062-i-am-doing-this-for-your-own-good-must-not-become-a-license-to-harm

In many families, “I am doing this for your own good” is one of the most common sentences.

Parents control the child and call it being for the child’s good.

They humiliate the child and call it being for the child’s good.

They beat and scold the child and call it being for the child’s good.

They decide the child’s life and call it being for the child’s good.

They violate the child’s boundaries and call it being for the child’s good.

This sentence sounds like love, but it often leaves the child with nowhere to escape.

Because once parents say, “I am doing this for your own good,” the child seems to lose the right to explain.

If you suffer, you are immature.

If you resist, you are unfilial.

If you feel wronged, you are too fragile.

If you are wounded, you do not understand your parents’ good intentions.

Thus harm is wrapped in the name of love.

Control is justified in the name of responsibility.

Power is protected by the narrative of sacrifice.

This is a deeply hidden form of family violence.

It may not appear as fists.

It may appear as language.

As silent treatment.

As constant denial.

As emotional coercion.

As making the child live forever under guilt.

The greatest problem with “I am doing this for your own good” is that it often bypasses the most basic question:

Does the other person actually experience it as good?

If a form of love makes a child live in long-term fear, shame, suppression, and suffocation,

it cannot be called good love simply because the parent’s intention is good.

Intention cannot replace consequences.

A starting point cannot erase harm.

A parent’s painstaking effort cannot automatically prove that the method is right.

A civilized family cannot only ask, “Do I love you?”

It must also ask, “Is my love hurting you?”

It cannot only ask, “Am I doing this for your good?”

It must also ask, “Does the good I define respect your feelings, boundaries, and personality?”

A child is not a receiver of parental intention.

A child is a human being with feelings, dignity, and inner experience.

If parents truly act for the child’s good,

they must be willing to listen to how the child actually experiences that “good.”

When a child says it hurts, parents must not immediately say, “You are too dramatic.”

When a child says he is afraid, parents must not immediately say, “I am doing this for your good.”

When a child says he is wounded, parents must not immediately say, “You will understand when you grow up.”

Civilized parents must have one capacity:

Before expressing love, they must first see whether the other person is being harmed.

Family civilization does not deny parental love.

It asks love to accept examination.

True love can withstand a child expressing feelings.

True love allows a child to say, “This makes me uncomfortable.”

True love is willing to adjust its method, instead of stubbornly demanding that the child accept it.

If parents always emphasize their intention

but refuse to face the child’s suffering,

then this is not love. It is self-moved sentiment.

“I am doing this for your own good” must not become a license to harm.

Good love is not measured only by how much parents give.

It must also be measured by whether the child becomes safer, freer, more whole, and more alive.

If your love makes your child increasingly afraid of you,

then reflection is needed.

If your love makes your child increasingly silent,

then change is needed.

If your love makes your child want only to stay away after growing up,

then you cannot simply say, “I was doing it for your own good.”

The beginning of family civilization

is the movement from “I am doing this for your good”

to “I am willing to learn what is truly good for you.”