別讓愛成為孩子的負擔

Love and Merit

別讓愛成為孩子的負擔

There are two great defining features of child-rearing today. First, children are now praised to an unprecedented degree. As Dorothy Parker once joked, American children aren’t raised; they are incited. They are given food, shelter and applause. That’s a thousand times more true today. Children are incessantly told how special they are.

如今的育兒有兩大關(guān)鍵特征。第一，現(xiàn)在的孩子得到空前多的夸贊。桃樂絲·帕克(Dorothy Parker)曾經(jīng)開玩笑說，美國的孩子不是撫養(yǎng)大的，是激勵大的。他們得到了飲食、庇護與喝彩。這話在今天更是無比正確。人們不斷對孩子說他們?nèi)绾稳绾翁貏e。

The second defining feature is that children are honed to an unprecedented degree. The meritocracy is more competitive than ever before. Parents are more anxious about their kids getting into good colleges and onto good career paths. Parents spend much more time than in past generations investing in their children’s skills and résumés and driving them to practices and rehearsals.

第二個關(guān)鍵特征是孩子受到了前所未有的鍛造磨礪。在精英體制下，競爭空前激烈。父母比以往更擔心孩子能否進入優(yōu)秀大學，踏上職場坦途。比起以前幾代人，現(xiàn)在的父母會花更多的時間對孩子的技能和履歷進行投入，開車送他們?nèi)ビ柧毢团啪殹?/p>

These two great trends — greater praise and greater honing — combine in intense ways. Children are bathed in love, but it is often directional love. Parents shower their kids with affection, but it is meritocratic affection. It is intermingled with the desire to help their children achieve worldly success.

這兩大傾向——更多的夸贊和更多的磨礪——是緊密結(jié)合的。孩子沉溺在愛中，但那愛是有指向的。父母向孩子傾注無限的感情，但那是精英至上的感情。其中摻雜著幫助孩子取得世俗成功的欲望。

Very frequently it is manipulative. Parents unconsciously shape their smiles and frowns to steer their children toward behavior they think will lead to achievement. Parents glow with extra fervor when their child studies hard, practices hard, wins first place, gets into a prestigious college.

而這時常會表現(xiàn)為操縱欲。父母無意中用他們的微笑和皺眉作了向?qū)?，讓孩子往他們認為可以通往成功的行為發(fā)展。孩子努力學習、訓練、得第一名、進入名牌大學，會讓父母心中充滿欣喜。

This sort of love is merit based. It is not simply: I love you. It is, I love you when you stay on my balance beam. I shower you with praise and care when you’re on my beam.

這樣的愛是基于價值判斷的。它不是單純的“我愛你”。它是“我愛那個在我的平衡木上不掉下來的你。只要你在上面，我會給你無盡的贊揚和體貼”。

The wolf of conditional love is lurking in these homes. The parents don’t perceive this; they feel they love their children in all circumstances. But the children often perceive things differently.

有條件的愛是一只潛伏在家中的狼。父母對此毫無知覺;他們覺得他們無論何時何地都是愛他們的孩子的。但孩子的感受卻往往不是這樣。

Children in such families come to feel that childhood is a performance — on the athletic field, in school and beyond. They come to feel that love is not something that they deserve because of who they intrinsically are but is something they have to earn.

在這樣的家庭里，孩子會覺得童年是一場表演——在體育競技場上，在學校里，不一而足。他們會開始認為，他們得到的愛并不是因為他們的本我，而是某種他們要爭取的東西。

These children begin to assume that this merit-tangled love is the natural order of the universe. The tiny glances of approval and disapproval are built into the fabric of communication so deep that they flow under the level of awareness. But they generate enormous internal pressure, the assumption that it is necessary to behave in a certain way to be worthy of love — to be self-worthy. The shadowy presence of conditional love produces a fear, the fear that there is no utterly safe love; there is no completely secure place where young people can be utterly honest and themselves.

這些孩子開始認為，摻雜價值判斷的愛是縱貫寰宇的自然秩序。那些轉(zhuǎn)眼即逝的贊許或不滿，是深深嵌入在交流之中的，在不知不覺中發(fā)生著。它們會引起巨大的內(nèi)心壓力，讓孩子認定要想配得上這份愛——有自尊，自己需要按某種特定的方式行事。有條件的愛若隱若現(xiàn)，營造出一種恐懼，讓人擔心世上不存在絕對安全的愛;沒有什么地方是完全可靠的，讓年輕人可以盡顯坦誠和自我。

On the one hand, many of the parents in these families are extremely close to their children. They communicate constantly. But the whole situation is fraught. These parents unconsciously regard their children as an arts project and insist their children go to colleges and have jobs that will give the parents status and pleasure — that will validate their effectiveness as dads and moms.

