The type of material in this paper is what got Juanita in trouble with the Child Rights-type activists, some of whom really did not like her work at all. They did not want to hear about children being headless or owned or any of the things that Juanita says about the position of the Child. This is one of many places where her work demands a new paradigm. We need to understand that she is talking about the Child Position and that first of all, this position benefits real children, since their right is to be taken care of. The job of the Parent is to help the Child to become an Adult, so this Position is not immutable (as we said in our article in the Journal of Black Psychology). Finally, the title of this work uses the word "Theory," but really she is talking about Laws of Human Behavior.
The Falsification Theory of Human Behavior
Juanita D. Price
Carolyn Cutler Osborne
The Primary Natural Law
The Primary Natural Law is a principle which separates all people, of whichever sex and whatever color, into two distinct classes. Each class has different characteristics related to their positions in the world. The labels of these distinct classes, "Adult" and "Child," refer to the positions of groups of people in relation to each other, and the characteristics which are described below refer to those positions rather than to the individual people who fall into one category or the other. When we say that the position of the "Child" is "negative," for example, we are referring to the fact that children have fewer civil rights than adults, that children are dependent on adults for their physical needs, and that children do not have the right or the ability to be completely self-determining in the way that we expect adults to. The "Adult" position is positive in that it allows for a person to determine his or her life rather than to have that life determined by someone else.
The chart below summarizes the differences between the "Adult" position and the "Child" position as they occur in our society.
[Excuse the mess of these tables...]
First Class: Second Class:
The Adult The Child
Productive Non-Productive
Positive Negative
Authority and
Power Power only
Independent Dependent
Free Owned
Superior Inferior
Self-sustaining Needy
Formidable Defenseless
Of Worth Worthless
Strong Weak
Decision maker Obedient
Personhood Non-person
Intellectual Emotional
The Primary Natural Law states that these two classes are not equal. There is valid discrimination between the Adult position and the Child position! But this discrimination serves an important purpose. Real children cannot be expected to work: who ever heard of an infant working an eight hour shift at a factory? Real children are not expected to be able to drive: would you want to be on a highway with a two year old driver, particularly a two year old subject to temper tantrums? The purpose of the discrimination in the Primary Natural Law is to protect children from situations that they cannot handle--situations that are dangerous or confusing to children--and to protect adults from the messes children would make if they were allowed to drive or to work or to make decisions in the government. By acknowledging the unequalness of the Child, the Child is then qualified to be under the jurisdiction (and the protection) of the Adult, thus insuring the safety of everyone.
Everyone in the world is born into the Second Class, because everyone is born a Child. Everyone in the world is naturally supposed to grow up, thereby attaining First Class position. Unlike other forms of discrimination such as racism and sexism, the discrimination between Adult and Child is the only human discrimination in which a person of the Second Class is fully expected to obtain First Class status. Because there are significant physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual differences between adults and children and because there is the expectation that children will become adults, the discrimination between the Adult Position and the Child Position is the only legitimate, logical, and reasonable type of discrimination.
There are two categories of people, those who are in the class "Adult," and those who are in the class "Child." There is also a major significant interaction between these two classes, which we will begin by calling "Parent/Child Relationship." Again, as with the two classes, we describe this relationship in the abstract, that is, we are describing the characteristics of the position of being a parent and not the characteristics of all people who are actually parents.
In the Parent/Child Relationship the divisions between the two classes Adult and Child are exhibited clearly. The Child arrives an infant, totally helpless, incapable of feeding itself, moving about freely, or keeping itself clean. The Adult/Parent is required to take care of the Child, feeding it, cleaning it up, carrying it around, and so forth, until the Child grows to be independent. Finally, the Adult/Parent is expected to control the Child, to keep the Child from pulling all the cereal boxes down in the grocery store, to send the Child to school at the right time, and to generally help the Child stay out of trouble.
