Are we truely prisoners of our upbringing?

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• snooggums@piefed.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  No, it is a part of our overall experiences and while it tends to have a very strong impact we can change and overcome negative impacts. We are not prisoners, but we might have a hard time leaving voluntarily.

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• thefactremains@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  We are deeply shaped by our upbringing, but not permanently imprisoned by it. The past explains us, but it does not define what we do next.

  There’s a great book that goes into detail on this called ‘The Courage to be Disliked’. I highly recommend it.

  In my opinion (and the position of Adlerian psychology) is that no experience (however painful) is in itself the cause of our current unhappiness. What constrains us is the meaning and goals we attach to those experiences. When someone says “I am this way because of my childhood,” the book would argue that this is often a story chosen to justify a present goal (for example, avoiding risk, intimacy, or responsibility), not an iron law imposed by the past.

  Freedom begins when we separate “what happened to me” from “what I am choosing to pursue now,” and take responsibility for our own life tasks instead of living to meet others’ expectations. That is the “courage to be disliked”: accepting that if you start living according to self-chosen values rather than your upbringing’s scripts, some people may disapprove. Yet that is the price of genuine adulthood.

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  • Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I like this superficially, but it doesn’t seem to address depper meanings of OPs question.

    Our experiences in youth shape our framework for evaluating the future. For example, if no one in your family went to university, you would likely not ever have considered it yourself. Conversely, if your parents talked about their experiences in qualifying, selecting a school and program, the experiece of it all, the person’s perception of the possible becomes greater.

    Just like a poor kid has much less ability to start the next Amazon than did a rich kids who is a self made man with a large loan from his parents.

    If everything you know is a black circle, and what you can push through and learn and discover yourself is a slightly larger white circle that is 10% bigger than the original. Consider that two people of equal health intellect and aptitudes will have different potentials based on upbringing. 10% of 100 of the poor child achieves 10 units of life’s adventure. The rich kid’s circle of experience because of enrichment from their privileged upbringing starts at 200. 10% of 200 = 20 units of adventure from the same abilities.

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    • possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I also was referring to child abuse and other childhood trauma. It can take many forms but all of them leave deep emotional scarres that don’t necessarily heal.

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• quantumharsh@sh.itjust.works ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  A lot of us are. I see so much hopelessness and apathy among my generation because of how much they believed the bullshit of the previous generation.

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• TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  No.

  But a lot of people choose to be because it gives them a built-in excuse for their perceived failures and faults.

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• karashta@piefed.social ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Trauma literally rewires your brain

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  • possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    It is even worse than that. Your brain is still developing as a child and being in a bad situation literally prevents your brain from developing correctly.

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• webghost0101@sopuli.xyz ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Our upbringing leaves huge impressions on us that help us shape who we become, but a prison implies a freedom you are kept away from.

  If we had no upbringing whatsoever (how we get that would look like) would we have more potential?

  Even if we could engineer the perfect adult body to be born as, would we retain our reality of unique individual lives or would we all become the same flavour of person?, limiting the range of what humans combined can experience (highs and lows).

  I’d argue the restrictive prison is individual life itself, you can never become someone else that exists or experience things as different species. You can only really experience your own perspective of lived experiences.

  The people around you are modifiers they may enable you, hinder you but others are never and never have been in charge of your person, regardless of how much they/parents may pretend to be.

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• NewDark@lemmings.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  In a kind of way? Our material conditions are a large factor in our development and decision making ability.

  This almost gets into “do we even have free will?” territory which is a hell of a question.

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• DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  '“But your honor, humans have no free will, I couldn’t have done otherwise”

  “I agree, which is why I have no choice but to sentence you to prison for the crime of murder”

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• melsaskca@lemmy.ca ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Heredity and environment walk hand-in-hand and both have an impact on development.

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• sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I honestly do not think so, I have seen people truly radically differ from how they were raised to be in very healthy ways

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  • Fondots@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    How much of that is still a reaction to their upbringing though?

    Say someone is raised in an abusive situation, and because of that they decide to be nothing like their parents when they grow up and become the epitome of a loving, nurturing parent, or maybe decide to not have kids at all to make sure they break the cycle.

    Would that same person make those same choices if they were raised in a more “normal” household?

    We can’t really know for sure, but I suspect in a lot of cases the answer would be no.

    And of course there’s all kinds of little butterfly effects.

    For example, I’ve known one of my best friends since preschool. We attended the same public school from kindergarten through graduation, but after pre school I never had a class with him again until 10th grade. If my parents had decided to send me to a different preschool, it’s very likely I’d have a different best friend, and who knows how that might have affected my life?

    Or later in life, when my grandfather was no longer able to drive, my parents ended up with his truck, they could have sold it but instead they held onto it and when I started driving it sort of unofficially became “my” car that I used to commute to community college. If they hadn’t kept that truck, or just didn’t let me use it, I probably would have had to take the bus and would have had to arrange my class schedule differently and never sat next to a guy in a history class who would eventually introduce me to the woman who is now my wife.

