Pinocchio, Everything's Fine With Your Nose

- On Giving The Right Set Of Values To The Child
- Remember Pinocchio? The little humanoid marionette that is carved out of a talking pine log? Special that he is, Pinocchio is trained on basic values of living from some very special personalities. One of them is the Fairy with Turquoise Hair, a mother figure to the impressionable young boy, who drills into him a code of conduct that would appear outdated today. "Don't ever you lie, Pinocchio. Whatever else you do, don't ever lie."

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* La Fata dai Capelli Turchini - translated from Italian to English, means 'The Fairy with Turquoise Hair', as illustrated by C.Chiostri, wiki. The Fairy is a parent figure to Pinocchio, who teaches him a set of values with the rider of negative consequences. Her words seep deep into young Pinocchio's mind: "Lies, my boy, are easily recognised because there are two kinds: There are lies with short legs and lies with long noses: Yours, to the point, are the kind with the long nose." So whenever Pinocchio would lie, his nose would grow long. Not because some biological mechanism had been put in place, but because Pinocchio allows himself to believe that that is what the consequence would be, were he to attempt to protect his self-interest. His own parent spikes his own chance of success by shackling him with values that the rest of the world doesn't follow. It is his conscience that does the trick of the lengthening nose.

Morality and ethics apart, we all know that some amount of lying greases our way through the grated friction of living in this otherwise cynical world. With full respect to their profession, ask the proverbial salespersons, plagiarists and politicians! Lying, or being economical with truth, or the manufacturing of truth, is raised to an exalted art in not only these but all the other professions, which is not their fault, for this is how the world works. In such a world, would the likes of Pinocchio, given the values he was inculcated with, survive long? So much for the practicality of the bed-time stories we recount to our children to put them to sleep.


So strong is the hold of this parental figure on young Pinocchio's mind, that the words percolate deep down his subconscious to become a command to the brain. So whenever Pinocchio would lie, his lie-detection circuitry would trigger his ethics-violated-and-morality-outraged circuitry, which in turn would activate his atonement-function, which would do something in some part of the brain somewhere, whose net outcome would be to make his nose appear an inch longer to Pinocchio. Had Pinocchio been a real human being, and had he walked the streets today, claiming that his nose has been lengthening, he would have been referred to a psychiatrist for probable case of delusion.

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* Psychiatrist, www.bipolarworld.net.
Pinocchio was of course just an outcome of carving from a log of wood that had magical properties, a figment of some creative writer's imagination. Analogously, our kids too are an outcome of our decision to become parents. Unlike Pinocchio, the kids are no figment of somebody's imagination, they have happened to us in reality, in flesh and blood. And let's not debate whether our parenthood was planned or whether they just happened "by the way", - this is not the time to debate, honey, we had been given nine long months to prepare ourselves before the child came into being. Now that they are here, how good a parent have we been? How aware are we of the impact that we as parents and guardians have on the kids under our care? Can we dispense with our responsibilities by training them to keep their body neat and clean, by teaching them table manners, by feeding them with the right nutrition and by dressing them with the right clothes to make them look decent and appropriate till the time they are ready to fly the nest and generally take care of themselves? These acts are performed even at the orphanage or foster care. Then is there any differentiating factor that we as parents bring into the picture?


The point is, like the Fairy with Turquoise Hair, our words, actions and deeds too can and do give the child's psyche the perfect shape so that they can carry and conduct themselves in a manner that is just right for them and for the world. On the other hand, our words, actions and deeds can also distort the child's psyche beyond repair to the extent that they become a liability for themselves as well as to the world. This is the differentiating factor that we as parents make on the child's development.


If we say that the family is "the factory where personality is made", then how good designers and workmen have we proven - or are we proving - to be? Our interactions with each other in the family setting, our responses to and attitudes towards the different circumstances that we face as individuals and as a family, our own perception and identity of the self, and the set of values with which we generally drive our own lives largely determine how the little one's personality in our little factory gets molded. It is not the creature comforts available in the home, nor is it the asset side in the balance sheet, but it is the richness of the values that permeate the atmosphere at home that goes to determine how the child will ultimately develop.