Thus, the Adult/Parent owes the Child--is expected to provide care and sustenance--and the Adult/Parent owns the child--is responsible for both the Child's behavior and the Child's well being. Our society recognizes these characteristics of the Parent/Child relationship. Society recognizes the Parent's right to make certain decisions about the Child's life, including the type of religion the Child will be a part of, where the Child will live, and so forth. Society demands that Parents keep the Child under a reasonable amount of control, which is why school teachers and principals consult with parents when children misbehave, and why Juvenile Courts release young offenders to the care of their parents. At the same time, society recognizes that Parents are required to provide basic care to the Child, which is why we have laws against child abuse and neglect.
As the Child grows toward independence, he or she becomes able to make decisions about his or her own life. This is a gradual process. A baby cannot even decide which clothes to wear, but a three year old can. A three year old cannot cross the street alone to visit a friend, but an eight year old can. An eight year old is not expected to be able to make safe decisions related to driving a car, but a sixteen year old can. As the Child becomes an Adult, he or she gains more Authority over life, making more and more decisions, until he or she is totally independent.
In fact, the most important difference between the Adult/Parent and the Child is the relationship that both have to Authority. What is Authority? A person who is called an Authority is an acknowledged expert on something, and is therefore given the right to make decisions in that area. The word of the Authority is taken more seriously than the word of someone who doesn't have Authority. Actually, a good word to describe Authority is "Head," in that the Authority is expected to use his or her Head--to think and to use knowledge--in the process of making a decision.
It is easy to see, then, that in the Parent/Child relationship, the Adult has Authority. The Adult is expected by society to govern the Child thoughtfully--to take care of the Child and to make decisions for the Child. The Adult is expected to control the behavior of the Child. Because of the differences between the Adult and the Child, the Adult is the acknowledged expert.
What does the Child have? Anyone who has ever tried to quiet a hungry, tired, or wet baby knows that even infants have some way of influencing the behavior of others. Small children can wheedle, whine, beg and plead until they get what they want. Children who are bullies threaten until their whims are satisfied. Babies and small children have an incredible amount of energy, which we call Power.
Like Authority, Power can be used to change the behavior of another. What is the difference between Authority and Power? We said that the Adult uses his or her Head in order to make decisions, and that is called Authority. The Child, in contrast to the Adult, is not expected to use his or her Head. In fact, the whole process of growing up and obtaining Adult status is the process of learning how to use one's Head, how to think.
An infant does not reason things out: "I am hungry, but I know that my mother is fixing my bottle as fast as she can." The infant squalls, even while the mother is heating the milk, and doesn't stop crying until the bottle is stuck in its mouth. A three year old sees a red lollipop. It doesn't matter to the three year old that supper is almost ready or that the dentist is concerned about cavities caused by candy or that there is only one lollipop and three other children--all of which are Adult concerns about this situation. That child wants the candy because it is red, pretty, and sweet, and no amount of reasoning can temper that desire. A seven year old sees an advertisement on television for the latest superhero castle. The ad indicates that the castle is magic and that in order to have any kind of fun, you have to have it. To the seven year old, it doesn't matter that the toy costs $69.00 and is completely made from brittle plastic. It doesn't matter that the toy he or she got last Christmas from the same company broke in 15 minutes. All the Child sees is the toy and his or her desire for it. Finally, every parent has asked a child, "what do you want for dinner," fixed the requested items, and watched the child refuse to eat anyway. "I changed my mind," the child says.
The Child does not think about what it wants or the advantages and disadvantages of following through with its desires and whims. The Child does not make a decision and stick with it; decisions are made on the basis of whatever looks good at the time, often the first thing that pops into the Child's mind. In this sense, then, the Child has no Head.
