I have always wondered how parents come to abuse their kids. After all, raising healthy offspring is at the very core of our human sense of purpose and meaning. What could drive parents to deliberately hurt of neglect their child(ren)? Disorganized attachment showed up in two different ways: One group of mothers seemed to be too preoccupied with their own issues to attend to their infants. They were often intrusive and hostile; they alternated between rejecting their infants and acting as if they expected the infant to take care of itself and respond to their needs. Another group of mothers seemed helpless and fearful. They often came across as sweet or fragile, but they did not know how to be the adult in the relationship and seemed to want their child(ren) to comfort them. They failed to greet their child(ren) after having been away and did not pick them up when they were distressed. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

The mothers did not seem to be neglecting, or ignoring their child(ren) deliberately—they simply did not know how to be attuned to their kids and respond to their cues and thus failed to comfort and reassure them. The hostile/intrusive mothers were more likely to have childhood histories of physical abuse and/or of witnessing domestic violence, while the withdrawn/dependent mothers were more likely to have histories of sexual abuse or parental loss (but not physical abuse). As a result, child(ren) become more and more inconsolable, sullen, or resistant to their interactions. Once the mother comes to see the child not as her partner in an attuned relationship but as a frustrating, enraging, disconnected stranger, the stage is set for subsequent abuse because the more has likely come to perceive him as a difficult child who makes her feel like a failure, and gave up on trying to comfort the child. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

In this particular case study, the mother allowed the son to be abuse by his siblings, who used to hog tie him with telephone cords and ropes for fun, and disconnect the telephone so he could not call his father for help, they were even told not to talk to their biological father. Once the older sister threatened to drop the boy off at an orphanage, and a year later the mother made it known she did not want him, but continued to tolerate him. However, once the young man got to high school, the mother used to meet with the parents of his enemies and their kids and leave her son behind and they would talk about him behind his back, she never stood up for this boy the way she stood up for her kids, and she even talked to him and it sounded like, often times, she was telling him that he is not really her son, yet he knows no other mother. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

As teenagers, when a follow up study was done, infants with seriously disrupted emotional communication patterns with their mothers grew up to become young adults with unstable sense of self, self-damaging impulsivity (including excessive spending, promiscuous sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating), inappropriate and intense anger, and recurrent suicidal behavior. While it was expected that hostile/intrusive behavior on the part of the mothers would be the most powerful predictor of mental instability in their adult children, it was discovered otherwise. Emotional withdrawal had the most profound long-lasting impact. Emotional distance and role reversal (in which mothers expected the kids to look after them) were specifically linked to aggressive behavior against self and others in the young adults. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

We must admit that if the example of a person who has violated a prohibition has been transmitted like a contagion, just as the taboo is transferred from a person to an object, and from this to another. While some of these mothers did not intentionally abuse their child(ren) or did not know better, it is possible that people who abuse the children of others, or rip families apart for fun, may draw a curse into their lives that they cannot shake. There is a case of three boys Jim Redd, Austin Lyman, and Winston Hurst who would collect artifacts they found in Indian burial grounds, in the 1950s. The three boys gave little thought to the fact that these were precious antiquities and collected the arrowheads, pottery, and jewelry they found and hung it on their walls. They hunted like rabbits and dug in ruins. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

However, decades later, the three antiquated friend’s pastime has wrought bitterness and tragedy. They fell out badly after Winston Hurst became an archaeologist and came to see the town’s obsession with collecting ancient artifacts as a desecration. Then the worst came when 150 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents swooped on Blanding, Utah USA, arresting some of the town’s most prominent citizens, including Jim Redd, Austin Lyman’s three older brothers and the brother of the county sheriff, on charges of dealing in antiquities plundered from state land. Jim Redd, by then was a popular doctor, and killed himself the day. Two other people caught up in the case, including the FBI’s principal informer, also took their lives in the following months. And the Lyman brothers, along with 23 other people went on trial and were convicted. They were all called lifelong criminals. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

The sad part about it is the pottery was used for target practice, so it was hundreds of years old and destroy for fun, when someone could have just used a soda can. They also threw rocks at the pottery and broke it. People were even going into the Indian burial grounds and ancient dwellings with heavy machinery and digging up graves to steal jewelry. William Hurst become physically sick and was nauseated to find out they were looting things from the Earth that were 14,000 year old, leaving behind landscape of bombed-out craters, and human bones strewn all over the place. The FBI seized some of the artifacts that ended up in the hands of a museum, including a 900-year-old basket and pottery almost as pristine as the day it was made. So before you abuse someone’s child, knocked down walls in a Victorian house, or rob a grave, understand you may suffer lifelong consequences. Be sure to be more sensitivity and respectful of the property and lives of others, please. Try to recreate things and restore them as close as you can to the originals. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7