Father and Mother Wound: unaware mistakes and post traumatic impacts toward children

by Miss Dini Amalia, M.A*

Wound is something identical with painful feeling as an impact of unpleasant incident or
indisposed condition. Everyone has their own wounded experience. Human, however, are likely
to encounter what are sometimes referred to as ‘inner child’. These are physical and emotional
wounds that are transformed into traumas accumulated throughout lifetime. It can happen due to unfavorable childhood memories or terrible experience during adolescence that even continuously transpired till middle-aged. Not all people can actually choose the journey they come through their life. There are happy stories and bad stories, indeed.

The thing is that some people can successfully deal with those traumas, but some others struggle a lot to encounter the post traumatic impacts. They even need almost the whole life time to cope with the sore. Just imagine as this bad thing afflicts to the mind of parents and every couple planning to have children. The traumatic wound, especially the psychological trauma, will imprint firmly and be inevitably transmitted to children during the nurture. The worst case, then, the children will inherit the typically similar wound passed down to the next generation. In consequence, it inevitably creates such a horrible endless cycle.

The psychological trauma existing mostly nowadays is triggered by the absence of parents, also
verbal, physical and mental abuse. This phenomenon occurs mostly in this era and is popularly
known as Father and Mother Wound. We can find the case triggered by the wound during parenting all over the world. In US, many children grow up without knowing their biological fathers. When they become adult and have their own children, they are frequently flooded with feelings of anxiety and dread. Women experiencing father’s absenteeism will have more difficulties in defining the relationship with men. In fact, these people are having the lack of father’s figure.

The best way to understand father and mother wound is a loss or lack of fathering and mothering. It could be one of them or even both wounds. It also means that the father and mother are physically there, but no even single bound built as the real connection between parent and children. The reason is because of the parents’ bustles in work or social life that absorb most of their time out of the house and skip most of family time. However, children will be the one affected in so many ways.

Dr. Mari Kovanen, a counselling psychologist, stated that the father wound, which refers to father
absenteeism, whether emotionally or both emotionally and physically, or the father being very
critical, negative and even abusive character, can impact individuals and their future relationship
in many ways. For those who lived with abusive father possibly treat their children in the same
way. The abusive actions could in the form of physical abuse or verbal abuse.

In addition, mother wound is strongly related to maternal trauma. It is a deeply personal and highly sensitive topic. The Mother Wound is an attachment trauma that creates a sense of confusion and devastation in the child’s psyche. Children who are raised by alcoholics, drug-addicted mothers, or mothers who have mental health conditions, either undiagnosed or untreated, may struggle into their own adulthood.

However, there are also children who are raised by mothers who do not have these challenges.
These are mothers who may provide for the physical needs of the children, and even interact with the children in a positive way, but simply do not provide the deep love and attention that all children require. They may not have been abusive or neglectful, and they may never have engaged in negativity in their relationships with the children, but they were also always distant and less tuned-into the emotional needs of their children. Individuals with a mother wound always feel incomplete and lacking in their ability to connect with others, while also having deeply rooted feelings about the need for perfection and control. This sort of feeling throughout childhood reduce self-esteem, feelings of self-worth, and feelings of worthiness to have a positive relationship.

In short, Father and Mother Would will imprint the horrible impacts toward children. During most
of the nurture, children already engrave the wound that surely affects their psyche and attitude,
also the way they interact with others and treat the next generation. The impacts of father and
mother wound are as follows:
• Low self-esteem & low confidence
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Anger & rage
• Too rigid boundaries
• Too loose boundaries
• Parenting – repeating the pattern of (emotionally) absent parent.

The wound also affects the parents’ way of behaving toward children that makes children feel
emotional neglect. The neglect emerges the feeling of unimportant being and unwanted children. It will cause depression and lack of self esteem and confidence.

Due to the bad impacts of the wound, there are some important things to do by the parents and
everyone who has Father or Mother Wound in order to cut the cycle. The first step is
acknowledging the emotions. This may feel difficult at the beginning, but work a lot to resolve the trauma. Finding someone who can discuss the wound and how much it impacts the mind is quite important. It can be conducted by discussing with trusted person or even the therapist. However, the main important thing is to end up the wound and establish the healthy positive bound with children, imprint the beautiful memories that make them happy and unneglected. The real happy family will raise the resilient individual who can provide the beneficial contribution to others and humanize other living creatures.

References:
https://alivecounselling.com/counselling-resources/how-our-family-relationships-impacts-us-thefather-wound/
psychologytoday.com

*She is a lecturer in English education study program in IAI Tarbiyatut Tholabah Lamongan.

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