The main difference between Authority and Power is that the person with Authority has (which means he or she uses) a Head, and the person with Power does not have (does not use) a Head. The Child is born with Power. As the Child grows, he or she gains a Head--gains Authority. The Adult, then, has both Power and Authority. Because of this major difference between Adult and Child, the Parent/Child relationship can be called the Authority/Power relationship. By calling the Parent/Child relationship the Authority/Power relationship, we are emphasizing the most important dynamic in the Parent/Child relationship: the use of the Head in decision making which affects the behavior of another. Calling the Parent/Child relationship the Authority/Power relationship allows us to generalize this dynamic to some other common relationships between people, which we will demonstrate below.
The Patriarchal Perversion of the Primary Natural Law
So far, we have been talking about an ideal world in which the Parent cares for the Child, in which the Parent takes responsibility for the Child, and in which the Child actually attains Adult status, that is, the Child becomes an Adult who uses his or her head in making decisions. But we have also hinted at problems with the ideal world as we have outlined it. The existence of laws against child abuse means that there are people who are parents, but who are not caring for their children. We are using a lower-case "p" here to indicate that these people are called "parents" because they have biologically managed to produce a child, but they are not truly within the role of the Parent/Child relationship (capital P, capital C) as the Primary Natural Law defines it.
Open a newspaper or turn on the radio. Watch the six o'clock news on t.v. There are stories of murder, suicide, wife abuse, child abuse, elder abuse, and even spiritual abuse. There are stories of soaring crime rates, adolescents in gangs, rampant drug use, and corruption in the government. Our streets are filling with homeless people while corporations (and their executives) are making greater and greater profits. In spite of the Civil Rights Act, racism is still a major problem. Each year people are murdered because they are gay or lesbian. What is happening?
The question becomes, are all these societal problems separate little problems for which there may be a number of separate solutions, or is there some kind of relationship between them? In other words, are these problems themselves, or symptoms of some kind of greater problem?
All these problems involve some kind of conflict between people: between husband and wife, between parent and child, between government and the people, between people of differing ethnic origins, between drug addict and the people hurt in the process of addiction, between rich and poor, between religious leaders and followers, and so forth. Further, there are some hints in the ways in which people talk about these various problems. Corruption in government is often called "an abuse of power." We refer to addicts as those who have no "control" over their use of drugs. People who don't fit into the majority--ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, women, and so forth--are seeking "empowerment." Television shows regale us with details about the lives of the rich and famous, featuring accounts of fabulous purchases: "I saw the yacht and bought it on a whim." In the case of child sexual assault, we are concerned about how much "authority" to grant the testimony of a child in a court of law. All of these hints cover different territories--what does the whimsical purchase of a yacht have to do with the a child's testimony in court? Through the words we use when we talk about these problems--words such as "control," "power," "authority," "abuse," and "whim," all of which were used in the first part of this chapter--we are lead to another question: what might the Authority/Power relationship have to do with the diverse societal problems we have mentioned?
Actually, there are two types of Authority/Power relationships. The first type is the one we described above, which is based on the Parent/Child relationship. We said that the "discrimination" which occurs between the Adult and Child is the only legitimate discrimination.
In order to understand the second type of Authority/Power relationship, we have to understand the most rampant form of illegitimate discrimination, the one which is the model for all other illegitimate forms of discrimination. Like the discrimination between Adult and Child, this form of discrimination is said to be based on physical differences between the two groups. Like the discrimination between Adult and Child, this form of discrimination takes place across the whole world, regardless of skin color, sexual orientation, religion, and nationality. Unlike the discrimination between Adult and Child, however, those who fall into the Second Class position also have a Head and are capable of using Authority. Further, those who are in the Second Class are never expected to attain First Class status. These characteristics make this discrimination unreasonable and illegitimate.
By now you have probably guessed that the discrimination we are talking about is between men and women. This is what we mean when we talk about the patriarchal perversion of the Primary Natural Law: the definition of patriarchy is, a form of community in which the father is the supreme authority in the family clan, or tribe, descent being reckoned in the male line. The patriarchal system is centuries old, and vast, stretching around the globe. It succeeds in hoarding all of the world's human authority into male hands, by robbing females of theirs. The perversion of the Authority/Power relationship, then, happens exactly at the moment women are accorded Second Class Status and men are accorded First Class status.
