Researchers at Yale University developed studies to answer the question: Do babies have a sense of right and wrong? What they came up with may surprise you.
Read The moral life of babies, on NYTimes.com. Be sure to watch the video.
Link submitted by a Lovefraud reader.
Dear Style, Yes! Amen to that! The crack and meth babies born, just the sheer number of them makes my heart ache! The areas of famine where the preg women don’t get enough calories, much less nutrition makes me cry! I guess maybe I got too much of the “empathy’ gene! LOL
One of my earliest memories about age 4-5 was seeing a little girl on the streets in my town in winter who was without a coat on a COLD day, and I remember feeling so sad for her. I can still “see” the picture of her in my mind. I recall seeing people scavenging in the city dump for food when I was probably 7-8 when my stepdad and I went there at Christmas time with food baskets from the church. I wonder how they fared the other 364 days of the year. I’ve always been I think a push over for a sad story, for hungry or abused people and wanted to take them in and feed/fix them.
This has left me open to being abused myself by psychopaths who used the “pity ploy” so I have to keep my emotions in check on my feelings of wanting to “help.” I’ve been suckered in severalo times by Ps posing as victims.
The last time was last summer by a female P I “took in” out of pity and wanting to “help” her—any time I start feeling “pity” I have to slap myself up side the head with the cyber SKILLET and say “Is this your responsibility?” I still try to do “good works” but do them in a way that I cannot be individually victimized.
The “good samaritan” helped the beaten traveler, and he left some money to help the guy out after he left, but he then MOVED ON HIS WAY, he didn’t neglect himself and his own business to stay there and personally nurse this guy. He was using GOOD SENSE and Also GOOD WILL. So that is what I am training myself to do as well. Follow that example, not get caught up in the drama or pity.
OxD – anonymous support is one of the ways to protect ourselves. When I was involved in a women’s shelter, I was short-term victim to some of the transient “victims.” Not much cash, but feeling that pity………oh, boy.
There was a time when I thought I could “fix the world” (I think I was 17 or 18) and knew all the answers, as I have gotten older I know I dont even know all the QUESTIONS! LOL
I also know that while there is great injustice in this world, horrible things, I can’t fix them all and I also can’t Focus on all those things either. I am only ONE, but I can do what ONE can do. That is all I am required to do is what I CAN DO. Even Jesus couldn’t “fix” the world with His love, because people used Him, people abused Him, were ungrateful to Him, so what makes me think I can fix the world!? My own arrogance?
Yep! Well, I’m not quite so arrogant any more, and am not trying to Burden myself with ALL the problems in the whole entire world. I almost think I am “programmed” to want to “FIX” everything, so have to keep working at pushing that desire/feeling/thought down and reaffirming that I am NOT responsible for every bad thing that happens to anyone in the entire world.
I had a therapist tell me a looooong time ago that if there was only one pound of guilt in the world and it was layed down in the middle of Siberia that I would RUN, not walk, to grab it ALL for myself. Even though this was a long time ago, the things she said to me are coming back to me in clear lessons. Took a while for it to all sink in though.
It’s the ‘boundaries’ deal up in our face again.
Help but with boundaries.. or they will suck you down with them.
I have a hair dresser that is always asking to be paid before services rendered..and I have done so on occasion..
Then I had the opportunity to realize that she is continully shopping instead of paying her mortage.. or rent amount where she works..
she is always complaining, yet always blowing cash and she drives a status car..
So my eyes were opened up.. she doesn’t need to get real.. if others all always helping her out. and now with the economy as it is.. she is losing clients but still shops continually.. another client told me that she is about to be evicted and has asked her for money..so I am expecting it.. and I will not.. I am going to suggest that she trades down her car.. or builds her business up.. all she seems to care about are ‘cute’ outfits and is ignoring reality.
This is just one example.. I have that kind heart also.. I have been helped in the past so help others.. but it can lead to us being ‘screwed’ over in all types of relationships.
common sense would say if you can’t take care of yourself DON’T bring a child into this world.. If you are on drugs, etc, DON’T bring a child into this world..
the ones with no sense are having the most children… this world is a mess…
Dear Style,
I am glad that you are “getting it” with your hair dresser! I’ve seen this situation many times and “helped” out when I shouldn’t have, and no longer “help” in this kind of situation.
It took a long time for me to see how I was being “used” by various people in my circle, but have pared down that “circle” now and no longer allow myself to be bilked or used to assume responsibility for other’s lives. I also owned up to myself that I was ALLOWING this abuse, and resenting it totally, but so afraid of “hurting someone’s feelings” that I would not stand up for myself. I started setting boundaries, and when people crossed them I CONFRONTED them and set even stricter boundaries and if they crossed them again, they were OUT of my life. When I first started setting boundaires I was SO afraid I would hurt them or was being unreasonable I CRIED AND CRIED, but then as I practiced it got EASIER and easier.
