Childism Outside the Home
Further Confronting Prejudices Against the ‘Young’ in a New Context
Preface
Some of the first pieces on this website are going to be attempts to reconcile some intellectual difficulties I had with one of the major academic works I undertook before I elected to not pursue a place in the traditional academic sphere.
It’s a bit self-indulgent in some regards. After all, I won a prize for this academic work, meaning that this could have been seen as revisiting my glory days. And while I recognize the validity of that perspective and share it to a certain degree, I find it lacking. Namely, it does not properly connect to the reality I am currently living in. For one, this is not me reveling in a perceived triumph (a triumph that I actually think might have been an accident of fate, if anything). Rather, I am revisiting elements of the process that did not work, holes beneath the surface of that thesis that whoever was behind the prize-bestowing either unknowingly overlooked or chose to overlook because the prize needed to go to someone.
For this post, the hole I need to consider is a book that didn’t quite fit: Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children (2012) by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl. Excluding this book from my thesis project may have not been a misstep at all, and this perceived hole would--consequently--not be a hole at all. In hindsight and upon rereading the book in question, I can say that this urge to insert this book in my thesis (in a substantial way and beyond a passing reference) had nothing to do with my argument and everything to do with me as the person making the argument.
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Introduction
Intellectually, my senior year at university was split into two major intellectual endeavors: my senior thesis and a fascination with Hannah Arendt’s political theory. The latter fascination became such an integral part of my identity that it touched everything I worked on through sheer intensity alone. As for the former, that is certainly more self-explanatory as that thesis was meant to be my capstone project, a project in which I showed off my ability and all that I had learned during my time at university.
In reality, what I showed off in both instances was my brain’s tendency to latch onto ideas with a death grip, refusing to surrender no matter how absurd things were getting. Case in point: my senior thesis was based on the observation that young adult dystopian literature seemed to be in an unintentional conversation with the social contract tradition.
The number of times I had to justify that young adult literature was even worth making any sort of observations about was worrisome, in some ways. After all, this capstone project is meant to be--in part--our meaningful contribution to the discipline, and the constant questioning could sound like a passive aggressive way of pointing out that my work had no meaning. But this was not enough to deter me in any way. I proceeded onward, better judgment notwithstanding. During the entirety of my senior year, the task of proving--within the text I was producing--that young adult literature was intellectually relevant gnawed at me. It seemed to me that everyone already had their minds made up one way or another, but this was as an extension of another debate: are things made for children (or in this case teenagers) worthwhile or just meant to take up time?
As I saw it, the challenges of this project had then evolved. While the primary task was to draw the lines between young adult dystopian literature and the social contract tradition, I worried that as a prerequisite I would need to prove that this genre of literature aimed at teenagers mattered and was--therefore--worthy of consideration.
As previously mentioned, however, my interest in Hannah Arendt was a constant influence on my work, and though my senior thesis focused on political theorists alive well over a hundred years before Arendt, my brain could not compartmentalize this obsession. I had started reading her work during the spring semester of my junior year, and in a matter of months, I had managed to read through enough of her work that the only books left were ones I couldn’t so easily get my own copies of. The library had them, yes, but I was determined to own my copies, which wasn’t the easiest thing for a student in my situation to afford. What I was open to getting from the library was the various books about her, including Elisabeth Young-Bruehl’s biography about Arendt, her mentor and dissertation advisor, which then leads to the subject of today’s piece and the realization that the game ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ could be played with academics and not just Kevin Bacon.
Young-Bruehl was a psychoanalyst, you see, and her work with Hannah Arendt had potentially opened me--and my thesis--up to a whole new world of ideas, thoughts, and theory.
Young Bruehl’s Childism initially appeared to be at the crossroads between the element of my senior thesis that I was most nervous about and this odd adventure down the rabbit hole that had led me to a student of Arendt. In Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children, Young-Bruehl argues that a prejudice against children exists, one that--much like racism, sexism, and homophobia--legitimates and perpetuates aspects of the social order that aren’t in the best interest of children and bakes the mistreatment of children into the social order. She argues that “people as individuals and in societies mistreat children in order to fulfill a certain need through them” (Young-Bruehl, 2012, p. 1). This could be an outright attack or a misappropriation of the resource’s a child needs. It could be a matter of malicious intention or a cruel indifference.