Let's reprint the chart from the first section, showing this point. Again, we want to point out that these are characteristics of the position of being an Adult or Child, (or man or woman in this case) and not characteristics of all individuals who fill those positions. In fact, there are many individuals who are not ruled by the terms of their positions, but who govern themselves and decide their own actions for themselves. As will be seen, these individuals are true Adults regardless of which position they are in; as such, they do not allow their actions to exploit others under any circumstances, nor do they participate in their own exploitation.
First Class: Second Class:
The Adult The Child
Productive Non-Productive
Positive Negative
Authority
and Power Power only
POINT OF PERVERSION:
MEN WOMEN
Independent Dependent
Free Owned
Superior Inferior
Self-sustaining Needy
Formidable Defenseless
Of Worth Worthless
Strong Weak
Decision maker Obedient
Personhood Non-person
Intellectual Emotional
Using this concept, we can add to the chart:
First Class: Second Class:
The Adult The Child
Productive Non-Productive
Positive Negative
Authority
and Power Power only
POINT OF PERVERSION:
MEN WOMEN
WHITE NON-WHITE
RICH POOR
and
GOVERNMENT PEOPLE
RELIGIOUS
LEADERS FOLLOWERS
WELFARE
AGENCIES RECIPIENTS
MILITARY
OFFICERS ENLISTED PEOPLE
CAPTOR HOSTAGE
BOSS EMPLOYEES
DOCTOR PATIENT
You can probably think of others.
What does this perversion do to the Authority/Power relationship? As we have said, the second type of Authority/Power relationship is illegitimate because there is little or no provision for those in the second class to attain first class status and because both those in the first class and those in the second class have Heads. While the legitimate Authority/Power relationship allows for the safety and well-being of a Child, in its perverted form it turns into nothing less than total disrespect for any Adult whose authority is made invalid by reason of being channeled into the Child position.
We pointed out that there are parents who are not Parents; being able to biologically produce a child does not make a person into a Parent, as anyone who has adopted and raised a child can say. Similarly, there are adults in the world who are not Adult. We all know of "adults" who act immaturely, and who even throw temper tantrums, just like their two-year-old counterparts. As you can see from the chart above, many of the world's people live under the condition of being Adults in the position of the Child, people who are accorded the status of being a Child when they are not, in fact, children.
While in the legitimate Authority/Power relationship there is one Head (that of the Parent), in the illegitimate form, there are two Heads: that of the position of Adult as First Class, and that of the person who is an Adult who is stuffed into the Child position. There are two related problems with this situation:
1. The person who is an Adult in the Child position has no authority over her own life. Of course this is legitimate for actual children, who don't have the ability to determine their own life directions. Look down the list of characteristics under the Child Position: dependent, owned, inferior, defenseless, weak, obedient, non-person, emotional. A person who has the ability to think, to determine her own life direction is terribly limited by the Child Position.
2. If the person who is in the Adult position in the illegitimate form of the Authority/Power relationship allows the position to rule his actions (a husband who subjugates his wife, for example), he participates in maintaining that illegitimate form through his inappropriate use of Authority. While this person is in the Adult position, is it truly an Adult thing to do to keep another person from determining her own life direction? Thus, while the Adult position accords the person filling it with the status of having a Head, in fact, many who actually fill that position have not attained the use of a Head in their own lives; they have not truly become Adult. In fact, it takes a great deal of effort, commitment, self-examination, honesty, and courage--true Adultness--for someone whom society places in the position of the Adult interacting with someone whom society places in the position of the Child to keep from reinforcing the illegitimate Authority/Power relationship. Fortunately, there are people in both positions who do not allow their positions to govern their actions.
