woman’s emerging ability to identify herself with the newborn and adapt to its needs. For awakened motherhood, this is the first necessity. Maternal instinct is a continuation of the symbiotic unity of mother and child, seemingly already destroyed after childbirth. And the identification of an adult woman with a newborn is an intuitive feeling of the child’s experiences in the new life that has begun and the prevention of all his needs and desires. As a matter of fact, this is the beginning of that non-judgmental love - the main foundation of motherhood.

But what kind of non-judgmental love can we talk about when we mean an unloved child? Probably, in these cases, it would be nice if his parents rewarded him with at least appreciative love for his giftedness or talent. At least such a child, at least as a justification for their ambitions, would at times feel complete. But that will happen later. And immediately after birth, unloved children are in a state of maternal deprivation.

“Deprivation” translated from English means “deprivation”, “restriction”. And of course, maternal deprivation is a total lack of maternal love felt by your baby. And for a baby to fully develop, it is extremely necessary for him to be looked after, taken into his arms, stroked, pressed to his chest, so that he has new impressions every day.

In general, the baby’s need for new experiences is sometimes compared in importance to quenching thirst or hunger. When this need is not satisfied, and especially for movement, the child spends whole days in his crib, he subconsciously develops all sorts of pathological habits - from thumb sucking to nail biting, and we look for the reasons for their appearance, and even at such an early age. And when preschoolers already suffer from this and the bouquet of their habits has become larger and brighter, we blame everyone for these bad habits, everyone, except, of course, ourselves. We also blame everyone for the fact that the child lags behind his peers in his development, is suspicious and anxious, hardly even realizing that deprivation has played such tricks on him.

Naturally, a newborn, and then an older child, can experience a similar state both from both parents at the same time, or only from one of them - mother or father.

However, in the first days after birth, the mother plays the dominant role in the life of the newborn. And if he does not feel constant maternal care and her presence nearby, his “basic trust in the world”, necessary for survival in the endless vicissitudes of our fate, is violated. And the absence of this trust is the path to loneliness and many communication problems. This “basic trust in the world” is formed in a baby who is loved, thanks to the fact that his mother at all critical moments of his life creates a sense of security for him, takes care of food, and gives him her tenderness and affection. The baby knows that his mother can come to his aid at any time. And if he has such a mother, then he will probably be able to rely on other people too - and this is the foundation for the child to develop trust in people. And trust is openness in communication, in the perception of new things, which allows a person to have many friends and be successful in any endeavor.

When a mother, because of her dislike, does not try to ensure the child’s safety and cares little about his needs, then this deep, unconscious feeling of “basic trust in the world” takes on a distorted form or is not formed at all. And the child, growing up and even becoming an adult, is not able to trust someone. And such mistrust is the path to loneliness, the path to depression and suicide.

Of course, the absence of a father near a child is less significant than the absence of a mother, although the baby needs both parents at the same time. And if, thanks to their mother, children come into this world, then, according to a figurative comparison, it is mainly not the mother, but the father who paves the way for them to people and “leads” them to them.

At the same time, in the presence of his father, the boy learns to identify himself with him, imitating him in everything, and the girls see in him the future ideal of their husband.

However, rejected children are unlikely to understand this.

Despite the fact that the reasons for dislike for one’s own child are different for everyone, the set of them is almost textbook with minor variations in one direction or another. Moreover, if Vova’s mother had almost a whole collection of them, sometimes just one is enough for the baby to become unwanted and rejected even before birth. And the most common culprits for this are an unwanted, accidental pregnancy from an unofficial relationship between a future mother and father, the fear of young people to shoulder an extra burden, the desire to continue their studies, which the baby will interfere with, and the dissatisfaction of newlywed parents with such a prospect for their children. This can happen when a husband cheats during pregnancy or leaves his wife before giving birth. Or they were expecting a child of the opposite sex. In a word, “or” will be different in each case. The main thing is that the child suffers, the child whom we invited into this world without thinking about what to do with him next. And now he will have to pay for this all his life. He is not us, this is the essence of the paradox. We invited him without a contract of love. But what kind of contract, without a guarantee of even some kind of tender feeling for him, creating the illusion of your care, letting him into the womb for a while, like in the best hotel, where there are so many stars that you are unlikely to find now in the Emirates, despite the insane progress in this case.

