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BEING 'GOOD


We tend to assume that all is well with good children. They don’t pose immediate problems; they keep their bedroom tidy, do their homework on time and are willing to help with the washing up. But the very real secret sorrows – and future difficulties – of the good child are tied to the fact that they behave in this way not out of choice, but because they feel under irresistible pressure to do so. They are trying to cope with adults who project the idea that only the ideally compliant child is truly loveable. As a result, the good child becomes an expert at pleasing their audience, while their real thoughts and feelings stay buried. Eventually, under pressure, these good children may manifest some disturbing symptoms: secret sulphurous bitterness, sudden outbursts of rage and very harsh views of their own imperfections. The good person typically has particular problems around sex. As a child, they may have been praised for being pure and innocent. As an adult the most exciting parts of their own sexuality strike them as perverse, disgusting and deeply at odds with who they are meant to be. As an adult, the good child is likely to have problems at work as well. They feel too strong a need to follow the rules, never make trouble or annoy anyone. But almost everything that is interesting or worth doing will meet with a degree of opposition and will seriously irritate some people. The good child is condemned to career mediocrity and sterile people-pleasing. The desire to be good is one of the loveliest things in the world, but in order to have a genuinely good life, we may sometimes need to be (by the standards of the good child) fruitfully and bravely bad.


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