Our chart begins to look like this:
Authority Position Power Position
Parent (an actual Head) Legitimate Child (no Head)
Husband (appearance of a Head) Illegitimate Wife (a Head)
Boss (appearance of a Head) Illegitimate Employee (a Head)
Pastor (appearance of a Head) Illegitimate Church Member (a Head)
Psychiatrist (appearance of a Head) Illegitimate Patient (a Head)
Ultimately, the perverted Authority/Power relationship is the seat of human conflict because the person who actually has the Head does not have the Authority to use it.
Authority/Power Relationships and Battered Women
What does all this stuff have to do with battered women? Like so many other problems we have mentioned, battering involves a conflict. In our combined twenty five years of working with battered women, we know that this particular conflict often takes place between men and women and involves the victimization of women. Because wife battering involves the primary illegitimate form of discrimination, that between men and women, we are going to look at the Authority/Power relationship in relation to battering relationships. We do want to acknowledge that there are many kinds of battering relationships that are not husband/wife or male/female, however, we are certain that these battering situations can be analyzed and understood along the same lines as those between men and women. In fact, we hope that by understanding that battering is far more rampant than even that acknowledged by the battered women's movement will help victims of abuse everywhere--on the job, in the churches, and in every illegitimate form of the Authority/Power relationship--that they are not alone, that the battering is happening even if it seems invisible, and--most importantly--that there are possibilities for changing the situation.
When the person in the Adult position is not a true Adult, he feels himself threatened by the Head of the person who has been placed in the Child position. The threat causes the person in Authority to ignore or "cut off" the Head of the person in the Child position, which results in the falsified or illegitimate Parent/Child relationship. The person in Authority "owns" the person in the Power position, although it is ultimately an illegitimate ownership.
The person in the Child position goes about her daily life in constant awareness of her obligation not to displease the "Parent." People are being "owned" by their jobs, by their churches, by their government, and so forth. They don't want to run the risk of being yelled at, punished, or having their "privileges" taken away from them by whatever Father Authority Figure.
Yet it is Power (energy, strength) that performs the work. Authority makes decisions about the work. To change an illegitimate Authority/Power relationship depends upon the person in the Power or Child position for two reasons:
1. The person who is in the Authority position in an illegitimate Authority/Power relationship has no Head. As we have seen in our discussion of actual children, people who have no Head do not make logical, informed decisions. They certainly do not make decisions that involve any kind of self-sacrifice for the good of others (such as those who have been improperly put in the Child position) and society as a whole. They cannot see reasons for making this change, nor do they have the ability to initiate and follow through with a change.
2. Because the person who is in the Power position actually has a Head, the Power position in the illegitimate Authority/Power relationship is actually stronger than the Authority position. This is easier to see in a Teacher/Student situation. All of us have known teachers who could not control their classrooms. The teacher who cannot control a classroom is accorded the Authority position by society in general and the school principal specifically. Yet that Authority pales when it meets up with the Power of 25 rampaging junior high schoolers. We also know teachers who could go into the middle of a riot and calm everything down. What is the difference between these two types of teachers? The good teacher backs up the Authority status with Adultness. The bad teacher has nothing to back up Authority, and it is overrun by Power.
This is a much harder concept to see in a violent relationship. For one thing, the patriarchal perversion of the Authority/Power relationship causes us to focus on the physical appearance of things. It is to the advantage of the patriarchy to think of physically grown men as Adults, and, not coincidentally, to think of physical strength as the most significant kind of strength there is. It is very easy for battered women to buy into this falsified version of events--we are trained to do so from the very start.
What the Authority/Power relationship tells us is that Adultness is a non-physical concept, and is not attained through becoming older or larger. Rather it is attained through learning how to use one's Head. Men who batter do not qualify as Adults because they participate in the perpetuation of the illegitimate Authority/Power relationship. Once you begin to accept that this large hairy scary male is not in fact an Adult, start looking at the actual behavior of a batterer. Read through the stories in this book again. Is it Adult behavior to call people degrading names? Is it Adult behavior to go to a restaurant and dump food over your head? Is it Adult behavior to beat someone?
