Severe Dad, Overprotective Mom

A severe father and an overprotective mother is all it takes to make a son very unhappy. It's just very damaging psychologically and can inhibit the personality, as well as causing insecurity, shyness, and low self esteem. However, the mechanism through which this type of parents operates doesn't have to be a mystery.

Naturally, when we were young we took a lot of things in. The overprotective mother we are talking about has created a warm environment for the child to delve in. This environment is completely safe, comfortable, and serves as a perfect shelter throughout the child's first stage of development. However, this space of safety is very addicting and, due to its sharp contrast with the outer world, is very misleading. The child, used to high amounts of love and protection from the mother, will be eventually forced to face events in the real world, and much beyond the mother's control and protection. These events include all which happen when the child is not in the mother's company.

What happens then? Whenever the child is not with their mother, they begin to anxiously await that feeling of warmth which, naturally, tends to temporarily evaporate each time the mother leaves. A child in this condition is thus dependant on the mother, with a strong survival-based attachment, which will yield its most negative results as time goes on.

Meanwhile, it is very possible for the child to begin to misinterpret the world in ways which will affect them negatively. For example, people who are not nearly as loving as the mother, which is very likely to be the case, are misjudged as mean. The standards of love have been set high. The world acquires a threatening hue. Furthermore, new conclusions are formed, by mere observation, which all have negative connotations related to the self.

An increased absence of the mother in the future of the child will, of course, increase the times of insecurity. On the other hand, something that could complicate matters would be a severe father. Severe fathers can cause many problems in the family, and when this happens, that is exactly what it is: a problem in the family. However, there are some instances in which a father is not truly severe, but is simply misjudged as such by the child. For example, in a family argument, the father is arguing against the mother. In this instance, they are like opponents or enemies. When this happens, the child recognizes that the father is going against his mother and thus feels his own self threatened. This is because it is typical for a person, especially a child, to associate people and objects with their self, if there is an emotional or motivational link.

Simple things such as this can establish the father as a threat to the child. Then, whenever the father says something to the child along the lines of "You should not do this, this is wrong," it is to be taken as an intrusion. Along with a possible lack of loving words or expressions of warmth (not due to lack of love, but simply due to a lesser intensity than that of, say, the mother), the child puts up emotional barriers which, though "protecting" the psyche from the father's judgmental intrusions, is actually hindering communication between them. These barriers can be interpreted by the father as rebelling from the child, and the father might be compelled to somehow correct the child by further punishment or an enhanced severity. This only worsens the issue.

Soon, the father that was initially seen as an enemy will begin to acquire a mental form in the child's mind. This mental form will be based on observations of his father's interaction with the mother, and then on interactions of the father with himself. By this point, this image will be severely biased, not only in terms of comparison with the mother, but in terms of misinterpretation and the perceived lack of love. This perception is made impossible also by the emotional barriers just mentioned.

This mental image of the father will follow him wherever he goes, and it will scold him in his daily living in the same way that he thinks he would scold him if the father were truly there. Thus, being constantly scolded by his mental severe father, he becomes overly demanding with himself, very unyielding, and consequently very unhappy. A failure to rise to his own standards will cause him a feeling of worthlessness.

The worst part is that these mental "characters" are very difficult to erase because they are rooted in early childhood, and in order to erase them, communication pathways must be reopened between the son and the father. This is very difficult to do and requires the acquired feeling of anger to be overcome or expressed before this is done. This is to prevent the initial bias to interfere in willing communication.

This situation is very contrasting with the mother. For example, the child has not created any emotional barriers between himself and the mother, due to the child's experience with her. However, this is not an advantage for the child either, since it means that the mother's words and actions will penetrate directly into the child's psyche. Given the fact that the mother, in this case, is not overly judgmental or severe, it might not seem to be a problem. However, an overprotective mother is constantly plagued by fears about her child. Therefore, any fears that the mother shows, either verbally or non-verbally, are transmitted to the child directly and without barriers. This adds a great deal of fear and anxiety into the equation.

Thus, we have a situation in which a severe father, or one who is perceived as such, has intimidated the child and cause feelings of anger and worthlessness. On the mother's side, we have a dose of overprotection which has led to fears and anxiety. As you can see, this is not the best of situations, and parenting styles which lead to these conditions should be avoided for the child's sake. In any case, a child that has grown under these conditions can grow out of the side effects, but it might take some help.