Responsibility

What rot! I know I ought to know better than read such stupid articles - but here is an excerpt from an article which talks about a wife catching her husband cheating on her with her best friend. This is the advice a psychologist has for the philandering husband:

Instead of looking back through his marriage for the root of his problems, Dr. Robin tells David to think back even further. "All of us get wounded in childhood. You did not create this kind of self-destruction in your life, in your wife's life, in the lives of your children without a wound starting in childhood," she says. "Who pulled the rug from underneath you? That's what you've done to your family, and we learn that behavior somewhere. … Someone teaches us how to be mean."

I would like to know how it has become so common these days to absolve yourself of responsibility for your own actions and instead conveniently place the blame on something "bad" that *could* have happened eons ago. These are adults we are talking about - not mentally retarded two year olds. If a person cannot handle the weight of responsibility for their own actions, then perhaps they are not fit to operate as an adult and need to be put under constant care 24 hours a day.

This convenient offloading of responsibility irritates me no end. So am I entitled to be the biggest jerk of the century because, um, in my childhood some kid ate apple pieces from my snack-box when I was not looking? Maybe psychologists need to find deep and hidden meanings for ordinary mean and unacceptable behavior just so that they can stay in business.

I thought growing up involved learning to have control over who you are and trying to make yourself a decent member of society. Not just getting the right to vote, drive, smoke and drink.