* Family Socialization And Interaction Process, Parsons & Bales, Eds, Amazon.com. "Family is the factory where personality is made" is a quote taken from this book.
Having brought them into the world, we of course want to give the kids our best. Whatever be our gender, mother or father, we bequeath our traits to the child through the mash of the zygote, and that is how the synergistic ancestral heritage passes on. Genotypic traits are carried forward usually very smoothly, so we can immediately connect a child with the father by the arc swept in the air by the aquiline nose when trying to push a proposal through against everybody's wishes, or with the mother by the horizontal slits the hazel eyes turn into when trying to fathom the hidden meaning behind what was being said. What about the traits of the mind? Do they similarly get carried forward? Does a genius mother bring forth a genius child? Does a parent with mental disorder beget a child without mental disorder? The jury is apparently still out on the impact of the traits of the psyche being transmitted in so straightforward a fashion.


An example of this is the inheritability of depression due to postnatal depression (PND). A recent study conducted on 29 PND mothers reveals that their offspring have a higher chance of being prone to depression after touching the age of 13. (They collected saliva samples of the kids when they reached this age to measure the cortisol levels; it was a longitudinal study, spread over a 16-year period.) Now, whether this happens because the zygote itself receives the appropriate depression-prone genetic code from the female gamete? Or whether this happens because the mother had withdrawn into her shell in those crucial nine months immediately after delivery, consequent to which she was disengaged and insensitive to the infant's cues for care - the bonding just did not happen -, leading somehow to the child developing vulnerability to depression as a teenager? This is still a grey area. In other words, does the transmission of depression from a PND mother to her progeny take place through the biological channel? Or psychological? Or environmental? Or some other? This continues to remain an enigma. But science has thankfully reached a stage where mothers can be forewarned of the possibility of PND right when they are carrying, so that appropriate intervention can be administered at the right time to address PND in the first place. Curing PND in the mother may perhaps prevent the clouds of helplessness and hopelessness from forming in the child's head when they turn thirteen?


It is, of course, not the state of the mind of the mother in the postnatal stage alone that determines the health of the child's mind as it begins to develop. And the zygote is also not the only channel through which to pass on all that we can pass on to our little bundles of joy. Fathers who are schizophrenic or perpetually anxious, or mothers with obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD), or seniors and guardians with borderline personality disorders (BPD), depression or suicidal tendencies, create a very different kind of ecology in the household to embed the child in. It is not difficult to guess the influence of these traits on a temperament that is still in the process of being formed. In the absence of any other benchmarks of emotional states, the child begins to adjust their behavior to match the parents' emotions, and this adjustment becomes part of their evolving temperament, to influence the subsequent relationships they forge throughout their life, not only in one-to-one, but in their general approach towards society. It is therefore not nature "over" nurture or vice-versa that influences the molding of the child's personality in the factory of our family; the diathesis is a consequence of both nature "and" nurture.


The shaping of the child's temperament takes place in much the same style in normal families, where there are supposedly no disorders of the mind. The child imbibes the good with the bad in much the same way. Let's take our addiction to alcohol for instance, a perfectly legal and socially acceptable practice, and pretty "normal", too. Oh well, isn't it normal that alcoholism leads to marital conflict, financial strain, social isolation and wear-and-tear of the family's fabric? The cherry on the cake is that parental alcoholism has been found to create behavior problems in the child silently watching the goings-on from their corner. When the brain is groggy with so much alcohol sloshing around in the bloodstream, it is impossible for us to give the child the warm affection, positive encouragement and quality feedback that they need from us the most. Then again, in such a state of mind, sometimes our deepest frustrations and bitterest resentments towards the world too begin to emerge from their depths; and we know that very well, don't we? These can manifest anywhere in the spectrum, beginning from biting criticism and acidic sarcasm to emotional torture and physical abuse of the most heinous kind, all targeted at the hapless and helpless child. After returning to our senses, we might spend a lot of time in self-loathe and guilt at our acts, but the damage to the poor child's fragile psyche has been done, and what's more, it is irreversible, never mind what you decide to do later as atonement. If you have had a childhood where parental alcoholism was part of the daily routine, you will no doubt relate to this.

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* Clips from the 1994 movie "Forrest Gump", performed by Tom Hanks, Robin Wright Penn, Michael Conner Humphreys, Hanna Hall and Sally Field, YouTube. The movie is about the life-paths of two children. Young Forrest is fatherless, but he is raised by a mother who feeds him with the right encouragement and teaches him to never let anybody tell him that they are better than him, nor to see himself as any different from the rest just because his legs happened to be in braces. "If God intended everybody to be the same, He would have given us all braces on our legs."

