Perfect Families

The sidewalks were empty that morning, and no one peeped through those high fences and walls that surrounded the neighboring houses. The order was clear: go for a walk around the block, jogging, wearing his underwear only. Even in that loneliness, the humiliation was obvious.

“The boy, who was 12 years old, had not been chosen to be part of the team for a match. His father was a good sportsman and he cared a lot that his son was also a good sportsman, but the little boy had other interests,” recalls a lawyer who asks not to reveal his identity.

Judges, lawyers, guardians. Everyone has a case they especially remember, a case that was a major concern for them, a case that moved them. Underlying each of these cases emerges the profile of demanding parents, concerned about status and appearances, and who despite their high educational levels and successful careers still seem to lack the parental skills needed by their children.

I.M. recalls that while his sisters recited the books to his father by heart, he was a “disaster.” Although he excelled for his verbal and social skills, and was a pre-selected national rugby player, he suffered from dyslexia and dyslalia, making him “lazy and stupid,” according to his dad. These skills did not interest his father.

“In my house, being good wasn't enough. We were trained to be the best, to surpass the rest, to excel from the rest, to be excellent.”

Francisca is a social worker and has worked in several foundations and support groups for minors. She knows that stereotypes are sometimes unfair, but recognizes certain common patterns in these families: a father on frequent business trips, a mother with lots of classes and workshops, children who spend a lot of time with domestic workers or by themselves.

The children reflect the success of the parents, they are buttonholes, explains Francisca. “There is a huge pressure on the kids to address those expectations, the parents expect them to be CEO at 30 and they feel that they are not going to live up to the expectations, because they like cooking, for example.”

A similar perception is held by child psychologist Sofía Hales, who worked at Fundación Integra, an institution that manages part of the preschool State offer, and today treats minors from the ABC1 group through play therapy. Girls as young as seven visit her at her office, distressed, telling her that they can't eat anything, which they have to be thin for a gymnastics competition. “For parents, it's not about participating and having fun, it's about winning," and for the children, if they fail to live up to their expectations, they get scolded: “How can you not play the ball!” “Why don't you get good grades at school?”

The lack of knowledge about children's rights of parents is such that shouting and insults are seen as a “normal” correction. The child is also seen as an object that belongs to them and is subject to their decisions.

Punishments can be very extreme, says psychiatrist Pilar del Río. Isolating them from contact for months, confining them without a phone - at an age where socialization is a key part of their development, she notes - and even taking their medication or therapy away, because “they see it as a whim or as if they were coming to accuse them.”

This becomes more apparent when schools refer children to psychologists and psychiatrists. They are cataloged as problematic, enraged, with attention deficit disorder, and “the expectation of the establishment is that they are controlled and, hopefully, medicated,” says Sofia Hales.

Most of the time, she adds, what really happens is that the children do not fit the profile of the elite schools chosen by their parents or are expressing frustration at the lack of care they are getting. “When the requirements are not adjusted to their levels of development, psychopathologies or disruptive behaviors eventually emerge. One sees a lot of stress and sorrow. Very deep sorrow,” she concludes.

Felipe Lecannelier and his team asked 17-year-olds “in a school with a very high socioeconomic stratum, which for the same reason I cannot name,” how much quality time they spent with their parents every week (without tablets, cell phones or television, that is, a real interaction) and the answer was 15 minutes with the mother and 12 minutes with the father. “There's very little connection,” he reflects.

It's an environment where parents outsource all the tasks they can. The children have private teachers, educational psychologists, psychologists, occupational therapists, attend multiple workshops, etc. “Parents are detached, take very little responsibility for what happens to their children and know very little about them,” says Irene, an educational psychologist who has been working in elite schools for almost 15 years.

In her observation, parents are very over demanded for maintaining certain economic and social appearances. As a result of their overwork and social activities, children are completely left aside.

They are families with the wrong priorities. You see them impeccably dressed, in cars of the year, but they change the children from one school to another because they don't have money to pay and they leave debts in all of them.”

Irene, educational psychologist

In her more than 30 years as a Spanish teacher in private schools in the uptown sector of Santiago, Ana has seen children who arrive extremely late or whose parents forget to pick them up at the end of the day, without their school supplies or homework done, with broken or changed shoes, or obvious lack of hygiene.

Something very typical at the end of the year, she says, is those parents come to school to look for their children's transcripts “and they don't know what grade their children are in.”

At the age of 18, when I.M.'s parents split up, he dared for the first time to speak openly about the mistreatment he had received. He also filed a report at the prosecutor's office, receiving criticism and recriminations. “My sisters were pissed off because my dad was paying their university tuition fees. Everyone told me that I was damaging the family’s good name, bringing shame on the family name. Lame excuses.”

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