To me, this dismissal of young adult literature was a part of that. It was ‘childist’ to say that young adult literature had no substance to it. But even beyond that, considering the popularity of these books and that they were marketed to children, I felt it was important to understand the lessons they were being exposed to and connecting them to the lessons of previous generations and eras. You could not dismiss them from the knowledge of previous generations, and yet, you could not expect them to forsake the intellectualism they had forged for themselves.
Ultimately, however, this argument might be more of a reflection of my own values than any sort of objective value or purpose. If one sees knowledge as the ultimate instrument--a tool rather than a good on its own accord--then ensuring that all pieces of the larger tradition are laid together properly is important. But because I am building off of a personal premise, I must admit I do not have the strongest foundation upon which to lay my argument.
Which might be why I struggled to incorporate Childism into my thesis beyond a passing mention: an assurance that an argument could exist to justify an intense academic look into this pop culture phenomena. Perhaps a simple explanation sufficed after all. Maybe there was no need for a justification beyond the one I used, which was “this has seeped into the popular consciousness as evidenced by the sheer amount of money made by these many intellectual properties in such a short amount of time.” After all, no one writing about political theory today must spend a great deal of their pages explaining why the political theorists or school of thought they are working with deserves its place in the canon, and while my selection was novel--no pun intended--the novelty was built into the premise and didn’t need to be labored over in any meaningful way.
In hindsight, however, I’m not sure. It could have gone either way, but it was the department’s page limit--and the fact that I was on the verge of crossing over--that finally decided the day. And in that same hindsight, I find myself still laboring over the matter, carrying my copy of Childism with me from my university, to graduate school, and to my post-academic life. Not that I ever discussed it, of course. It’s not the sort of book that often comes up in conversation. However, I would scan its pages every once in a while. In skimming Young-Bruehl’s words, I still would wonder--amongst other things--why I was so attached to a book that didn’t fit within my thesis or any of the musings that have come up since.
For a while, I chalked it up to my interest in Hannah Arendt’s theories: an interest that has endured across time. Young-Bruehl was her student, after all, and her biography on Arendt is a great and well-written biography independent of the subject. As it stands, this explanation makes sense, but it wasn’t a strong connection.
And yet, time has somewhat illuminated the situation. The issue was not that I needed to connect this book to a senior thesis but but rather that I needed to connect it to something else I was struggling to make sense of while wrapping my time with my alma mater.
Young-Bruehl’s book was addressing a detrimental social arrangement that had been largely ignored. Across time and in all circumstances, even those who had every intention of saving children, failed to fully recognize that the problem wasn’t simply that children were suffering at the hands of hateful adults; rather, even in the best of circumstances, children were often “seen as possessions that served adult needs the way any group construed as ‘naturally’ subservient does” (Young-Bruehl, 2012, p. 5). They were little more than objects with no bodily autonomy of their own, left dangling in the whims of the adults who might fancy themselves saviors if the connotations of the title were to suit them. More often, it did not.
The section I pulled those quotes from resonated with me, and it can be found fairly early on in the introduction. At that point, Young-Bruehl is trying to justify her use of an “ism” and her invocation of the “prejudice” framework rather than just saying that children are hated by a select few who should never have children of their own. Cue the age-old and frequent observation that you need a license to drive a car or go hunting but not to have a kid. At this point, she is constructing an argument that we can’t think about the abuses against children merely as a matter of hatred or the evilness of a few souls; it’s about a hyperfocus on the utility of children and how they are assigned roles and purposes that were not selected with their best interests in mind.
At that point, the question I was really asking revealed itself. It wasn’t about young adult dystopian literature nor was it really about political theory. It was about the experiences in my life that I struggled to make sense of, in a way that left me unable to discuss them.
My question is a paraphrasing of the question Young-Bruehl is addressing in her book. In short, I was seeking to know why parents--or educators--turn on their children, particularly in moments when malice or evil are clearly not factors at play (Young-Bruehl, 2012, p. 57). Admittedly, I had gotten some answer to that effect before, but it was not until reading Childism again during the social silence of Covid-19 social distancing that I felt as if I had a full understanding of the issue.
