Why is our need for love and acknowledgment so desperate?
As a baby, we have an unlimited need for emotional nourishment, love, and security. But from the moment we are born, a baby does not receive what it needs and so the seed of insecurity is formed. See my post, "The Original Trauma – Birth."
Nothing that a child is told or experiences in early childhood or later development sends him the spiritual message that he has everything he needs inside himself to be at peace and happy. A child is by virtue of many circumstances totally dependent on his parents and others to meet his four basic needs - food, freedom from pain, warmth/nurturing, and physical security. That is a fact of life, and when those needs aren't consistently met, the child's insecurity and resulting feeling of need and dependence increases.
A contributing factor is that parents generally want to be needed. That's one of the driving forces for many wanting to have a child. So on the one hand, the parent caters to this need of their child. But the extent of the child's needs are far greater than parents anticipate and can fulfill, they have their own issues and lives to navigate, and so the child often frustrates or annoys a parent. And the child's needs are not met. Worse, the child learns that his needs annoy his parents.
The parent does not have in their background or parenting toolkit the ability to make a child feel that he has what he needs inside himself spiritually to be at peace and happy. To enable him to love himself, to value himself, and respect himself. To not be dependent on others for that sense of well-being. A parent may say, "Take care of it yourself," of something similar, but that does not strengthen the child's feeling of independence, rather it tells him that his parents have no time for him,
It is almost a perfect storm of circumstances that lead a child to grow up feeling on the one hand highly dependent on the love or acknowledgment of others, and yet knowing that other people can mostly not be depended on for that support. Caught in this painful state, he develops a craving to be loved and acknowledged.
This craving exhibits itself in many ways, all of which have negative consequences not just for the individual but for society as a whole. Perhaps the most common is depression. But two others have very significant consequences.
People have a craving to be part of a tribe, for example Trump supporters, AOC supporters, or gang members. In each case they give and expect to receive unflinching and unquestioning loyalty to/from their tribe. The negative consequence is conflict between tribes which is irreducible; the chasm between them cannot be bridged.
The second is rampant sexual activity. Many attribute this to natural biological urges and the failure of social mores. But while both of those are true, the driving force is the craving to be wanted, needed, desired. This isn't just about having children outside of wedlock, it's about irresponsible sexual activity as well as adultery. The latter is often accounted for by saying they lost sexual interest, but it's more that they no longer felt loved and needed and so they go looking for that elsewhere.
To make matters even worse, the child also develops coping skills, such as feeling superior to others, better than others, that have the negative impact of both increasing his distance from those around him and increasing the likelihood that he will not in fact be liked or acknowledged by others. On a societal level, that is what is going on between Trump supporters and progressives. It is nasty.
I once wrote a post in which I explained that all the violence in the world is the result of man's insecurity. And that insecurity is at its core based on the failure of parents to adequately meet the needs of their new-born and developing children. It is unfortunately not enough to love a child. Human parents, or at least one of them, need to be like an animal mother – there is nothing more important to that mother than the safety and well-being of her child/children.
Parents need to be trained to raise a child who feels safe and secure, and themselves feel safe and secure, For that reason, I wrote the book, Raising a Happy Child, which has been acclaimed as "a must read for all parents!" And individuals need to discover their spirituality, their true selves, to free themselves from this oppressive craving. See my "Coming Home" video series and numerous posts.
As a baby, we have an unlimited need for emotional nourishment, love, and security. But from the moment we are born, a baby does not receive what it needs and so the seed of insecurity is formed. See my post, "The Original Trauma – Birth."
Nothing that a child is told or experiences in early childhood or later development sends him the spiritual message that he has everything he needs inside himself to be at peace and happy. A child is by virtue of many circumstances totally dependent on his parents and others to meet his four basic needs - food, freedom from pain, warmth/nurturing, and physical security. That is a fact of life, and when those needs aren't consistently met, the child's insecurity and resulting feeling of need and dependence increases.
A contributing factor is that parents generally want to be needed. That's one of the driving forces for many wanting to have a child. So on the one hand, the parent caters to this need of their child. But the extent of the child's needs are far greater than parents anticipate and can fulfill, they have their own issues and lives to navigate, and so the child often frustrates or annoys a parent. And the child's needs are not met. Worse, the child learns that his needs annoy his parents.
The parent does not have in their background or parenting toolkit the ability to make a child feel that he has what he needs inside himself spiritually to be at peace and happy. To enable him to love himself, to value himself, and respect himself. To not be dependent on others for that sense of well-being. A parent may say, "Take care of it yourself," of something similar, but that does not strengthen the child's feeling of independence, rather it tells him that his parents have no time for him,
It is almost a perfect storm of circumstances that lead a child to grow up feeling on the one hand highly dependent on the love or acknowledgment of others, and yet knowing that other people can mostly not be depended on for that support. Caught in this painful state, he develops a craving to be loved and acknowledged.
This craving exhibits itself in many ways, all of which have negative consequences not just for the individual but for society as a whole. Perhaps the most common is depression. But two others have very significant consequences.
People have a craving to be part of a tribe, for example Trump supporters, AOC supporters, or gang members. In each case they give and expect to receive unflinching and unquestioning loyalty to/from their tribe. The negative consequence is conflict between tribes which is irreducible; the chasm between them cannot be bridged.
The second is rampant sexual activity. Many attribute this to natural biological urges and the failure of social mores. But while both of those are true, the driving force is the craving to be wanted, needed, desired. This isn't just about having children outside of wedlock, it's about irresponsible sexual activity as well as adultery. The latter is often accounted for by saying they lost sexual interest, but it's more that they no longer felt loved and needed and so they go looking for that elsewhere.
To make matters even worse, the child also develops coping skills, such as feeling superior to others, better than others, that have the negative impact of both increasing his distance from those around him and increasing the likelihood that he will not in fact be liked or acknowledged by others. On a societal level, that is what is going on between Trump supporters and progressives. It is nasty.
I once wrote a post in which I explained that all the violence in the world is the result of man's insecurity. And that insecurity is at its core based on the failure of parents to adequately meet the needs of their new-born and developing children. It is unfortunately not enough to love a child. Human parents, or at least one of them, need to be like an animal mother – there is nothing more important to that mother than the safety and well-being of her child/children.
Parents need to be trained to raise a child who feels safe and secure, and themselves feel safe and secure, For that reason, I wrote the book, Raising a Happy Child, which has been acclaimed as "a must read for all parents!" And individuals need to discover their spirituality, their true selves, to free themselves from this oppressive craving. See my "Coming Home" video series and numerous posts.
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