Unfortunately, our foolish child believed that paradise would last a lifetime if he did not separate from us. And he came to visit us forever.

But he came to another space and time, to another of us, who had forgotten about hospitality and decided to turn it on earth into a trinket and eternal property, taking our heart and soul hostage.

But you can hardly hold your soul hostage. Sooner or later it shoots up. Even hermeticity is not scary for her. And it’s terrible for the heart. It is eternally hostage and invites the soul to visit itself.

An unloved child is at odds with himself. An unloved child is at odds with others, although his heart and soul are in different places, but they still “live” in unison with light sadness.

Why then does the unloved child somehow resign himself to life, surviving in such conditions?

Not everyone survives, not everyone submits, although humility is only a way of adaptation to a new life and in new conditions. He usually survives only due to affection, even if not to his mother, but to other people who took part in his fate.

Yes, a baby’s attachment to his mother is an important new personality formation that is formed through a series of stages, approximately lasting almost six months (J. Bowlby). And in the first stages, it doesn’t matter to the child who will look after him. How to care is another matter. During this period, anyone who constantly comes to his aid and is nearby when he calls can become a mother. But children’s attachment to their true mother in the second half of life can be completely different. It’s as if the baby’s experience dictates to the child the quality of the relationship with her, and her dislike generates in response something similar to his rejection of his own mother, which can clearly be seen using the “stranger person” technique (M. Aineworth and S. Bell), which confirmed that For these babies, in fact, the attachment to their mother is superficial, the fact that often in the presence of their mother they no longer seek closeness with her and do not cry when their mother leaves them, thereby demonstrating their indifference. They, apparently, have already resigned themselves to the fate of the unloved, not knowing how to change it, and in the future no longer believing in the sincerity of the feelings of other close people, rejecting their tender intimacy, which they need.

Obviously, the prenatal dislike that was mentioned earlier is the mother’s primary rejection of her own child.

But there can be dislike... postpartum... even with a desired pregnancy... For example, you were expecting a girl, but a boy was born... The child has some kind of pathology... Your baby constantly screams, depriving everyone of peace... Your husband left for another woman because of the child, seeing that he has become more dear to you than he.

In short, your today's desires and needs cancel out yesterday's, and the baby will be the scapegoat.

And one more “dislike” is the dislike that you induce in your adored children, often simply by your behavior towards them. We are talking here not about babies at all, but about children of preschool, primary school or adolescence. Not knowing how to show them your feelings, hiding them in the depths, afraid to spoil them, you seem to be deliberately making it clear to your children that you are indifferent to them, callous, cold, sometimes even cruel, thinking that with the help of this you will be able to raise them into worthy people. of people. You were brought up exactly the same way once... And you turned out to be people no worse than others...

But today children are not the same, and their needs are different, even though the need for love has appeared since the times of paradise since Adam and Eve, but then they expressed it differently... And now you must let your child understand that your parenting style is not without reason: for example, Your hypoguardianship is training in independence, education according to the “Cinderella” type - preparation for the vicissitudes of life, and according to the type of “moral responsibility” - so that you are not an outcast and a victim among your peers. Changing “parenting patterns” is not your fault at all, if the child’s father, like Figaro, “here and there”, then leaves for someone, then returns again, and all these comings and goings deprive your family of financial stability, just as as well as divorce, if it is inevitable. This can happen with the appearance of a stepfather or stepmother in the house, or grandparents who previously did not live in the family. Unfortunately, this is more common than we think due to the dynamics of life.

And another stress of unloving for a child, and perhaps even the strongest, is the appearance of another child in the family, his brother or sister. Detronation is very, very painful for the idol of the family, your first-born. And, suffering from jealousy, the former idol gives free rein to his endless fantasies, once again making sure that he has become unloved. And especially if, in addition, with your rash gesture, rude word, you suddenly show your first-born your rejection of him at the moment, even because of fatigue from sleepless nights and problems with the baby, he is unlikely to swallow this resentment later in his entire life , tormented by the fact that you once betrayed him.