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What’s in a Context?
To begin, I want to take a moment--or I’m morally bound to take a moment--to recognize that I am approaching a sort of dangerous territory. Childism is a book that has clinical implications. Young-Bruehl was both influenced by her experiences--re: clients--as a psychoanalyst, and part of her intention was to inform the field, providing practical information for fellow clinicians or academics who seek to expand their understanding of their fields or work through this additional lens.
In the latter instance, this is acceptable and safe for her to do because she is a psychoanalyst by training and practice. Young-Bruehl understood the boundaries and limitations latent in these situations. She knew how to frame arguments and what arguments were acceptable to make based on established knowledge and norms.
I cannot say the same thing, and I will not pretend otherwise. This piece is not meant to inform clinical practice or to preach. It is--likely--incapable of contributing to the larger discipline in which Childism resides. I don’t mean to make any sweeping clinical statements. I only mean to make sense of my own--very repeatable experiences by drawing from accounts Young-Bruehl provides.
Her omission of considerations akin to mine might have been deliberate or a practical matter. She may simply have not encountered them, or she may have deliberately excluded them for time or some other reason. However, I think it is important for me to offer them up. After all, if Young-Bruehl wants to present this as a prejudice, then one of the implications is that this ‘childism’ can seep into the social order in other--potentially more subtle ways. In fact, I would say that it could happen in any instance that mirrors the parent/child dynamic, in which the child must depend on a figure for support or survival and that figure’s motives are not regulated or even signaled.
Of most interest to me is the context of education, where you may see a student investing a great deal of trust and other personal resources into the hands of a--formal or informal--mentor. This context feels particularly relevant in regards not just to Young-Bruehl’s argument but also in regards to her presentation.
Towards the end of the book, Young-Bruehl brings up education as part of the solution to dismantling childism and the systems that feed from it. She mentions this is a couple of ways. On one hand, those adults who perpetuate this destructive way of thinking can only begin to correct things “by acknowledging the prejudice and being willing to reconsider the behaviors and beliefs that legitimize it” (Young-Bruehl, 2012, pg 270). One must learn about the behavior they cannot otherwise assess in order to then assess and combat it.
More generally speaking, Young-Bruehl sees education as the third stage of this liberation process, specifically the one that lies ahead while the first two are “still in progress” (Young-Bruehl, 2012, pg 268). It is not just the education of the perpetrators that must happen. Rather, education should be provided to young people with the goal of them becoming empowered actors and advocates for themselves.
And admittedly, Young-Bruehl tying this conception to time does weaken any argument I could make. The book came out in 2012, and considering Young-Bruehl died in 2011, it is a safe assumption--even for those that aren’t familiar with the process of and time involved in writing a book like this--that most of the work was done well before then. Her thoughts have had more than a decade to age, and I find myself incapable of addressing that here. And yet, doing so is not my point.
If education really is so important to dismantling ‘childism’ or any other prejudice, then I would argue we need to engage with education and the tools of--or characters involved--critically for the sake of those same children. Because things can go wrong. Bad actors can send the plan awry, and they could be considered bad not only from malice but also from incompetence.
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Anatomy of a Relationship
During the mentorship that formed this consideration, I was in my very early twenties. By many accounts, I wasn’t a child, but in the mentor-student dynamic I essentially was. I was the vulnerable young person seeking guidance and support. I was--as a child would be--lacking somewhat in the ability to act on what agency I did have or in my capacity to make immediate or life-defining choices. I had the legal right to do so, however, there was still some sort of limitation imposed on my ability. Rather than being a matter of permissions, it simply was a lack of knowing not better but everything. Because I lacked this one resource, I was dependent on the guidance of those who knew the lay of the land better than I did, which is the observation/state of affairs that typically underlies childism as Young-Bruehl knows it: children are relatively helpless, left dependent on those around them in this state of developmental immaturity (p. 19). This is not a permanent state, mind you, but this is the paint beneath the picture of children as wild animals who need firm control and strict discipline in order to be ‘civilized’ into proper, useful objects for utilization by their betters (Young-Bruehl, 2012, p. 20).
