Recent Blogs regarding late application of boundaries and holding SKids accountable.
These have brought to mind a movie I remember from when I was very young.
The Savage is Loose.
It is a 1974 film produced by and staring Georce C. Scott.
The premise is about a 17yo who basically becomes dangerously obsessed with his mother and in competition with his father for her affections. The characters are dad, mom, and their infant son who are the only survivors of a ship wreck. They are stranded on an uncharted island. As the kid grows up, the usual teen crap unfolds though with no one else on the island, mommy is the only female, and daddy is the old bear that has to be eliminated. Very reminisscent of Mini Spouse syndrome, etc....
It was released independently because the major distribution channels rated it "R" due to topic. George C. Scott battled the rating and released it directly to theaters without rating. He included in the marketing that he would reiburse from his own money any parent who took a kid under 17 to the movie and thought it should be rated "R". For the entire release nationwide, parents only requesed refunds for $10,000 worth of tickets. His stance was that incest was not the key theme of the movie and that the key theme was about parenting. It made nearly $1Million.
Yes, not exactly a SKid, SParent, Parent thing. However, it has a ton of parallels to what goes in in blended families when one parent will not parent and hold their kid accountable while the SParent struggles with guilt, boundaries, and self victimization.
The movie is extremely disturbing. I am not even sure if it is viewable any more. I have seen it only once and it was decades ago. It may have even been when it was released to theaters in 1974. It made that much of an impression on me that I recall it vividly and connected what so many spouses to failed parent prior breeders experience to the message of the movie.
For many SParents, it is not that the savages are loose. It is that the savages were never contained.
Which drives incredible levels of resentment towards both the savages and their failed keepers.
If it is available for streaming, it is worth a watch. Though again, it is disturbing. Nothing overt. Just innuendo.
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Comments
Last night my SO's daughter
Last night my SO's daughter sent him a text with a video of a dad carrying a toddler on his shoulders. She then sent a text asking "Daddy, when are you going to carry me like that again?" He said "You're too big." She sent back (without irony) "That makes me so sad (with crying emojis.)" This is the SD who had to be told 3 times to cover her nipples when on family outings and finally he had to take his shirt off and put it on her. She is 28. She would def try to kill me if we were on an island. ETA i've already told him i'm never traveling with her again and i'm likely not going to even spend time with her again.
28 and wanting daddy to carry her on his shoulders. Hmmmmm?
Hopefully she was joking. Though considering past behavior, she was probably serious.
I pulled it up on IMBD and
I pulled it up on IMBD and there are copies of it available to buy on Amazon. Not on Prime video.
I personally feel
That divorce screws up these kids. More then people think. Breaking up of the first family. Kids being push into a second family they have no choice in. Living in two different households,Two sets of different rules. Seeing a loving parent now fighting all the time.
A cell phone is now a committee project. 4 adults, with MIL,SIL, alll get in on this community cell phone. With at least two set of rules on. useless of said phone. And we wounded why SK don't fall inline. Your line.
IMHO it is not divorce that screws up kids. It is idiot parents.
Divorce is not a rarity. By direct math, half of all kids are likely CODs.
IMHO the divorce eccuse is bullshit. A piece of paper signed by a judge does not screw up a kid. It is parental failure and idiocy that leads up to the divorce and continued parental failure and idiocy that follows divorce that screws up a kid.
I will throw a different spin
I will throw a different spin on this... I also don't think that divorce, in and of itself is necessarily the root cause of this kind of thing.. but.....
When people are divorced, that means they failed at that relationship, through their own behavior or at the very least from generally picking the wrong person.. these people are often not the most adept at being competent adults.. competent partners... and as a result.. often are not competent parents either.
There is usually at least a 5050 chance that the person who has been divorced had some part in it.... maybe more than 5050.. because I would say that the completely "innocent and did nothing wrong.. perfect at communications.. etc.. partner is probably a pretty small percentage. Divorces happen when there is enough dysfunction load to make it not workable any more.. so we marry people who have divorced.. we stand a chance of getting someone with some gaps that may come back to bite us..
If you ask someone why they
If you ask someone why they divorced and they say "I was blindsided!" chances are they missed some major clues. If they say "Oh, it's because my ex was crazy!", watch out.
I say this as a divorced person who has no delusions that they were perfect. I know at least some of where i went wrong and the clues i missed.
I missed piles of clues and red flags the first time.
But, I was in luuuuuuuuuvvvvvvvvv!
Though when I gained clarity, I realize that I really never was. I probably married in large part to avoid being on my own as my family evolved when I reached adulthood.
I very well may have done the same the second time I married. Though I was far more clear on understanding a quality partner when I found one, and on how to be quality partner myself.
Experience counts.
I absolutely agree.
The person who is entirely non causal in a divorce is the proverbial Unicorn. Including myself. Though admittedly I do not know what I did to contribute to the demise of my first marriage. Because I did not know what I had done, I worked on me with professional help.
Often damaged goods re-partner with damaged goods.
As it turned out for me/us. We figured out how to not be damaged any longer. It took time, it took focus. But, we figured it out together. SO far anyway.
It is naive to think that we do not bring the sum of our life experiences to a new relationship. Unfortunately it appears that many do not have the self awareness to recognize that they in part caused their failed prior marriage and that they bring what they contributed to that failure to the next round unless they do the work to recognize that truth and purge themselves of that causal baggage.
Not universal of course. But far more likely than not far too often.
I wouldn’t exactly hold this
I wouldn’t exactly hold this up as a think piece in my opinion. More that during this time period, incest, underage assault, and things of that nature people were able to get away with it. Rape and incest got pushed off by these perpetrators as “artistic envelope” when really it was just some sick fucks making movies about their true nature.
There was no incest.There was teen angst and parenting failures.
There certainly was a major Oedipus thing running through it.
As I recall anyway.