Well, what if they really betrayed, having actually loved the younger one more than the older one? The eldest is on his feet, but the baby is so helpless... How can you split into two so that everything is equal? And is it necessary equally? The eldest had so much when he was only the only one that now he can give up primacy to a brother or sister who has suddenly become dearer to you in comparison with your former idol.

But how can a child understand that his parents’ love for him can also fade like light, that it is not at all limitless and, like everything in this world, has limits. He has his own standards of love without the Procrustean bed of all our possibilities. If you love, then you love as before, when he was everything in the world for you. He loves you just as before, without exchanging his mom and dad for new ones, and you... You... not only exchanged him for someone, but also make it clear that now you almost don’t need him. As a last resort - only to help you care for your pet.

If only the parents knew how many different scars detronation leaves on the child’s heart because of another, innocent baby, because of their thoughtless words and actions, because of the specter of their dislike. If it weren’t for their spiritual callousness and parental “myopia,” how many tears and suffering there would not have been for their easily vulnerable older children, who suddenly turned overnight into outcasts, it is unclear why, for what sins. And the child looks for these “sins”, inventing them, then darkening his whole life, undeservedly defeated in it for some reason, once, but forever.

If only parents knew the psychology of children's hearts...

But whether love can really be priceless is a question. And although I myself am her ardent defender and supporter of such love, I understand that there is also a share of falsehood and makeup in this. Can we embalm life and deprive it of the dynamics of life?

After all, what exactly is the non-judgmental love of parents for their own child? This is, first of all, the constant unconditional acceptance of him and his actions, not always the most plausible, by the parents, regardless of their own problems and the nuances of their mood, not to mention anything else. This is even, to some extent, ignoring his uniqueness and individuality, a kind of robotism of parents who look at the life of their own child in a stereotyped way and use the same clichés to raise him every day, mainly in order to live in harmony with him under the banner of the principle “ peaceful coexistence” so that the child will build a pedestal for us. But you and I are living people, not statues and monuments, no matter how high the pedestals that children place us on may be.

And of course, something can irritate us even in the most beloved child... He fought again and again came back with bruises, broke a toy for no reason, was insolent to his grandmother and deceived him about eating, although dinner was still on the table. You never know what moments in a child’s life can make you angry, especially if you yourself are depressed. And the irritation that he caused in you is, strictly speaking, rejection, rejection of him at the very moment, something like situational rejection.

And most likely, this situational rejection is a pause in our non-judgmental love, an intermission of feelings that interrupts something similar to the ever-moving flow of such love. But in order to withstand stress, we must also be able to relax. True, it is possible to “relax” in different ways in the most delicate of the most delicate feelings.

Of course, this situational rejection of the characteristics of a child’s behavior, and therefore his personality at the moment, is most often characteristic of people with too correct attitudes towards life in society, well-trained ethical standards back in the parental home, who live by the principle - “this is possible, but this is not possible.” "

Well, “it’s possible” and “it’s not” is an eternal conflict. And the younger the child, the more often he considers it a sign of dislike, or rather, the loss of love, if he previously thought that there was love. And he blames himself for this, first of all.

If suddenly the cause of the conflict is rivalry with a brother or sister - which has almost become standard since biblical times, and especially with the younger ones in the house, he blames them mainly for this, complicating his relationship with them for quite a long time, not always reconciling with adults with a black cat, which in childhood once managed to unexpectedly cross their path.

And all this is only because of children’s fantasies and parental incompetence, who do not know how to “give earrings to all the sisters,” but with different carat of their gilding. It is hardly possible to love all children equally if they are completely different. The main thing is that they are still loved by everyone and they need to be made to understand this. Let them be loved in different ways, but loved, loved... After all, they are also different, even twins, even copies of the original from each other, the dream of many of us, twins, and even more so just ordinary children: some are older than them, some younger, some are girls, some are boys, some are leaders in sports, some in studies... And the shades of your parental love with each of them should also be completely different and, of course, unique, so that they do not nest they will resent you even when they grow up. In every adult, alas, there lurks Peter Pan, our never-ending childishness and resentment, resentment, most likely, the Peter Pan thing in all of us. As we grow up, we still remain children, not always realizing it; the main thing is still the age at which we are delayed; is it not from the standpoint of which we are raising our wiser children?