另一方面，這些家庭中的很多家長與孩子都異常親近，他們時常交流。然而整個局面很糾結(jié)，這些家長下意識地將孩子看成是一個藝術(shù)項目，堅持讓孩子去上大學，找工作，從而讓父母有地位、感到愉快，因為這能印證他們作為父母卓有成效。

Meanwhile, children who are uncertain of their parents’ love develop a voracious hunger for it. This conditional love is like an acid that dissolves children’s internal criteria to make their own decisions about their own colleges, majors and careers. At key decision-points, they unconsciously imagine how their parents will react. They guide their lives by these imagined reactions and respond with hair-trigger sensitivity to any possibility of coldness or distancing.

與此同時，對于父母的愛感到不確定的孩子，也會對父母的愛產(chǎn)生貪婪的渴求。這種有條件的愛具有腐蝕性，會侵蝕孩子內(nèi)心里對求學、專業(yè)、就業(yè)獨立做出決定的標準。在關(guān)鍵的決策節(jié)點上，他們會下意識地想象父母如何反應(yīng)。他們指導自己的人生時，會參考這些想象的反應(yīng)，并以高度的敏感應(yīng)對任何冷淡或疏遠的可能性。

These children tell their parents those things that will elicit praise and hide the parts of their lives that won’t. Studies by Avi Assor, Guy Roth and Edward L. Deci suggest that children who receive conditional love often do better in the short run. They can be model students. But they suffer in the long run. They come to resent their parents. They are so influenced by fear that they become risk averse. They lose a sense of agency. They feel driven by internalized pressures more than by real freedom of choice. They feel less worthy as adults.

這些孩子會告訴父母那些可以贏得贊揚的事情，隱瞞自己生活中不會受到贊賞的事情。阿維·阿瑟(Avi Assor)、蓋·羅斯(Guy Roth)和愛德華·L·德吉(Edward L. Deci)開展的研究顯示，得到有條件的愛的孩子們從短期來看情況都不錯，他們可以成為模范學生。但從長期來看，他們會厭惡自己的父母。他們在很大程度上受到恐懼的影響，以至于會變得嫌惡風險。他們失去了主動性。他們會感覺，自己受到的驅(qū)動更多是來自于內(nèi)化的壓力，而不是真正的選擇自由。他們成年后也會感覺沒那么出色。

Parents two generations ago were much more likely to say that they expected their children to be more obedient than parents today. But this desire for obedience hasn’t gone away; it’s just gone underground. Parents are less likely to demand obedience with explicit rules and lectures. But they are more likely to use love as a tool to exercise control.

兩代人之前，父母們會比今天更愿意說，他們期待孩子們更聽話。不過這種讓孩子順從的欲望并沒有消失，只是轉(zhuǎn)移到了地下。父母通過明確地訂規(guī)矩，直白地教訓來要求孩子順從的做法有所減少，但是他們更傾向于用愛當做施加控制的工具。

The culture of the meritocracy is incredibly powerful. Parents desperately want happiness for their children and naturally want to steer them toward success in every way they can. But the pressures of the meritocracy can sometimes put this love on a false basis. The meritocracy is based on earned success. It is based on talent and achievement. But parental love is supposed to be oblivious to achievement. It’s meant to be an unconditional support — a gift that cannot be bought and cannot be earned. It sits outside the logic of the meritocracy, the closest humans come to grace.

精英至上的文化強大得出人意料。父母迫切地想讓自己的孩子幸福，自然也就希望引導他們以各種可能的方式走向成功。然而精英主義的壓力有時卻會把愛放在錯誤的基礎(chǔ)上。精英主義的基礎(chǔ)是努力贏得的成功，根源于才能和成就。然而父母的愛本應(yīng)該不在意成就。父母的愛理應(yīng)是無條件的支持——這種饋贈既不能買來也無法賺來。這種愛置身于精英至上的邏輯之外，是人類最接近大愛的舉動。