Finally I had NO problem telling these people that I was NOT responsible for their problems and that I was NOT going to try to solve their problems that it was up to THEM to provide for themselves. DUH! Oh, you should have seen the twisting and turning and projecting and pity plays they tried and for the first time in my life, I stood firm and did NOT feel guilty the least bit! What a novel concept! I feel NO GUILT because YOU don’t take care of yourself and your own problems. !!!!!
I haven’t read the article, and maybe I should have before posting, but I did watch the video. I’m wondering if the babies are really not too young to understand the whole concept of right or wrong in this sense, although the majority of the time, they chose the “good guy” in the end. I can understand 2-3 years old, but these babies are just SO young!
This brings to mind something my pastor said….You don’t have to teach children to do bad, that is instinctive. We have to teach them right.
On another note entirely, just wondering if any of you that have S/P/N children, were there instances of them as young children, say around 3-5 years old, crying for no apparent reason? As I look back over my life and all that I have taken in in the last few months regarding these disorders, I can see where I may have had some traits myself. I was not always the nicest child and did some things that I can look back on and say WTH was I thinking? Point is, I wasn’t. After being married a second time and suffering through a clinical depression as a result of this marriage and circumstances, I sought counseling, and had a 180 degree turnaround. People I had known just a couple of years prior could not believe that I was the same person. But I seem to have gone to the opposite extreme and feel uber-empathic. Not a bad thing if one has found their boundaries. I thought I knew mine but they continue to be defined and refined.
My mom told me of some things her dad did that were not good, and when I became pregnant at 17, I was told that he was disappointed in me because I was always his favorite. Never heard it up until that point. But I get a creeped out feeling now, thinking that maybe I got some of his bad genes and maybe somehow there was a hint of recognition with me to him. What I have done with my life is a far cry from what he did, but I guess in a roundabout way, I’m asking if there might have been some connection to my dismal outlook as a young child where I would bawl for no apparent reason.
shana31 – not possible for anyone here to be able to say. given that you have empathy; i wouldn’t suspect so.
there are many reasons children cry – completely non spath children will use tears to manipulate; kids is FAS will cry in frustration; preemies will cry because their nervous systems get over amped; and kid’s living in dysfunctional homes will sometimes express the feelings of the whole household…there are SO many possibilities – these are just a few.
best
one step
Dear Shana,
If you have made a 180 degree turn, I sincerely doubt that you were a “bad seed” LOL ((((hugs))) I think everyone has been a brat at one point or another, so don’t sweat it. What you are NOW is what is important and believe me Ps don’t do 180s!
I think one-step is right, kids cry for different reasons. I have a P-son, and he was really a great kid til about age 11, then one instance of theft and no more till puberty. Seemed to have empathy out the wazoo, but now is a cold blooded kiiller! Got there by age 20, and 19 years later is no better.
Just keep learning and traveling toward the light! I think you are going in the RIGHT direction!!! (((HUGS))))
hey it’s me Skyar
I don’t have much time to write. Yeah, it’s like I did a 360 degree turn, – or maybe 350 degrees. Figure it out I can’t write much. this article is very cloe to my thought today.
{{{Shana31}}} You’re not a “bad seed.” EVERYONE has a genetic predisposition to be narcissistic in a “normal” manner. There is a level of normal, healthy instict for self-preservation, and then there’s the malignant level of narcissism. While I was still involved in an environmental connection with the ex spath, I was VERY worried that I had become spath, as well. My emotions were very much turned inward. I would still “feel” the emotional expressions of others (joy, fear, sorrow, etc.,), but my personal responses to this were always hyper – I would SOB at funerals and SOB when I saw an animal on the side of the road. I believe that my responses to life, in general, were tempered by what I had experienced from the spath, and I was in self-preservation-mode, towards the end. (See the suicide threat on another thread)
As for noting red flags during childhood development – the spath son demonstrated a clear lack of remorse, early on. There were a few times that he expressed something in the way of “normal,” but not what I would term as reasonable – mind you, I’m NOT a trained or qualified professional, so my observations relate only to my personal experiences.
When people or animals were hurt or killed, spath son never expressed true sadness. As I said, there were occasions when he seemed to express something akin to “concern” or “shame,” but there was ALWAYS this undercurrent of hollowness. As he approached adolescence, I began to experience something that I can’t readily explain as well as I would like to: hugs, touches, words, eye contact, and all interactions began to give me the heegee beegees. My own son gave me the absolute creeps! For instance, if I would move to give him a hug for a job well done, his physical stance would alter to some degree, and there was a distinct lack of emotional connection – if that makes any sense, at all. Normally, when I embrace another empathetic human being, I feel a sense of emotional connection. Not so with spath son. And, the older he got, the more intense this aversion became. Eye contact was cold and empty – the lights were on, but nobody was home. His gaze was completely devoid of emotion of ANY sort, unless it was intense rage.
So, give yourself a break Shana31! Surviving spathy is a lifelong process, and each time we jump over a pothole in the healing path, we learn that we were prevented from evolving into the human beings that we were meant to be by spaths.
Brightest blessings, Shana31! OxD is right – you ARE moving in the right direction on the healing path!