Within that, there is quite a bit to unpack. First and foremost, there is a premise that some might be uncomfortable with. Namely, this seems to run against the professional nature built into the basic conception of mentorship. I would say, however, that the mentor-student relationship does parallel the adult-child relationship in many key ways, particularly in certain contexts. A great (and relevant) example would be in academia, like a professor and their student, particularly if the student in question is pursuing or wants to pursue an advanced degree as entrance to the same field themselves.
This may be difficult to see as--presumably--the student has reached some level of maturity. Young people are sent off to college at approximately eighteen years old, and even those whose birth date is a little less than forgiving, they have had enough time on this earth to establish an identity and a sense of capability. They are young adults who maybe are not great at adulting but can do it.
But to that, I would argue that the emphasis is on the wrong aspect of the person. Yes, the student can do things for themselves like providing resources and seeking out their own fulfillment. However, while those may be critical functions, they are not the only part of a person’s sense of self. Now, it is not an insignificant portion of themselves that they have control over. They can decide where to go, what to do, what to wear, what to eat, and what to study (if they study). But that latter category can prove to be a bit of a strained point. Yes, a student can pick a major or an intellectual path, but they may not fully know what that entails or where they should begin.
This is where the mentor comes in. Rather than being entrusted with the literal life of the younger, the mentor is entrusted with their student’s intellectual development within the field the student has chosen. The student does not and cannot know better and is asking for the mentor’s guidance. They cannot even fully vet that guidance and are left vulnerable to the mentor’s influence. In a similar way, the child is vulnerable to the parent for their survival. It is this vulnerability that draws the parallels between the mentor and the parent despite the seeming autonomy of the student compared to the child.
In some sense, the act of choosing does negate some responsibility on the mentor’s behalf. The offspring did not will themselves into existence; instead, they came to be because of the choices of the parents who created them. And as penance for inflicting the perils of existence on the child, the parent is then charged with taking care of and providing for the needs of the person they created. Whereas, the student potentially made a series of choices that led them to work with the mentor in whatever capacity they ended up with. First, the student selected the university, then the major, and then the mentor.
Or that would be the situation in most cases. Even if the only choice made was investing one’s intellectual development in the hands of a specific mentor, that is still a matter of choice. A student chooses to undertake work under the mentor (whatever that work may be), accepting the mentor’s guidance and the stipulations it might entail up until a time in which the arrangement is no longer beneficial.
Presumably, that ‘no longer beneficial’ point would come with a student’s graduation or some other marker in which the protégé demonstrates that it is time for them to move on. And yet, many would see that informal clause and see an escape clause. Or a potential one. It is just sitting there in case of unfortunate and often unaddressed circumstances. If an unspecified ‘thing’ or ‘things’ go wrong, then the student can jump ship. Once again, this is a matter of choice, something made possible by the autonomy of all parties. The mentor also has a sense of agency in this, though that may be far more obvious. In any event, each chooses to take on a mentor/student, and each can choose to break that arrangement if doing so is perceived as necessary.
In some ways, the mentor/student arrangement is more of an informal contract than anything else. Its terms are unspoken but logical: the student seeks beneficial guidance and intellectual development to become a stronger version of themselves while the mentor reaps a sense of personal satisfaction. This satisfaction will vary from person to person, but it always draws from whatever led them into that line of work in the first place.
That latter bit turns out to be more of a sticking point than one might want to admit, particularly when it comes to academia. I’ve certainly known high school teachers who only went into that line of work to relive their glory days, having peaked in high school and largely being unwilling to do any of the sort of mental or emotional labor to grow beyond that point. In academia, these dubious motives can be even more abundant and subtle. After all, the role of universities is not just to pass along the knowledge of ages gone by to new generations, to be overly saccharine about it. Rather, they are charged with the duty of growing and expanding upon that knowledge. They are charged with making new discoveries and contributions.
As the emphasis has (rightfully or not) shifted over to research or casting a noteworthy presence in other ways, the priorities of those involved have changed as well. For a professor, the emphasis may be less on teaching or guiding the next generation and more on growing one’s particular subfield or one’s particular career, gathering up accolades for one’s work and ideas along the way.
