Reply to People with good parents/nice childhoods who are selfish, unkind, unempathetic?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How does this happen? I have encountered several people like this. Very loving families, would themselves describe their parents and families as loving, supportive, and functional and also it looks that way via observation. No childhood trauma or evidence of abuse/neglect. Continued support into adulthood.

But then they are jerks. Or have the capacity to be jerks in certain circumstances where it's surprising to see it come out. I know several women with this background, for instance, who are total "mean girl" gossips -- spread nasty rumors about women they claim they are friends with, can be very selfish with their time, demand attention and can be petty or cruel if they don't feel they get it.

How does this happen? I thought good parenting was supposed to address behaviors like this. Were they too doted on? Favorite daughters whose behavior didn't get corrected? I always figured people who acted like this were acting out of insecurity and some kind of childhood wound, but perhaps I was wrong.

Asking partly out of curiosity, and partly because I want to avoid raising a person who behaves this way in adulthood.[/quote]

So many assumptions, so little time, OP.

Truth is, you have zero idea what people are going through. [/quote]

That's... not an answer. If it isn't family dysfunction or poor parenting that causes this behavior, what is it? What are people "going through" that causes [b]people with good parents and happy childhoods[/b] to be unkind or even cruel?[/quote]

That’s… not something you can know. What causes someone to presume they know with certainty that there was nothing problematic during someone’s developmental years? 
[/quote]

Being very familiar with that person's upbringing/knowing their family well/knowing them a long time and discussing very personal things to a degree that would give me this confidence.[/quote]

Whatever. The “good, supportive, tight knit” families aren’t immune to abuse and trauma. They tend to be better at hiding it, IME, because they have an image to maintain. And high achieving families (you’re implying they’re wealthy) sometimes have high standards that some kids feel they can’t live up to. Especially if there’s an undiagnosed learning disability like adhd or dyslexia, or mental health condition like anxiety or depression. You have no way of knowing if multiple people from multiple families are hiding such things, or if parents are refusing to acknowledge or treat them, because their kids aren’t broken (this used to be way more common when today’s adults with kids were children themselves). So much about abuse is hidden, you really can’t know. How do you think stepdads/family members/clergy/Boy Scout leaders are able to molest children so often? It’s a mix of sneakiness, victims feeling ashamed, and bystanders choosing willful blindness. And that’s just overt sexual abuse, not even something subtle like verbal abuse or emotional abuse.

I’m not saying everyone who’s mean was abused, but I think with what you’re presenting here, you’re making a lot of assumptions. Your insistence that they had no trauma and their parents were absolutely great seems like a big leap, except possibly if you’re talking about siblings, because a lot of golden children don’t realize they got special treatment.

You seem like you want us to say they’re broken or bad people, but usually there’s a reason for people to behave poorly. We often don’t know that reason. Ultimately it doesn’t matter. If you don’t like them, stop being around them. If you find that many people are being mean to you for no reason, look at your choices-are you choosing to be around a certain type of people who have some kind of negativity they’re expressing toward you, or are you doing something to provoke negative reactions without realizing it? [/quote]

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