I Hate My Parents
The Role Of Hate In Childhood Abuse & Neglect - Featuring Alice Miller, Lindsay C. Gibson & Sherrie Campbell
The individual psychological stages in the lives of most people are:
1. To be hurt as a small child without anyone recognizing the situation as such
2. To fail to react to the resulting suffering with anger
3. To show gratitude for what are supposed to be good intentions
4. To forget everything
5. To discharge the stored-up anger onto others in adulthood or to direct it against oneself.
-Alice Miller, 1980
The Evolution Of Hate
In 1981, the Polish psychologist Alice Miller released The Drama Of The Gifted Child, a revolutionary book exploring how childhood abuse affects the child’s psyche and drives children to hate their parents. The book, which caused Miller to be ostracized by the Freudian community she had belonged to, championed the rights of children and was a trailblazer for its claim that the parents’ own unhealed trauma was the root cause of their children’s emotional wounding and psychological issues in adulthood.
Born in Poland in 1923, Alice Miller spent much of her childhood and adolescence running for her life to escape German soldiers, a harrowing race that lasted 11 years and ultimately cost Miller’s father his life. By all accounts, Miller’s early emotional disconnection from her parents, as well as her strongly guarded experiences of trauma during the war, left her with deep emotional scarring that haunted her until her passing in 2010.
Miller's tumultuous early experiences shaped her perspectives on family dynamics and parental obligations, leading her to challenge societal norms with seemingly little regard for how she was perceived.
Most defiantly, Miller shunned the assertion that children must honor thy father and mother (the impact of which is the topic of her book The Body Never Lies). Miller maintained that children did not owe their parents love or forgiveness, and that it was the parents’ own need for attention, validation, and domination that caused their children’s suffering.
Our world would be very different if the majority of babies had the chance to rule over their mothers like (authority figures) and be coddled by them, without having to concern themselves with their mothers’ needs. -Alice Miller
Today, Alice Miller’s legacy remains complex. Ten years after her death, Miller’s son Martin Miller - himself now a psychologist - published a shocking exposé detailing the abuse he experienced at the hands of both his parents. Yet despite his own upbringing, Martin continues to maintain that his mother’s teachings remain as accurate and relevant as ever.
Present Day Perspectives On Hate
Although we’ve made significant progress in recognizing the impact of childhood abuse and neglect in the 40 years since The Drama Of The Gifted Child was released, when it comes to validating the feelings of hate experienced by a child towards their parents, many believe we continue to come up short.
You can see this in the common refrains of “My parents hit me and I turned out fine,” and “they had it hard too.” (Trauma doesn’t care about our logic, only our pain.)
This allowance of abuse was highlighted by psychologist Dr. Sherrie Campbell during our recent interview. Dr. Sherrie recounted her own experiences growing up with a physically abusive father and a sadistic mother, sharing memories of being gaslit by people who witnessed her abuse firsthand.
“I wish, when I was young, that anyone would have just given me a small slice of validation like, ‘Yes, that was really mean,’ when people would see her be mean. Instead, they would say, ‘You know, she didn’t mean it that way. She’s your mom, you know, surely she loves you, right?’”
Dr. Sherrie stresses that the way abusers operate, doling out small doses of kindness interspersed with long bouts of abuse, keeps their victims stuck in a state of relentless hope, seesawing endlessly between the deep suffering of parental rejection and the naive hope that things will eventually change. Dr. Campbell points out that it should not be surprising when this type of emotional torture leads to feelings of hate. She maintains that hate for one’s abusive parents should be looked at as a natural and potentially crucial part of the healing process.
“I think that hate just brings a child’s hope to some closure. It sort of says, ‘enough is enough.’ It’s a very honest hate; it’s not a revengeful hate. It’s, ‘I’ve had enough. I hate you, go away. Leave me alone.’” -Dr. Sherrie Campbell
Hate Is A Normal And Involuntary Reaction
When it comes to the validation of children of emotionally immature parents, there has perhaps been no greater champion over the past two decades than Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson, the world renown psychologist and author of the New York Times Best Seller Adult Children Of Emotionally Immature Parents.
Although Dr. Gibson offers more empathy for the parents than Miller ever did (after all, the cycle of abuse likely didn’t begin with them), her message is equally firm: parents who lack the emotional maturity to connect meaningfully with their children will leave deep wounding inside them. These wounds may not only lead to hatred, but, if suppressed, are likely to manifest in a variety of destructive impulses, emotions, and behaviors throughout adulthood.
Like both Alice Miller and Dr. Campbell, Dr. Gibson sees hate as a natural and predictable result of being raised by unattuned, neglectful, or outright abusive parents.
“Hate is a normal and involuntary reaction when somebody tries to control you for no good reason. It signals that the person is extinguishing your emotional life force by getting his or her needs met at your expense.” -Dr. Lindsay Gibson
The Path Forward - Hate as Liberation
In a society that so deeply, and often blindly, values unconditional love and forgiveness for one's parents, acknowledging and accepting feelings of hate may not only be helpful, but necessary.
Perhaps it is only by accepting the unavoidability of hate that the adult child is finally able to release the shame and guilt so commonly felt as a result of a traumatic upbringing. By rejecting the perspective that hate for one’s parents is selfish or ungrateful, the adult child can begin the work of transforming the emotion from a static experience of bitterness to a vehicle for meaningful healing and true emotional liberation.
An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior. -Viktor Frankl
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi, I’m Will. You can find me building the Academy Of Self Help. If you’re someone who likes to read self-help books and loves to talk about why we are the way we are, we should be friends.
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Thanks for sharing this very insightful and validating article. Looks like you've also added to my "to read" list! I have witnessed first hand how people react when I said I 'hated' the parents. I won't call them "my" parents. This article actually touched on a couple of sore spots I didn't realize I still had ... as well as a recognition of how important it is to validate the feelings and experiences of traumatized children (and adults abused as children) rather than the customary gaslighting re: the examples you mentioned. Them "doing the best they could" doesn't diminish the damage their "best" did. If that was their best, I'm guess I'm lucky I only almost died.
I'm a massive fan of Alice Miller and The Drama of the Gifted Child. I, too, have a very complicated relationship with my father. I hear your message and I agree. Undoing the damage done to me is expensive.