Given the growing norms of this line of work (and the fact that one’s reasons for becoming a professor could and potentially should remain a private matter), at this juncture the problem reveals itself. It has always been assumed that those who become academic mentors have done so with noble intentions, but that is not a grounded assumption. Consequently, we must consider the potential fallout if the mentor in question has ulterior motives for their work besides the healthy and productive development of the student that enters into their care. Granted, the mentor could separate themselves and their desires from the student they are working with, but should that not happen, we end up with the sort of situation Young-Bruehl describes in her book as ‘childism.’
If the mentor’s point in mentoring is not to ensure the wellbeing of their student and instead in fulfilling these ulterior motives, then what is this student but a “gadget” to serve the mentor and utilized through a series of steps referred to as the ‘mentorship’ (p. 5). The student is left with less than they are entitled to, and the mentor’s gains come at a cost the student should not have been expected to offer. Though a bad outcome not a guarantee and a ‘happily ever after’ could somehow happen, they risk mistreating the student and hindering the student’s intellectual development “in order to fulfill certain needs through them, to project internal conflicts and self-hatred outward, or to assert themselves when they feel their authority being questioned” (Young-Bruehl, 2012, pg 1).
For those of us who did not get whatever the equivalent of a ‘happily ever after’ would be, this can be a difficult thing to make sense of. After all, what choice did we have? In theory, we did have the ability to leave at any time, one might want to object, but that is a gross oversimplification.
After all, students are bound to their mentors in one of two ways: project and social norms. One is almost always relevant and the other, less so. But in this consideration, one can more fully understand why this informal contract between student and mentor is far from the all-encompassing protection one might want to believe that it is.
For one, mentorship in academia is often connected to the production of research. The duty to create knowledge does not just rest with the professors at many universities. Rather, as a sort of two-birds-and-one-stone situation, larger universities might create grants, programs, or other opportunities for students to conduct their own research, but given their own inexperience, students must enlist the help of those who know better than they do to guide them, i.e. their mentors. This is often a requirement of participation in these opportunities because--quite obviously--the university understands the situation, after all.
By taking on an administrative role in supervising these projects, these mentors end up being the proverbial stick/carrot bearer, representing the abstract concept of the university that offered the student this opportunity. Disapproval can mean a bad mark on one’s transcript that limits further professional advancement or simply embarrassment and a deep sense of shame.
But in certain instances, when the project in question is something akin to a capstone, thesis, or dissertation, the mentor then becomes the gatekeeper to graduation. Suddenly, the stakes are not just graduating under less than ideal circumstances; it becomes a matter of graduating at all. Without that person’s approval, the work of the prior years is all for nothing. Certainly, these stakes could motivate one to act in ways that are detrimental to the self. We mostly think of this in terms of late nights or skipped meals, but a more creative mind could certainly see other potential pitfalls students might willingly jump into.
In many ways, it could be fair to say that it is one’s life on the line. One has entrusted the mentor with something so crucial to one’s life that failure to garner approval is a unique kind of devastation.
The student is left defenseless in this specific way, but that vulnerability leaves the student at a great disadvantage. It is not a matter of how much a student can do on their own in other contexts. Rather, in this particular situation, the student is at the mercy of the mentor, and if that mentor had ulterior motives from the beginning, then the student can simply be seen as a possession that serve whatever the mentor’s needs or goals are in “the way gadgets and animals do, the way slaves and servants do, the way any group construed as ‘naturally’ subservient does” (Young-Bruehl, 2012, pg. 5).
A student who wants to go into academia themselves--reasons notwithstanding--is left particularly vulnerable to a certain kind of bad mentor. In fact, it may be this inclination that might be a prerequisite in bringing out the narcissistic mentor, to be discussed in the next section.
To explain what I mean in terms of ‘inclination,’ the current social norms leave academics more dependent on their professional networks than in days gone by, which manifests in a few different ways. First and foremost, the young scholar depends on the name on their (current or future) diploma. The reputation of the university and department that taught them ends up serving as a first impression of sorts. Practically speaking, they have not had an abundance of time to create a vast repertoire of ground-breaking content, and so, the universities they attended must essentially vouch for them and their abilities. The idea being that the university would be testifying to the scholar’s potential and assuring other universities or professional organizations that the young scholar’s modest portfolio is only the beginning of a vast and productive career.
