Not only is the kid in bad company, he is deeply identified with these two quarreling people. One is his or her mother, the other is his or her father. And what does identification mean? “I am that.” This is what identification says, right? “That am I.” In the heated moment of the quarrel, what is the mother? The mother is pure aggression. What is the father? The father is pure hatred. And the kid is saying, “That am I” because the kid is identified with the father and the mother. So, what does the kid become? Aggression and hatred. And the mother and the father will not even realize it. They will say, “We were fighting; we didn’t do anything to the kid as such.” You did do, and you did a lot. You destroyed the kid
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Acharya Prashant: If you are in a railway coach, and that too in an enclosed cabin, with two fellow passengers, and it’s just a journey, let’s say, ten hours long, and those two people are constantly squabbling, constantly, what would it do to you?
Questioner: It would be very irritating and frustrating.
Acharya Prashant: If you are very patient, you will try to sleep. If you are a little less patient, you will try to calm them down. If you know even lesser patience, you will pull the chain. And if you are totally fed up, you may as well not decide to wait till the next station!
If even ten hours are intolerable with two quarreling people, how does it feel to live with two quarreling fools for an entire lifetime? Forget that they are your parents—any two persons; I said that even strangers, fellow travelers in a train. It’s a very, very bad thing to happen to anybody. And worst if it happens to the impressionable mind of the child.