If, as we say, appearances lie, and the batterer is not an Adult, then we can say again that appearances lie and physical strength is neither the only kind of strength, nor is it the strongest form of strength. Using one's Head implies a different kind of strength--Psychological strength. Psychological strength will outweigh physical strength any day, if it is used right. The people in a small town in eastern Europe, for example, knew that they would be invaded by the Nazis. They knew that the Nazis had lists of the Jews in town and would take them away to be killed. So everyone got together and switched all the street signs and house numbers. When the Nazis came, they couldn't find the Jews. The townspeople could not defeat the superior physical strength of the Nazis, nor could they prevent the Nazi invasion, but they managed to outwit them and save the lives of the Jews.
The problem for anyone who is put into the Child position is that positions are powerful. It is very easy to believe the lies of that position, and to act accordingly. The Child position is a trap--a deadly one for anyone who has a Head of her own. The problem is to recognize this trap, and to get out of it. The chances are that you won't recognize the trap until the situation is pretty severe, which makes it all the more scary to make the changes you need to make in order to get out of the Child position.
Because what needs to happen, if you find yourself in an illegitimate Authority/Power relationship where you are placed in the Child position, is what we call a Turnaround. The Turnaround is an event which puts the person with a Head in a position of Adult and the person without a Head in the position of the Child. Re-read the story in this book about the day S.O.B. came home to find that his wife had changed from a rabbit into a human being [this story is recounted in “An Evening With Juanita Price” on this blog]. That was the Turnaround. A Turnaround is characterized by:
•A significant change in routine which marks a change in positions. S.O.B. was used to coming home and finding a rabbit. When the rabbit decided to be a human being (a change in position) that meant a change in routine (meeting him at the door). Notice that the rabbit didn't announce the change from the "safety" of the rabbit hole ("Honey, I'm no longer gonna be a rabbit"). Actions have to back up statements.
•Adult behavior on the part of the person making the change. It would have been much easier on S.O.B. if his wife had met him at the door with a lecture, because it would have meant that he wouldn't have had to change his behavior. He expected her to meet him with a knife--to be abusive as he knew himself to be--which, as we have pointed out, is also a form of Child behavior (notice, by the way, he expects her to act from the Child position because those are the only options he can think of--he doesn't even know what an Adult might do). Instead, she met him in silence. Adults can choose when to speak, and speak carefully when they make the choice to do so. When she spoke, she did not allow the Child within her to become abusive to him once the tables were turned. She spoke respectfully, the way she wanted to be spoken to.
•During the Turnaround, S.O.B.'s wife announced specific changes that were to take place--in her own behavior. This announcement was made in a respectful and firm tone of voice. She placed limits on herself, stating that she would no longer pick up his clothes. She stated possible consequences of this change, in that his clothes would not be washed if they were not placed in the clothes hamper.
•The limits set during the Turnaround must be adhered to. S.O.B.'s wife was prepared to follow through with the limits she set--even if he refused to pick up his clothes for weeks. She chose the limits she set carefully because she knew that those limits would be tested. Her limits were reasonable, ones she could live with.
•The purpose of the Turnaround is not to merely turn the tables, reinforcing the invalid Adult/Child relationship by making the wife the "Adult" and the husband the "Child." The Turnaround succeeds in changing the terms of the relationship altogether. With a valid Child, the Adult is required to set limits on the Child's behavior. The Adult is also responsible for the Child's well-being, including making sure the Child has clean clothing to wear--in the valid Adult/Child relationship, the Adult cannot refuse to wash the Child's clothing because the Child didn't put it in the laundry hamper. S.O.B.'s wife did not try to set limits on S.O.B.--to do so would have reinforced the invalid Adult/Child relationship. Instead, she set limits on her own responsibilities and put him in the position of making his own choices about his own behavior.