The wisdom of adults is that parents should not show their children, following the very fashionable theory of “parental contribution”, that they, as if in a bank, give them a “credit” in the form of necessary expenses for the child for the sake of his future achievements, of which the most important is procreation, that is, the main role of a mother’s love, is simply a forced, essential today necessity for the socialization of her descendants.

But when giving “loans”, we first of all find out the creditworthiness of the person in need. This means that this theory is nothing more than a simple ranking of love between children in the same family. This means that this theory actually presupposes favorites and unloved ones. Since childhood, they have already bet on their favorites, as if at a hippodrome on the favorite horse, and arrange successful races for them. Well, what about the unloved, what should we do with him?

If suddenly he has a talent for something, we take it for granted, even when we open the barrier for her. We help for the sake of great results, without sparing the child, putting pressure on him. And we simply forgive our favorites a lot... How can one not help but remember Maria Callas... or Edith Piaf... unloved children with their divine gift and sad destinies... Sometimes a child may simply feel that his parents have stopped loving him. If he is melancholic, then more often, but if he is choleric, almost never. Temperament, character - everything matters if suddenly your child feels that you have become colder towards him. According to the famous psychotherapist B. Hellinger, in such cases we are talking about the “interrupted movement of love,” the love that lives in the souls of children who love each other and parents who give it to each other “from top to bottom,” or otherwise, from parents to child .

It turned out that the reasons for this “interrupted movement of love” are as different as for the situational rejection of the child, and if this love is not returned in time, traces of the child’s experience may remain with him in the future. Moreover, the “movement of love” can be interrupted by a seemingly completely banal separation from the mother, even for the benefit of the baby, well, for example, she separated from him in the summer, sending him on vacation to her parents. What if you are ready to give it to them for their upbringing, and not just for the holidays?

Have you ever wondered how this will resonate in the heart of your child, even when his grandparents seem to have a paradise for him and, on top of everything, they still idolize him. They idolize him, but he, he... most likely idolizes you!

But, unfortunately, this does not bother you. And at this time you are unlikely to remember that golden rule from the New Testament, which we must not forget: “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.” But even though we know it, we don’t use it, trying to hide our dislike with a veil, and it all depends only on how your child can evaluate such an “altruistic” act. He will say “thank you” or he will complain to you all his life about headaches, pain in his shoulders, pain in his stomach, in addition to constant depressive thoughts. So, almost a textbook headache or pain in the shoulders for adults often traces its origins back to childhood.

And it all depends only on how your offended child will be able to filter all the truth and the lies you have embellished. And will he be able to differentiate, as a doctor, the “symptoms of unlove” that he felt, even when he didn’t know about them yet: are they total or situational? After all, even your unloved baby is looking for reasons to justify such dislike.

I once managed to find a child in one of the orphanages in Kazakhstan for a doctor from Georgia whom she would like to adopt. His parents were deprived of their rights, and from an early age the boy lived forgotten, abandoned, completely unnecessary to them, like old and dirty trash, he lived among equals, also useless to anyone, even to living parents, children who were abandoned by their mothers and fathers, without wanting to recall.

There was a quiet knock on the office door, and the nurse from the department complained to me that the new guy I sent to them today had been crying for no reason for two hours now and it was impossible to stop this crying.

I immediately went with her to the ward. Vova, sobbing, stood at the window, gazing into the darkness outside the window, trying to distinguish someone in it, looking into the glare of the lanterns that slightly illuminated the road to the main porch of the hospital, the road along which they left... while no one came.

I looked at my watch. It's five to seven. The time for visits is running out, parents will no longer be allowed in. And he stood and waited, staring out the window, believing - not believing that she would still come, in time... This exhausted by total dislike, as if by a serious illness, devastated by it to the limit, still a completely helpless baby, insanely lonely and chilled from the cold of his heart who were close to him. A baby so hungry for at least a drop of love... trying to beg it from his mother. And it seemed to me that I saw his heart, a big - small human heart, only the size of a child’s fist, trembling with fear of life, the trembling of which was once shown in his lecture by the great Janusz Korczak, who demonstrated the heart of a baby afraid of adults, examining it under x-ray... The fluttering heart of a baby left without the love of his parents.

How could I help him?

