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

Forum Index » Off-Topic

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

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[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]

Some people who have not experienced hardship have a hard time empathizing with people who do. Some people have empathy from the get go and some people need to learn it. For those that need to learn it and their life has been easy, they end up with a warped view.  It is a way to explain, to themselves, why they have what they have.  They think they think they have achieved and have what they have because they have done the right things and done the “hard work”. Luck or circumstance plays no role. Therefore, they think, people who have less or have achieved less did the “wrong” things.  It creates a superiority sort of feeling where everyone else is less than. They then go on to treat people as such. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics