Archive for the ‘My son, the doctor’ Category

Motile prestige prospecting devices

Once the child has been brought into the world in order to satisfy the neighbours, it must be made to behave so as to impress them. The ‘morality’ thereby taught means, not what sort of person you are inside, but whether you uphold the reputation of your parents among their peers. Although this Henry James [...]

Sycophantic technology

All parents will say, if asked, that they are bringing up their children to become good citizens. In many cases it appears that the parents’ idea of a good citizen is by no means someone who treats all his fellow-citizens with consideration and humanity; for how else do children grow up to display hatred and [...]

The nameless heir

I knew a man who referred to, and even addressed, his son as, ‘My son and heir’. In this way he was unconsciously confessing that he regarded his son primarily as a reflection of his own glory and guarantor of his social position, a tool of his own prestige and continuity. The son as an [...]

Magical garments

Suits are not so much status technology as status magic. They magically confer parental approval on offspring who could otherwise not achieve it. The mechanism is that others approve the suit, and thereby approve the parents. Who cares who is inside the suit, as long as the agreement among parents to respect one another for [...]

Presents for shaming

After a certain age, varying between about twelve to eighteen, parents’ birthday and holiday-season presents to their offspring cease to be about giving them things that they might like, and instead focus on symbolic reproaches, correction and shaming into desired behaviour. Such presents should be either something the children will obviously not want, so that [...]

Unhappiness as a crime

I knew a man whose father said to him, ‘You’re a very unhappy person’. Now, such words may be said compassionately, or with concern; but in this case they were said in an accusatory manner, in precisely the same tone as one might say, ‘You, Sir, are a thief and a liar!’. Perhaps for the [...]

Crisis maximisation

I have known two people, a man and a woman, who reported the same peculiar experience with their parents: they were both ‘good’ teenagers, in the sense that they did well at school, never took drugs, never stole, never crashed the car, never got into trouble with the police, never caught a STD, and never [...]

Three indicted occupations

When I was a youngster, some friends and I amused ourselves by making lists of the professions that we thought should never to be allowed to have children: the Big Three were always teachers, priests and shrinks. Some added military officers as a fourth, while others vehemently disagreed and reported that ‘army brats’ seemed to [...]

Pride in one’s self-extension

Many parents would never dream of saying to their child, ‘I respect you’ or ‘I admire you’. Even if the child’s deeds and accomplishments in the world far exceed their own, they remain locked in the notion that respect and admiration must always flow from the junior to the senior and not contrariwise. What they [...]