The university, then, must invest in the quality of the bond they are offering potential students, which is something they were already inclined to do for fundraising purposes. And while this may initially help young scholars, it creates a sort of self-repeating prophecy. When making hiring decisions for junior faculty, the university must then take up the bond of other universities partially with the goal of improving their own bond. While other factors might influence their decision (that is to say, they might be looking for a specific subfield, some new research topic or filling out their department in other ways), the frequency of certain universities amongst the degrees held by tenured or tenured track professors should be reason to take pause.
Though there are many consequences to this, I must put great emphasis on the way this concentrates power in the hands of a few universities. In these universities, this power is then further distributed into the hands of those who directly interact with students who are asked to report which student passes or not. The graduation decision is left in the hands of the department’s faculty, and if that decision is based on any metrics that are less than objective, then it becomes a more tenuous one, and there will inevitably be--at least--an aspect of subjective consideration when evaluating research.
While research evaluation might seem like an ‘objective’ process, I have to point out that it is not. There is a subjective element to it, and this subjective nature leaves students vulnerable, though it may be an inevitable part of academia. To illustrate the point, consider this blog and what it actually is. At various junctures, there are points that must be evaluated and different answers that can be had. For one, this is not peer reviewed, but is the existence of a novel strain of thought more important to you than one that has been carefully vetted? Second, I do not have any degree beyond a master’s degree, and I claim no expertise, only the right to type out thoughts that maybe other people have not had and certainly were not intended by the author of whatever book started this mess. To that, there are some who will enjoy the novelty. There will be others who will be critical of me for speaking on things I do not know as well as they do. There will be some who are grateful that I kept my consideration to a single book and others who would rather that I dive deeper into the literature, which then leads into the question of what literature I should be diving into.
When considering the worth of this blog, there are multiple points of diversion, and each is free to take what path suits them. There is no ultimate answer or master log. There is no answer worth more than others. However, this is just a blog and not a PhD student’s dissertation.
For a young PhD student, in order to retrieve the bond of the university, they must receive the endorsement of their faculty mentors, as it is these mentors who the university has asked to assess the student. And as I showed, these endorsements are somewhat subjective or heavily influenced by the perspective of the mentor. Ideally, the mentor can separate themselves and their personal goals from the matter, but such is more likely if the mentor undertook the position to promote the discipline, the field, its literature, or the wellbeing of hypothetical students.
However, even before the subject of that approval can come up, the first challenge is getting into these prestigious and well-known programs, but in some sense, this is a similar pattern, though the details have changed. PhD students find themselves entrusting their doctoral mentors in the same way an undergraduate thinking of going on in their studies must trust their undergraduate mentor. The undergraduate requires a similar sort of approval from their undergraduate mentor in order to enter into those prestigious programs. In this model, the undergraduate once again needs a mentor to speak on their behalf. What is a reference letter beyond a carefully explained endorsement?
But of course this is not an endorsement that has to be given in either situation but particularly when it comes to the undergraduate. A faculty member is certainly allowed to dole out that resource as they wish. The issue, I would say, is the motivation behind their actions. Once again, there is a subjective metric behind their decision (as there should be, let me reiterate), but with subjective metrics, the internal motivations of the actor are critical factors. Critical but unknown.
And this is true in all instances or levels of one’s career. Entrance into the next stage of one’s profession hinges, in part, on what the mentor says because of this, you must consider the power dynamic. One who knows more is working with one who knows less with stakes so high that perversion of this relationship is much easier.
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The Narcissistic Mentor
Much like the parent, with the mentor, there is an assumption that they undertake the work that they do with the noblest intentions. A mentor must care about their students, in so far as they are able to, and while their boundaries may be more frequent and less generous to the student, taking on a student is assumed to be done with that student’s best interests at heart.
In both examples--that of the parent and the mentor--this assumption might feel more like a guarantee, one baked into the nature of the relationship. The parent can be trusted with the child, and the student can be trusted with their mentor.
And yet, this idyllic relationship is the expectation and not the guarantee. In an age of ‘professor review’ sites or other forms of social media shaming, this may not be a surprise. But when the mentor fails, it is usually chalked up to a technical failing, i.e. being difficult to reach, making unrealistic demands on a student’s time, being socially awkward, or some other interpersonal relations issue, etc, etc. However, what is less talked about--for whatever reason there may be--are situations in which the mentor is fully capable of fulfilling the role but does not take on these responsibilities for the sake of the student.
