The Blame Game

Anyone with parents would have experienced this before. Parents who ask about their children’s behaviour, thinking with finality that’s disturbing that their children can do no wrong. Everything is blamed on the influence of peers or teachers; a result of their children being taken in by the “wrong crowd”. Some may see it as a form of love so intense of parents for their children that they simply cannot bear the thought of their child being a bad-bone in the first place or being at fault. But is this really the case?

There’s an old saying: Judge a parent through their children. It’s very similar to the saying that tells one to judge a person by the companions they keep, except that this is applied more often to legal adults. It’s the simple concept of reflection—the child is a reflection of their parents. In their hearts, be it consciously or unconsciously, parents know this. All of us know this; it’s been implied if not outright thought to us from young, especially in the Asian culture where children are pressured to protect their parents’ reputations. IS it so shocking then that parents naturally want to blame their children’s actions on other people besides themselves or the child in question? After all, this is merely a variation of Actor-Observer biasness coming to the fore.

In the Actor-Observer Bias theory, a person is more likely to judge someone else’s actions to be the cause of his or her disposition but more likely to judge his/her own actions on situational factors. It’s a simple case of “he did this because he’s stupid, I did this because I had no choice”. It’s basically a mechanism to save face, to maintain one’s self-esteem and confidence in one’s self. In this sense, parents are indirectly reflected through their children on most occasions. So it’s not a big step to have them judge their children as they would themselves. In other words, it’s never their fault that they did something; it always has to be someone else’s fault.

I’m not saying that this is right and that all children’s delinquency is due to their parents or guardians, but I’m asking that this be considered. I’ve heard it enough times to groan: Why do you mix with this person? Your friends are only using you. They don’t appreciate you. You should mix with better friends.

It’s true, upon reflection, that some of the friends I mixed with were only using me, and pushing me around. But in the long run, I can appreciate them. My first best-friend in primary school was a dominating girl who spoke her mind and bludgeoned her way through things. I, in contrast, was a cry-baby, barely weaned off my mother’s protection. After a year of back and forth pushing and shoving between us (I may have been less assertive, but I did have a temper), we finally went our separate way. But I learnt to grow a spine and to stand up for myself. Several more experiments here and there taught me patience, compromise and the ability to temper my words. Other experiments taught me to forego the political niceties for more frank options when it comes to certain situations. It was a touch and go process, one I learned through friends of all mannerisms.

So, is mixing with “the wrong crowd” always a bad thing? I’m not encouraging gang loyalties or cult groups, but it never hurts to experiment from time to time and to learn from one’s mistakes when something can be learnt. And no, dear parents, it isn’t always our friends’ fault that we act the way we do. After all, we learned through observation for the first few years of our lives and most of our time at home from parents, so please, a little more acceptance of the blame if one is going to point fingers.