•The Turnaround must be followed up with consistent Adult behavior, or else things will very easily slide back to where they were (or worse, because the abuser will definitely try to make up for the "humiliation" of the Turnaround if given half a chance). This is where Psychological strength can really help. The batterer, as we have said, can only see the choices that a Child would make. The batterer uses violence as a way to solve problems and is easily frustrated when his solutions don't work. The batterer, like a Child, will worry at something or work at something until he realizes that it just won't work--batterers come on strong at first but don't have the patience or "stick-to-it-iveness" to really solve a problem. Finally, batterers have a limited view of what the problem might be. They think the problem in their relationships are that they cannot control their wives and/or kids.
An Adult, on the other hand, knows from experience what options the Child has because the Adult has been a Child (and the Child still lives within every Adult). This makes it possible to predict the batterer's behavior even when he cannot predict it himself. And, the Adult has a whole range of Adult options for solving problems effectively: patience, the ability to take a problem apart and work on it a little at a time, the wisdom to choose which problems to tackle, honesty with self and others, and the ability to choose to take care of self. Finally, the Adult knows that the problem is not about controlling another person. The "problem" or challenge of life for every Adult is to make determinations about our own lives: who are we? What do we want for our lives? How are we going to use our time in this world? What are our goals? How can we start on the road toward reaching our goals? What do we want to give to the world?
The last question in this whole series of ideas is, what is Adult behavior? We have hinted several ideas which are related to this, and will conclude this chapter by outlining some concepts which form the basis of Adultness. To begin with, behavior is a physical manifestation of the things which are on the inside of a person. We have already said that the physical appearance of someone can be deceiving. So we will not outline a set of behaviors, as in a recipe that someone could fake. Life situations are very complicated. What would be Adult behavior in one situation could end up being Child behavior in another. We will discuss questions, ideas, and concerns which will help you think about Adultness.
The key to Adultness is Blamelessness. What is blame? When there is an accident or a problem we often try to find out who was at fault--who should take responsibility for the problem. That is what police officers do, for example, when there is a car accident. Blamelessness means that your behavior is not causing a problem. There are six elements of Blamelessness:
1. Respect: for oneself and for others. The Constitution of the
2. Control: of one's own words and behavior. Adults don't go on rampages. Adults do choose how they will behave, what they will say, and they think about things in advance. Adults can acknowledge all the powerful human emotions we have--fear, anger, ecstasy, and so forth--but Adults do not allow these emotions to run their lives. Exercising control in one's own life sets a good example which is a positive influence upon the batterer.
3 Love: loving oneself is necessary in building a loving relationship with anyone! Why do we have life in the first place? What are our gifts as human beings? We have the abilities to love and to create. Maybe these are the most important things we can do--think about it and decide for yourself. But if you do choose love, you have to begin with yourself (that's true for everything, isn't it--it starts with self).
4. Truth: There are so many places to hide from the truth. We don't want to face the truth that our relationships are not what we thought they would be. We don't want to face the truth that someone we love may be hurting himself or others. We don't want to face the truth that our own behavior is not what we would like it to be. Honesty involves admitting the truth about ourselves first, which means taking a serious look at our lives. Honesty allows us to take responsibility for our behavior when we are wrong and helps us to keep from making the same mistake twice. It is hard at first to do this, but facing the uncomplimentary aspects of oneself with honesty ultimately releases inner strength.
5. Grounds: The grounds for your behavior form the basis for your behavior in any given situation--your interactions with others, your reactions to others. Let's look at an example in the Parent/Child relationship. We have said that the job of the Parent is to ensure the safety of the Child. Suppose a three year old has decided to play in the street. The Child's behavior gives the Parent grounds to grab the child out of the street and to let the child know that the parent is displeased with this behavior. The parent would be guilty of neglect (could be blamed) if he or she did not take this action. Adult behavior includes understanding and following through with actions which individual situations require. Refusing to act does not guarantee blamelessness.
6. Momentum: growing up, moving forward, learning to deal honestly with pain, gaining emotional independence, attaining the profound in safety. The Turnaround is just the beginning of a lifelong path. It is a hard one, but it is also the safest and the most rewarding. Good luck!
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