Fallacious Assumption that Children Are Mindless
Play this role. Imagine that you are seven. You are mad to see Mommy praising your sister, who is one year older than you.
What are you going to do about that?
Hey, you've got an idea. Go tell Mommy that your sister beats up other kids on the playground at school.
Do you think no child would do that? Think again. Why shouldn't she when it gets her what she wants? And when what she wants is all she cares about?
Make sure that last sentence sinks in. The only difference between her and good children is that she couldn't care less for reality: all she cares about is her image, appearances. She never grew up to the Age of Reason and quit playing Pretend that they are reality.
So she is shameless. Make sure that fact weighs as heavily as it should, too.
So, she doesn't feel lowdown and mean for doing this lowdown, dirty, rotten thing. She just Pretends she doesn't know it's a lowdown, dirty, rotten, stinking thing to do - even to a sister WHOM SHE HAS CONNED INTO LOVING AND TRUSTING HER.
Enough to make you want to puke, eh?
That's it. That's what's different about her. And that's what makes her amoral and diabolical even at such a tender age.
Why should she refrain from such lowdown dirty tricks if they make her look like an angel compared to whomever she's trashing? Any stupid sap who isn't smart enough to operate this way is stupid in her book.
Especially that stupid sap of a sister of hers, who is clueless and loves and trusts this little narcissist with a knife in her back.
What an ego trip for the little budding narcissist. She thus gets to think she's SOOOOOOO smart compared to the idiots who fall these dirty tricks.
Do you suppose that Mommy will even give the older sister a chance to defend herself by telling her that she has been thusly accused behind her back? Think again. Mommy knows that Older Sister would naturally ask who her accuser is. So, think again. Does Mommy want her to know who dunnit? Does Mommy want her know that Mommy talks with others like this about her child behind her back?
Doesn't Mommy feel a little like a betrayor for that? And doesn't the little demon notice that Mommy thus protects her from having to be responsible for her false accusations?
Wow! The Mother Load! A carte blanche! Now the budding little narcissist knows that she can pull this stunt wihenever she wants without any fear of repercussions!
That's why this will go on all their lives - behind the victim's back, to deny the victim any chance to even answer the accusations.
Maybe Mommy doubts most of it. Indeed, Mommy is probably spooked, wondering which child has the serious problem here. Mommy is getting gaslighted and goes into DENIAL of the fact that one of these two children needs a psychiatrist. So Mommy just pretends that this backstabbing is normal, no big deal.
Day after day after day this goes on. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab - often subtly and sporting a mocking little halo to boot. Over this years, this constant chipping away at Big Sister's image in Mommy's eyes does the trick.
Because Ns are con artists who come between others this way. (See the chapter in the eBook entitled "The Faces of Narcissism: The Con Artist.")
Children are NOT too unintellgent to figure this out. Even dogs aren't. Mine outsmarts and manipulates me every day - simply because he notices the results of everything I do in reaction to whatever he does. Children are just relatively immature and inexperienced, not brain dead.
Technorati Tags:
narcissistic personality disorder
6 Comments:
You just described my relationship with both of my siblings so accurately
and with such clarity. That was my life for over 40 years . If I were around them it would still be going on.
i didn't realize my N was like this at first.when i met him he seemed too mature for his age. after we wed i told a friend if he would have been older he would have been so set in his ways i wouldn't stand a chance.he was the oldest 2osome year old i ever met. now he seems like the most immature, socially lacking petty bratty brother type 40some year old i have ever met. he's going backwards. and if he stays on this trajectory i am sooo screwed.jt
My narcissist brother would screw me over just for the thrill of it when we were kids. Who would think that a child of six or seven would lie about the serious things he accused his much older brother of doing? The image of him grinning in the doorway and watching as I took beating after beating over his lies will be with me forever.
Long before I understood that he was more than just mean and was, in fact, truly evil, I had the chance to confront him over a horrible lie he told our parents about me, a time when he had taken credit for a good deed I had done for them while making me look bad in the process (a two-fer). We were adults at the time.
Being in a corner and having no way to lie out of that situation, he acted as though he had merely been caught cheating at a game of checkers. He smiled at me and said, "Oh, I don't know why I did that. I guess I've just always gotten a kick out of beng the GOOD son."
That was many years and many screw-overs ago, long before I knew what narcissim was.
Kathy? You deserve a treat yet again. In a non-gay way LOL...I frikkin' LOVE you, lady! BTW, last night a few doubles tennis players were in my life, and indeed, they KNEW all about yer Bill Tilden person.
You are just a brilliant person and I thank you for being at the forefront of massive, unrelenting and healing, lasting change in our Beloved Earth School paradigm. EVERYONE is eventually going to get on board this and understand that compassion for monsters is all the rage, pardon the pun.
We have no choice.
I know only three people like me, who possess empathy and wisdom and (newfound) skill (brought on by acting when I didn't have any). Meanwhile, my city is crawling with bugs.
I ran into a nasty little 7 year old narcissist in the making while waiting in line at the trampolines with my daughter once. She kept kicking at my daughter when she thought no one was looking. When I asked her father to make her stop I almost died when he got down on his knees in front of her, asked her if it was true, and when she denied it all wide eyed, gave her a hug and then simply IGNORED us. What he didn't see was the gloating smile she flashed us as her arms were wrapped around his neck, nor the "attempted" kicks that followed. I asked my daughter to be patient while I thought about what to do or to kick the girl back as she hard as she could, it was up to her. Luckily the mom joined us in line a few minutes later with the girl's younger brother and that was when I heard the father say to the mother that the little girl in line behind them had accused their daughter, wrongly of course was implied, of kicking her! My jaw dropped about a mile but I immediately smiled at the woman who turned to look at us and calmly explained EXACTLY what had had happened in MINUT detail, the actions of the child and father both. The mother apologized for her daughters behaviour, gave the father one of those "you are incredible" looks and punished the girl by having her sit on a bench while her brother jumped on the trampoline. The girl threw a ROYAL temper tantrum for more than five minutes after being punished, exactly to the moment when her brother went inside and started jumping, and she knew with a certainty that her tantrum was not going to get her her way. It was an eye opening experience to see such an evil, manipulative, little SEVEN YEAR OLD. I sure pity that girl's little brother when mom's not around to protect him.
On behalf of children whose mothers denied their children the right to protect themselves, thank you for allowing your child to kick back if necessary. Bravo!
I bet she felt no need to, but your allowing her to meant everything in the world to her.
Post a Comment
<< Home