puritanical poison

I read something once about how behavior patterns get passed down in families through generations - that a coping mechanism that served well during a time of stress, such as a famine, drought or other hardship, could end up being perpetuated out of nothing more than habit forevermore, unless somebody, at some point, does something to break the chain.

What we call 'dysfunctionality' is really just something that somebody learned how to do to deal with their current situation. When the situation changed, somehow the behavior carried right along, as if nothing had changed at all.

That's how it is with humans: Most of what we learn, we learn from our parents (or other adults in our environment), up until an age when we start being more influenced by our peers; but by then, some of our basic relational 'wiring' has already been pretty well set in stone.

It seems that there must be exceptions to this, but the tendency for children to imitate their parents in all ways - mannerisms, speech patterns, ways of coping with stress, expressing various emotions (or not expressing them) - seems to be an innate part of how humans learn.