Back in our college years, my younger brother cut himself shaving one morning. He bled all over the washbasin. Blood ran down his neck and into the drain.
He yelled, "Howard, you stupid expletive, expletive and more expletives! How can one man be so stupid? You're an idiot moron dufus!"
"Aren't you being a little hard on yourself bro?" I said.
"I'm an idiot for slicing up my face," he replied.
At the time, I took a psychology course for my teaching certificate. In that class, the professor lectured on "parent tapes" and how children suffer "scripting" from their parents. Every child's brain acts like a computer. It downloads everything parents do or say in front of their children.
When kids grow up in abusive and verbally violent homes, they download such speech and physical behaviors. Later, they act them out. They hang with others who express themselves in a similar fashion. It's called "group bonding" that allows for identity for each individual.
When a child grows up in the ghetto, his or her brain downloads a lot of unfortunate life lessons. In my twenties, I taught two years in the inner city. I watched parents and their kids interact at teacher parent conferences. Good parents sent good, healthy and confident kids to school. Poor parents sent angry, frustrated and indolent children to school.
Those kids faced lifetimes of struggle because their inner lives manifested in their outer lives. Such individuals become bullies or victims. They become drug dealers or teen pregnancies.
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