Notes to John

by Joan Didion

It’s the way Protestants bring up children. In the interests of promoting modesty in children – a Christian virtue – they massacre self-esteem. It’s always the child’s fault. Because if it wasn’t the child’s fault it would be their fault. Everything has to be somebody’s fault in this scheme. There are no accidents. When I hurt my leg this winter, naturally I blamed myself. I was talking about it to a colleague one day, another psychiatrist, a Jew. And he looked at me and said ‘You guys really won’t let yourselves believe in accidents, will you.’ It’s a way of bringing up children that can only end in one of two ways, rebellion – that’s the usual way – or overdependence. And when you match an over-dependent grown child against an overprotective parent, you reach a kind of stalemate.”