    So those two little decisions made in my upbringing had big effects on the trajectory of my life. I’m quite happy with where I’ve ended up, but I had no say in either case, so I think you could definitely argue that I’m a “prisoner” to those decisions they made. I’ll never know what twists and turns my life might have taken if they’d chosen differently. Maybe there’s an alternate timeline where my best friend from a different preschool convinced me to buy a bunch of Bitcoin in 2009 and I could be a retired multimillionaire right now.

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    • sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Sure it can be a reaction but does that make them a slave to it?

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• Arcanoloth@lemmy.ml ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Prisoners? No. Influenced to varying degrees by everything we have experienced, including, obviously, our upbringing? Certainly.

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• Melobol@lemmy.ml ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I believe it depends on the severity of the trauma. And of course our mental strength and if we are on the spectrum or not, have any abnormalities and so on… So many components.
  If you had a single Mom and you only met your dad every weekend that could affect you.
  If you were starved, beaten sold into sexual servitude and then failed by the legal system… I don’t think you can get over that.
  But the first step is to understand how messed up it was and you didn’t deserve it. No child deserves any trauma.

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• Varyk@sh.itjust.works ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Nope.

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• Beebabe@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  This is a really good question. I wouldn’t say we are prisoners always, but circumstances at birth and even prior to birth (during development) play an enormous role in shaping us. For many, to escape the circumstances of birth are insurmountable. Things like medical conditions or extreme poverty in isolated locations and no access/opportunities to change or grow. Or lack of resilience even if there is access.

  Now, imagine you have all the potential in the world, but still have to overcome poverty. That means more resources are required to gain similar positive outcomes as your better positioned peers. It means an automatic higher risk of negative outcomes, and almost guaranteed trauma and health impacts.

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• Perspectivist@feddit.uk ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I think genes have more to do with it than upbringing. You can definitely screw a kid up with poor upbringing but a good one doesn’t steer then away from what genes “predestined” us to become. Obviously it’s much more nuanced than that but I don’t think that parents have that much influence over what their kid becomes

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  • zout@fedia.io ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    In my view and understanding, genes define the potential, environment defines the realization. I mean environment in a broader sense though, I read some time ago that for teens the friend group has a bigger influence than the parents, who's impact on development is close to zero at that point.

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• ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  It’ll shape you and sometimes give you extra things to deal with that others don’t have to, but free will is God’s inalienable gift.

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• bryndos@fedia.io ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I was brought to to spell truely differently and not to swear.
  So truely fucking no.

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• Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  For the most part. There will always be exceptions, but social mobility in the western world is decreasing, and in poorer countries the situation is even worse. When you are born in a specific social “caste”, there’s a good chance that you will never get out of it. The probability of a child exceeding the education level of their parents is also low.

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  • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    poorer countries the situation is even worse

    Hukou System has entered the chat.

    My parents were born rural

    My mom said she needed government permission to even move to Guangzhou (a city). Before the Opening up and Reforms, it was impossible to move outside of where you were born.

    I was born in the city, but I inherited my parent’s status as a rural person. 2nd class resident 🙃

    Being born in China was a statistic. 12% chance I was born there that year, on par with India. By total population, its 1/7 chance. Not surprising.

    But what is surprising is I somehow was born into a family that was about to emigrate.

    Horray!

    Plot twist, 2025 comes by and its authoritarianism again. 😭

    If reincarnation exist next life I’m gonna be born in “3rd world countries” again (sorry I know its not a Politically Correct term, but it’s the most commonly understood one)

    India is the top one, then like China is in the top 10 again. Imagine if I get born into China again next life 💀 god damn firewall… it’s not even about the politics or outside news, it’s the boring domestic media, most TV show is boring

    Or I could be born into India, yay poverty (no offense to Indians).

    Or, depending if reincarnation is limited to humans, I could be born a factory farm cow 💀

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• hedge_lord@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Idk I sure seem to be

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• RBWells@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I am never sure how time works at all. It’s possible that everything we experience is just rolling out from some original cause, everything happening is just an effect caused by what came before, essentially has already happened, in a way, you cannot change anything.

  If that is true, then yes. You are an effect caused by your parents’ actions and they in turn were an effect of their own parents’ actions, on and on back to the origin of the universe.

  If it works the way it feels to us, and we are choosing actions, then no. You can modify yourself and choose to do things not caused by your upbringing, there is not just one path already laid out before you. If that’s the case, I’d think just asking the question at all is a good start, deciding what you want to keep from your past and what you want to change, living intentionally, mindfully.

  I do think upbringing plays a big part in shaping a person and have often said that if a baby was dropped on my doorstep I do think it would end up being like my other kids, more than different. Especially at this point when all those other kids are adults and would also be influential.

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• Rhoeri@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  No.

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