“Encourage and support your kids because children are apt to live up to what you believe of them.”

— Lady Bird Johnson, former First Lady of the United States

Someone suggested I watch "The girl in the basement" to me and I was keen to watch it but as I was finding some documentaries to watch online, my eyes caught this title which the person suggested to me and I found out it was a true life story where a father named Josef Fritzl committed a big crime on his daughter (Elizabeth Fritzl) in 1984. I watched the documentary where this father locked up his own daughter in a basement for 24 years. She was raped daily and gave birth to 7 seven children for her father.

In 2008, she had the opportunity to escape and revealed the whole story, she was 42 years by the time she was out of the basement and she had been locked up since when she was 18 years. How could a father be so heartless to do that? In the same house with his wife and she couldn´t found out? I cannot imagine what the girl might have gone through in the basement, how she coped giving birth to 7 children by herself of which one of them died.

While listening, I got to know about Josef´s childhood and how it played an important role on his personality. This birth the title of my article.

According to the true event, Josef was raised up by a single parent (his mother) who was a strict and hard woman, she was an extremely authoritarian mother who would always beat and maltreat her own son without any reason. Many times, she would leave him all alone at home and never had his time until he grew up. He grew up to become a rapist and violent man too.

According to a psychiatrist who spoke in the documentary, she said the unhappy childhood of Josef had a great influence on his personality (in a negative way).

In my project, I talked about how parenting styles has a great influence in an academic performance of a student. Parents can influence their kids either in a positive or negative way especially when it´s all about single parenting. This was the act Josef reproduced when he grew up and got married. He exhibited such harsh attitude on his family which made him rape his daughter for 24 years.

If he was given the best upbringing right from time, he wouldn´t have done what he did. This same psychiatrist also said that children who grow up without any empathy have trouble feeling any for other people. If Josef´s mother had shown great care and concern for him while he was still a child, and has taught him the value of showing empathy and love towards others, he wouldn´t have done the opposite because things that haven´t been experienced in childhood are difficult to replicate towards others in life.

It is not possible for a child taught how to love others in his childhood, to hate when he grows up. Children imitate what they learn and see for themselves. The harsh treatment he received brought such monster character in him and never showed empathy for his own daughter.

Parents need to train their children in the right way and monitor their actions. Leaving children alone and not giving them attention would make them go out and learn bad behaviors.

There was a story of a woman in the bus with her daughter. The little girl was seen reading a novel all through the journey and a lady was forced to ask the mother why the girl was reading since they started the journey. The mother said it was what she always sees her doing. This is to tell that parents can influence their children in the right and wrong way. Josef´s mother had a negative influence on her son which he exhibited till he grew up without any iota of love for his daughter but to molest and cage her for 24 years in a basement. Such a violent and cruel father. To him, he was trying to fix a problem for the girl but that was such a bad decision.

A man spoke and said "who can do that? It´s crazy." Yes, it is damn crazy to hear of such. I knew the problem started from his childhood and I think he had psychological disorder due to the often maltreatment from his mother. Single parenting and how a parent disciplines his or her children can affect a child´s personality and this is why it is advisable for parents to have the best way in training their children- not too strict and soft but they need to properly be able to help their children because it is what a child is exposed to, he will exhibit.

Parents also should build healthy and not unhealthy relationship with their children and teaching them moral values. @George_Dee mentioned that parents should teach their male children how to respect and treat girls equally, instead of harassing them when they grow up. Being an authoritarian parent shouldn´t make you impose laws on your children too much by being possessive of your kids, there is something called balancing. At least it is possible to imbibe more than two parenting styles on your children. Being authoritarian, permissive and democratic can be best for them but bringing harsh and strict rules on them can affect them when they grow up.

Thanks for reading.

Photo by Sergiu Valenas

[February 06, 2022] (No 37 article for the year)