With such powerful, positive affirmations to fertilize his mind, Forrest finds it very easy to overcome his congenital awkwardness and come to terms with the low IQ. He overcomes his congenital problem in the legs with the sheer determination to overcome all odds. So strong is the foundation of self-confidence laid by his momma, that while the rest of the world gawks and gapes, Forrest is right there in every frame, in the middle of every action of significance. So completely he believes in the idea of destiny ("you make your own destiny", simple), thanks to his parent, that the Law of Attraction works for him by protecting his shrimping boat from the blast of Hurricane Carmen that has otherwise destroyed Bayou La Batre's entire shrimping industry. Forrest goes on to become a successful businessman, the millionaire owner of Bubba-Gump Shrimp Corporation, even winning a bravery medal on the way. Do you see the contrast between the negative values drilled in Pinocchio and the foundation of positive self-imagery inculcated in Forrest?

Jenny fortunately does not have to experience the challenges of congenital issues. Like Forrest, Jenny too does not have one parent, and like Forrest, is under the care of the other parent, who happens to be her father. But here the similarity ends. The father is an alcoholic, an over-controlling, dominating personality, and it is also implied that he is an abuser, somebody she didn't want to return home to, come evening. "Dear God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far, far away from here." This was Jenny's prayer. Jenny is sent to her grandma's place where she would grow into adulthood, with an ambition to be a singer "like Joan Baez", and to reach out to people "on a personal level".

Well, Jenny goes on to drift in life, despite having the same or better opportunities than Forrest. Flitting out and into Forrest's life, holding onto him as anchor. So low she dips on self-esteem, that she keeps rejecting Forrest's love every time the two meet. Do you see the similarity between Jenny's approach to life and Pinocchio's delusion of the nose lengthening every time he tried to look after his self-interest? Both had the self-destruct button pressed!

The pain in her "how could you do this?" in the scene where she hurls rocks at the abandoned house is symbolic of her inability to retaliate for the treatment she receives at her parent's hands. While Forrest has pure affection for his parent, Jenny has pure hatred for hers. You don't need a weapon to destroy your child, just your words are enough. And they will never forgive you. As Forrest reflects, "Sometimes, I guess there just aren't enough rocks."
Let's move on from the very obvious influence of alcoholism on the child's development, to some subtle influences. All too often, teenagers stepping into adolescence show signs of disturbed sleeping patterns. They have to take sleeping pills, they fall asleep in class, or have trouble waking up on time in the morning, etc. These are not merely symptomatic of the gush of hormones gone wild, nor are they the result of peer-pressure alone. Startling though it may sound, yet one of the major reasons why this might be happening is that the kids are finding it difficult to adjust to some smoldering dysfunction in the family. A significant correlation that cannot be scoffed outright has been discerned in the relationship between their sleep and the environment in the family. A home where the tension of marital discord reverberates in the air the moment one steps in, is not exactly the best place where the kid will feel at ease. Happens in the "most normal" of families, you would say. What is equally "normal" is to come across a home where the parents are too engrossed in pursuing their career or their jobs. Whatever their professional goals, such a home is not the warmest of places for the child to find comfort in! The resultant stress and anxiety experienced because of being witness to this tension and / or distance, without the cuddle and the affectionate hug that we all yearn for once in a while --- never mind our age or how old we are --- influences the delicate stasis that regulates the kid's physiology, and the disturbed sleeping patterns are but a small manifestation of the subtle flaw that is being introduced in their psyche, a small manifestation that is going to suppurate even more in the years to come.

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* A piece of history to mull on, this is an image of Edward VIII as an infant in the arms of his mother, the then Duchess of York, with an indulgent father, the then Duke of York, England, looking on (wiki). As with the other upper-class English parents of the time, the Duke and the Duchess engaged themselves full-time in whatever pursuits royal families of those days engaged in, leaving Edward's upbringing largely to nannies hired exclusively for this purpose. Edward's "reckless" behavior as an adult - including his abdication of the throne and marriage to an American divorcee (covered in a blog article here) - is attributed to developmental disorders. Can the blame for how Edward ultimately shaped up, be apportioned to parents who were too absorbed in their social circle to bother with the children? Wonder whether English history would have taken a different course, had the parents been less indifferent and spent some more quality time with the kid than they did? Whatever be the quality of the molding of the child's personality in the family's factory, it fitted the divorcee's mold like a glove.
The influences that we exert on the children with our attitudes towards our own life can get deviously convoluted and deceitfully sly, even when there is marital harmony and even when the brood gathers around the dining table every night. Do we foster sibling rivalry by reproaching one kid at the expense of the other? Are we stingy in commending the kid for whatever they did, and instead keep comparing them to the other child? Do we create problems of self-esteem in the child by judging harshly the child's performances or acts and instead sing paeans of somebody else in the family who used to do - or is doing - better? Are we giving birth to anxiety and stress disorders in the child by being too demanding, by expecting them to come up to our exacting specifications? All because somewhere in our mind there is this niggling sense of guilt somewhere of we having been a failure ourselves, of having fallen short of our own or somebody else's expectations, which we secretly wish to now see fulfilled through the child?


