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Book Review: by Lang Reid

They F*** You Up

The title of this book is enough to take your attention. One can understand “F***” easily enough, but who are “They”? It turns out, that according to author Oliver James, a clinical psychologist, “They” are our parents! In fact, the Daily Mail review of this book claims that the book “explains how our childhood experiences dramatically shape our lives.”
They F*** You Up (ISBN 978-07475-8478-0, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2007) is a serious and learned look at who we are, and even more importantly “how” we are. His contentions run contra to some of the main-stream pop psychology, so one is promised something different from the outset.
Author James firmly grasps the nettle at the beginning of the book, raising the ‘nature versus nurture’ concepts in the formation of a person’s psyche. He looks at the supposed similarities between twins, separated at birth, on whose collectively twinned shoulders, the genetic (nature) theory of behavior is supported. James does not, and in fact comes down categorically on the ‘nurture’ side. In his second appendix, he states, “In the case of twin studies, they have a chequered past. The psychologist Cyril Burt was demonstrated to have simply invented results of phantom studies of identical twins in his zeal to prove the role of genes.”
The book has all kinds of (self) revelations, and explanations on the psychological plane. For example, “Both parents are more likely to claim that the newborn resembles the father than the mother, a fact that has been attributed to anxieties about paternity; this is no small matter it would seem, because at least ten percent of children are not genetically related to the person they believe to be their biological father.” And does your’s look like you?
To show examples of people we know, whose psychological profile is fairly self-evident, James brings forward folk such as Mia Farrow and Michael Jackson. They may have made fame and fortunes, but you would not pick either family to be raised in, if you had the chance.
“Intelligence” is discussed and James claims that doing well as a child prodigy comes from “hot-housing” by the parents. However “genius” comes from childhood adversity, such a losing a parent. (I am not prepared to leap off the office balcony to give my children such an opportunity!)
Again using well known persons as his examples, such as George W Bush, James explains the well documented spoken gaffes as, “Perhaps these verbal faux pas are a barely conscious way of winding up his bullying mother and waving two fingers at his father’s cultured sensibility.”
Some chapters of the book are devoted to assisting the reader in self-analysis, with the hope that by this way you can stop yourself influencing your children adversely. Perhaps?
There are numerous appendices and a very detailed index, and is almost a text book, but written in a more reader friendly style. At B. 495 it is a cheap read for new parents, which they should do before it is too late. By the age of three years, your children’s psyche may be cast in stone, if you believe James’ premise.