Is the relationship between a child and their parents similar to the Stockholm syndrome?

[noname223]

Today, I read a very interesting article of Slavoj Zizek on his substack. The part about the relationship between a child and their parents was really interesting to read. I think he would not be content if he knew I advertize his texts on SaSu though. Lol.

Or, to put it in yet another way, Buddhism accepts the common view that the purpose of life is happiness (to quote the Dalai Lama, "the purpose of our lives is to be happy"), it just defines this term differently. "Happiness is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions." "When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace." "We don't need more money, we don't need greater success or fame, we don't need the perfect body or even the perfect mate. Right now, at this very moment, we have a mind, which is all the basic equipment we need to achieve complete happiness." "Human happiness and human satisfaction most ultimately come from within oneself." Following Freud, Lacan, on the contrary, asserts death drive as the basic component of our libidinal lives, which operates beyond the pleasure‑principle: what Lacan calls enjoyment (jouissance) emerges out of a self‑sabotage of pleasure; it is an enjoyment in displeasure itself.

A Lacanian view is much closer to Dr House who, in one of the episodes of the series, when he tries to diagnose a patient with his group and one of his collaborators mentions that the patient radiates happiness, immediately adds "happiness" to the list of the patient's symptoms of illness to be explained and abolished. The feeling of happiness is a dangerous symptom, not something we should strive for. And the same goes for what is also considered the most spontaneous parental feeling: the immense love of one's own small child. Small children are horror embodied: stupid, annoying, smelling bad, breaking our sleep… so the feeling of love for them is a clear case of what is called the "Stockholm syndrome": a coping mechanism in a captive or abusive situation, when people develop positive feelings toward their captors or abusers over time. Is this not exactly the mechanism of how we cope with small children?


The last part is important. What do you think about this comparison? Our primitive instincts are probably responsible for that.

 

[NormallyNeurotic]

so the feeling of love for them is a clear case of what is called the "Stockholm syndrome"

There's a lot of debate about Stockholm Syndeoem's own validity as I believe the original "case" of it may have been a hoax. But it does exist, in the form of Fawn Response.

On this front, no, it is not too much like loving your child. From the perspective of loving it inherently, there are hormones and psychological processes that come into play, of course, but we also have a more "intelligent" (debatable) brain than many other animals, so you can't only boil it down to that.

We can show compassion, and many of us can feel cognitive empathy, or at least try to study human behavior to the best of our abilities.

The reason babies are "stupid" is because their brain is underdeveloped, brains don't just come from nowhere. We can reason that the baby has no control over this, and therefore is not at fault. In fact, they are suffering more than us, often times. Being young is confusing and scary.

The reason babies interrupt our sleep is due to the fact that they need basic things to survive, but cannot do those things by themselves. That plays into the former point. Our sleep is important, but so is a baby not starving to death, not developing an infection from feces/urine buildup. Two people need different necessities for survival, so you try to meet in the middle. That's life.

I think you can sort of extrapolate from here what my point is.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Parents aren't necessarily trapped in the situation though- being the stronger and more independent creature. There have been very tragic cases of parents killing their own children. Or, to a lesser extreme, bundling them off to grandparents, other relatives or foster parents to raise.

What I think works far better and applies to many members here- including me is in the case of the suicidal child who feels compelled to stay here because it loves its parent. Even though our parents effectively put us in this situation to begin with.

Stockholm Syndrome I believe is sometimes used to describe the peculiar connection hostages sometimes develop towards their captors. I suppose it's not impossible for children to take their parents hostage but I imagine it's more common to be the other way around.

 

[WhatCouldHaveBeen32]

House and Zizek aren't the best people to learn from when talking about humans.