And when the child does not meet the specifications, do we beat the child black-and-blue - with the thrash of the stick or the lash of our tongue -, and by so doing do we show them the door to life-long disorders of low self-esteem and depression? Does our body language convey indifference at the child's enthusiasm and small joys at having made some discovery all by themselves? Do we control each and every action of the child, either because we are a control-freak or because we are too scared that the child will harm themselves; to the extent that they come to depend on us for every single decision in their lives, so that later on as adult they continue with that same behavior pattern of indecisiveness, whether it is marriage or change-of-job or whatever momentous comes their way?


The child is too meek, weak, and innocent to even understand what is going on and what is happening to them. Not capable of retaliation, they continue to absorb all the negative treatment that is worse than the treatment the lowliest slaves in the medieval world suffered at the hands of their debauched masters. Look back over your own childhood. Do any of these instances ring a bell? Now reflect on how these experiences have had an impact on your personality and also on the way you made decisions in life. Would you want the same thing to happen to your child?

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* This picture is captioned "Hands" by its photographer, sxc.hu/bies. Research in how we go about our job as parents, shows the different dimensions of our parenting style. They are the two positive dimensions of support and commendation, and the three negative dimensions of reproach, restriction and inconsistency.
We have to bear in mind that the child had not put in an application, requesting entry into our life as our progeny --- it is we who invited the child in our life, no? We also have to bear in mind that a time comes when the power equation between us and the children begins to change. The relationship becomes less asymmetric, and as they evolve into their own, they begin to give us a dose of our own medicine. It is we who now have to accept the new set of values that they are advocating. At that point of time, how will it feel when we realize that our own child is telling us some silly equivalent of Pinocchio's story of the lengthening nose? Ponder this: do you want a bunch of flowers placed next to your headstone, like Forrest's momma? Or do you want to be the beneficiary of those rocks, which Jenny hurls? For one day, the kid will understand exactly what was happening to them in those crucial days of childhood.


The values and thought processes that we instill in their temperament, go deep, very deep, and lodge themselves in the depths of their psyche, creating those intricate circuitries such as that of lie-detection and morality-outraged and atonement-activation that poor Pinocchio endures. It takes a lot of effort for the poor thing - including several sessions with the psychotherapist and psychiatrist - to dismantle the weird assemblage of atonement-function and morality-outraged circuitry, on the way to coming to terms with their relationship with you.

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* This is a trailer of the 1989 movie, "Parenthood", performed by Steve Martin, Tom Hulce, Rick Moranis, Martha Plimpton, Keanu Reeves, Jason Robards, Mary Steenburgen and Dianne Wiest YouTube / LCO1971.

The movie sets the tone for the rest of the plot in the opening scene at the baseball stadium, where the father takes his son Gil on the latter's birthday. After paying an usher to watch over the child, the father goes away to attend some meeting, and will return for the ninth inning. Here's how the conversation between the child and the usher goes (script penned by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel):

Usher: So, Gilly, big baseball fan?
Gil: Kind of.
Usher: Dad bring you here a lot?
Gil: Once a year on my birthday. Then he pays an usher to watch me.
Usher: Oh, I see.
Gil: You have to understand, my father in his own childhood, was without a positive male influence.
Usher: Huh?
Gil: His father kicked him out when he was fifteen... So my dad was taught to see child raising as a job --- as a burden --- a prison rather than a playground... You understand what I'm saying?
Usher: You don't talk like a kid.
Gil: Well, I am not really a kid.
Usher: You're not a duck.
Gil: I'm remembering when I was a kid. I'm 35 now. I have kids of my own. You don't really even exist... You're an amalgam.
Usher: A what?
Gil: A combination of several ushers my dad left me with over the years. I combined them into one memory.
Usher: Why?
Gil: This was a great symbolic moment in my life. My father dumping me with you. It's why I swore things would be different with my kids. It's my dream --- strong, happy, confident kids.
Usher: That's great. You've got a lovely family, and I'm a goddamn amalgam!

Coming from a ten-twelve year old, one does get the impression that kids with distant and aloof dads end up maturing prematurely, huh? My sympathies with the usher; he must have spent a long time pondering over this conversation.