The Parent and Child Relationship
The Relationship that Creates Our Self-Worth
Surviving the Holocaust
"If you are Jewish you need to make a lot of money for when the Nazi's come back."
“If you don’t have a lot of money
when they Nazi’s come back,
you’re dead”
This is what my parents and other survivors believed, so naturally, I adopted that same belief about making money.
If you look at my past, I was always looking for ways to make a lot of money and I was successful at it too. I started from nothing three times and created a multi-million dollar net worth, three times.
Unfortunately, to start from nothing three times, means that I had to go broke twice. So there is not much about success and failure in the area of money that I have not personally experienced.
So how does this get one from money to love?
One of the things I discovered is that we have made up lots of conversations that we are born into, particularly about love and the relationship with our parents.
Working with Foster Children
To assist me with identifying what the key point is about love, I started working with foster youth. What I discovered working with foster youth is when they were taken from their families by the state, for a variety of reasons such as, drugs, alcoholic parents, parents who were in jail, or parents passed away, etc., and taken into foster care, the child didn’t think, “now I’m going to get fed and loved”
No, these foster children all believed that the reason their parents gave them away was that they were not loveable. They felt that they didn’t deserve to be loved and the reason that their parents gave them away was because they were not lovable; there was something wrong with them, so their parents gave them away because of those reasons.
As a child, if an incident touches our world, naturally, we believe it is a result of us
Who We Are
All foster youth had the same fundamental story. What I discovered was that, as newborn babies, when we feel love has been withdrawn from our parents, we have no choice other than to make it mean something negative about us. Each of these foster children translated their incidents as though they do not deserve to be loved, they are not loveable.
The end result was that two-thirds of the boys, when they reached the age of 18 and were no longer in the foster care system, out on their own, with no background support, no family, nothing, they ended up homeless or incarcerated. Two-thirds of the girls, after the age of 18, end up pregnant and out of wedlock.
What I discovered is that each one of us believes as little children, when we felt unloved by our parents, it had to be something negative about us. As little children, the whole world is either about us or not about us. If It has nothing to do with us, it is not relative. As a child, If an incident touches our world, naturally, we believe it is a result of us.
Short Story
I was the only child of my family and my parents friends for the first three years of my life. Because of this I felt special, got a lot of love and received much affection and attention.
When my younger sister was born, many family and friends had children that same year, too. All of the sudden, I felt like something was wrong with me and nobody loved me anymore.
Now, as an adult, logically, I can see that my mother had to take care of my sister. However, my reality as a three and a half year old is that something was wrong with me and nobody loved me anymore. I must have done something wrong, I must have had some inherent flaw.
By the time I reached age four, I was precocious and smart, and could easily do the mathematical times tables. I could read the Daily Mirror, and enjoyed reading about the Dodgers as I was an avid fan of baseball.
I loved reading the daily news so that I could follow the Brooklyn Dodgers.
I didn’t know that the others kids on the block, who were the same age, couldn’t read nor were they Dodger fans nor could they do the mathematical times tables.
Because of this difference in interest and the fact that my parents did not speak English very well, I felt that the other children on the block didn’t like me.
Because there was something wrong with me.
Growing up with the idea that my mother had another child, my sister, and that the neighborhood kids could not relate with me, it as though it was my fault and something was wrong with me.
This cultivated the belief inside of me that people don’t like me so I had to put great effort into making a lot of money.
After all, this was the conditioning that I received from hearing those words spoken so often as I was growing up: “If you are Jewish you need to make a lot of money.”
What does this have to do with love?
My entire life has been lived as an independent entrepreneur, doing deals, working by myself.
I have been successful, and sometimes, not successful.
Those times when I was not successful, I allowed the idea that “something is wrong with me”, take over my life and when it took over, it became very costly. When the part of you that believes that something is wrong with you and runs your life, it is very costly.
What I have discovered is that each one of us has had similar instances when we felt that our parents didn’t love us.
The lucky ones are the ones who have had parents who loved them and have been there for them, understood them and we have felt loved.
Those of us who have had this kind of upbringing, the odds are highly in favor of providing a great life, great relationships and great experiences.
An unhappy adult is a child that has been ignored throughout their upbringing.
The only thing a child really wants is to be “gotten”, understood and accepted for who they are.