They F*** You Up

The magnificent and profound Larkin poem This Be The Verse is a theme of and inspiration for "They F*** You Up: How to Survive Family Life" by Oliver James.

This book is a must for anyone planning to have kids and is probably good for people who've had them some time ago and are maybe now grandparents. For current parents of kids under 10 it should be very helpful but will also be rather scary.

James writes accessibly and in a way that avoids both the horrors of obscure academic psychology and the platitudes of pop psychology. I'm no shrink, but he seems to pay attention to, and use reasonably, the academic work he cites.

I have always favoured the idea that the way people are treated is important to the way they are. I have always been unhappy with the idea that it's all about genetics or is all about chemicals in the brain. For that reason, this book tells me what I want to hear because it argues against genetics as being the key factor in the psychology of people. However, it argues for the crucial importance of the way kids are treated and the way their parents or other main carers behave.

The phases seem to be:

Parental scripting during childhood based on:
place in family - youngest, oldest etc.; size of family - resources thinly spread?; gender; pressured to achieve highly therefore tending to depression?; "ugly duckling"?; neglected and ignored etc

Parental scripting at ages three to six decides conscience as tending to be:
punitive (strict and repressive, follow authority and rules not creative);
weak (give way easily to impulses, rebel against authority, creative but undisciplined); or
benign (OK with authority but will question it, neither repressed nor uncontrolled etc)

Six months to Three Years - deciding relationship patterns by the extent and kind of bonding with main carer(s) during that time.

First Six Months - forming the sense of self.

The book gives anecdotal examples of famous people e.g. Prince Charles, Woody Allen, Mia Farrow and Jeffrey Archer. The author's Guardian piece on George Bush should be read by all. It also uses up to date studies of twins and other academic work.

So, is it all too depressing for parents and those who are the result of their own childhood experiences? No.

The book is compassionate. It allows that if people become aware of the origins of their behaviour, it can be changed. This is done not by drugs but by talking therapies. The book, like the poem, is also compassionate as it accepts that the parents who do the "fucking up" are themselves the products of the same process. The book offers wisdom as it points to causes and cures - with a self assessment running through it for you to try on yourself.

I took away the cure as kindness to children (and, I think, adults) without weakness and indulgence. It amounts to pursuing, in an enlightened way, the child's interests and not only those of the adult. Children, especially, learn by example and from what they see. To act with compassion for oneself and others may be the key.

In summary, the answer to Larkin was written by Dorothy Law Nolte "Children Learn What They Live". Both poems should be read together.