I extended my hand to Vova, and we went together to the office. Then I called his mother, telling her that Vova and I understood that she had no time to come today. Of course, he will wait until tomorrow, although now he dreams of saying “good night” to her, just as she probably did to him.

- Good night! – the boy shouted joyfully, although it was far from night.

“Good night,” someone muffled in response.

- Good night! - he shouted without a break, not realizing that the conversation was over and beeps could already be heard in the receiver.

- Good night, mom, good night! She told me “good night”... Mom told me “good night”! You heard, she said it herself!.. – the boy choked with joy, eventually leaving the phone. “She loves me so much, she loves me very much!” And he immediately began to fantasize about his mother’s love...

And on my table there was an open volume by Tsvetaeva; my students and I wanted to devote the evening to her. But even brilliant poems did not evoke as much feeling in me as the meager lines filled with bitterness:

“I am my mother’s eldest daughter, but my beloved is not me. She’s proud of me, she loves her second one!”

Was it not this, or this dislike, that once forced Tsvetaeva to rush from one earthly love to another, seeking refuge for her tormented soul in crazy kisses and crazy-genius lines, born of a mania of love that was always slipping away when, it seemed, it was already there? next to her.

Was it not this dislike that forever chained her, like Prometheus to a rock, to the only one whom she could not betray for the sake of another earthly love and passion? It was not this dislike that ultimately destroyed her, because she never found compensation for it.

“I am my mother’s eldest daughter, but my beloved is not me...”

And this... turned out to last a lifetime, and even after life.

And yet, every day in the newspapers they publish about unwanted children who accidentally managed to visit our world, which is constantly discussing about space aliens, about aliens... and...

“Unwanted, secretly born babies in the Czech Republic now have a chance to survive. The so-called Baby Box was opened in Prague. In it, like a bag or suitcase in a storage room, a woman can leave her unwanted baby. As soon as the box door closes, the alarm will notify the duty officer about the foundling, and within a minute the baby will be taken away...”

“In Japan, the first special “child adoption window” will appear in the entire country, where mothers will be able to anonymously give up unwanted children, who will then be put up for adoption. The management of Ikei Hospital in northern Japan plans to install a “stork cradle,” which is a special window-valve in the wall, behind which there is a small bed. Once the baby is inside, the attendants will ring a bell so they can immediately attend to the child. The director of the hospital came up with this idea of ​​caring for abandoned children after visiting Germany, where a similar “children’s incubator” already exists”...

Probably, it’s still better to go to the “cradle” than to become like a bag, a suitcase, coming into this world without “suitcases”...

And our progressive twenty-first century is already visiting school today.

HOW it is advisable for parents to behave in order to somehow veil their dislike for the child

If you accidentally find out about an unwanted pregnancy, understand that your unborn baby is not at all to blame for this, and do everything possible so that he does not feel unloved before he is even born.

No matter how hard it is for you, try to think only good things about your child’s future, calling the fetus in affectionate words.

Expect the birth of a baby as a miracle in your life.

If the instinct of motherhood has not awakened in you, try to understand what your baby needs, smile at him, pick him up, caress him, breastfeed him.

Remember that the child should not lose his “basic trust in the world”, awaken this trust in him.

Do not replace your presence near the child with nannies.

Learn to express your love, even working with a psychologist.

If you are irritated by certain character traits or behavioral traits in your child, try to find the keys to solving these problems together.

Look for the reasons for your “secondary rejection” of the child, restrain yourself when possible in expressing negative emotions.

Do not create situations of situational rejection of the child.

Do not program your child’s life to match your own, which was in childhood, when it seemed to you that you were unloved.

If suddenly your child tells you openly about your dislike for him, immediately think about how you gave yourself away.

Do not encourage rivalry between children, do not show your preference for one child over another, even if you have one.

Tell each child about his uniqueness.

Do not change your attitude towards your child after a divorce, even if he is very similar to his father, who only evokes negative emotions in you.

Remember that what is important to your child today is your sincere love-admiration, and not love-growling, correcting his actions for the sake of the future.

Try to understand your own “inner child”, and through the perception of him and your own children.

If you have a very strong rejection of the child, give him up to your parents or other significant others who are able to sincerely love him, but not give him to them forever. Look for ways to level out your rejection.