Rather, the narcissistic mentor, like a narcissistic parent, seeks their own self-elevation with such a fervor that their underling or offspring is largely irrelevant or an object that cannot be related to or empathized with (Young-Bruehl, 2012, pg. 245). Self-absorption is the guiding principle of the narcissist, which is not a concept many would be unfamiliar considering how often the term is thrown around in online spaces.
Now, this is not to say that there are a bunch of clinically-diagnosable narcissists running around university campus. That may be the case, but that is not my argument. In this context, the mentor behaves in a manner typical of a narcissist and their behavior fits a certain model independent of a diagnosis or diagnosable condition. It is this self-absorption that makes one a narcissistic mentor, not any sort of label.
But to borrow from the more technical explanation Young-Bruehl provides, this unhealthy amount of self-absorption serves as a barrier between the narcissistic actor and the rest of the world that defines a narcissism-based childism, but to provide further clarification, there are two basic versions childism (p. 245). On one hand, there are grandiose narcissists--the version we might be more familiar with because of that aforementioned perpetual invocation--and they are the “self-promoters, presenting themselves to the world as a powerful, commanding figure” (p. 245). This narcissist directly strikes in pursuit of their goal. They fully take ownership of this role as commander and leader. On the other hand, in the case of the depleted narcissist, “the commander rules by making people pity them as victims and want to help them regain power” (p. 245). The depleted narcissist’s moves are more subtle or passive aggressive.
In some ways, this distinction is not so important. The effect and the potential root of the issue are often the same. In either situation, the effect is the gradual erasure of the child’s/student’s sense of self (Young-Bruehl, 2012, p. 245).
But on the other end of things, Young-Bruehl attributes both manifestations of narcissism to a “‘narcissistic wound’ or a cluster of wounds that are central to the preoccupation” (p. 245). As she argues, the narcissistic parent--or mentor--believe that some wrong has been inflicted upon them or that they have lost something that was theirs or was owed to them. Those around them are conscripted into this battle for compensation or the perceived ‘making things right’ regardless of what the rest of the balance sheet might look like (p. 246). After all, the repayment is not being done by the one who caused the loss, so in actuality, the loss is simply being transferred rather than repaid.
The narcissistic mentor, as a phenomenon, is one that can exist outside of the (at times) petty if not outright toxic status quo of academia. This was likely always a fixture of higher education and likely would always be, even if a ‘magic wand’ solution were ever found and swiftly implemented. However, in many ways, the current state of affairs leaves students more vulnerable than they otherwise would be. Under these circumstances, the potential for ‘narcissistic wounds,’ as Young-Bruehl calls them, is much higher, and the outlet for so-called ‘compensation’ is more apparent.
On one hand, all faculty members are left in a delicate position. While their job might be locked in place by tenure (which is not true for a fair number of academics), funding and professional development opportunities are often not. Administrative and/or ‘service’ duties are still to be assigned, and a taxing assignment could mean less time and energy for their own research: that research being critical for their own professional reputation and upward mobility. Then there are the academic journals or other volumes, limited in number and in spots per edition, that one needs to find space in for their research or the struggle to find publishers willing to accept one’s monograph. Never mind the potential for petty snipes around the proverbial water cooler by others with wounded egos that only call attention to one’s plight.
Opportunities for wounds are many. Worse yet, in this context, a slight may be an actual barb and not a perceived one. It could be that someone is playing favorites (or whatever the inverse would be), and that critical rejections may not be based in one’s merits or lack thereof. These rejections are always a part of one’s reality, a potential outcome to any and all endeavors, with one glaring exception.
In a previous portion of this essay, I mentioned that students are somewhat dependent on the reputation of the school they can get a degree from and--as a consequence--dependent on the university’s appointed gatekeeper. Participants in this system must rely on their network for their reputation, which is a critical part of their professional advancement. In all careers, one often utilizes their professional network for career advancement (as is the entire point of Linkedin). And while the most obvious example of this is the student name-dropping their mentor to piggyback off of their reputation, in some ways, the reverse can be true as well: the mentor can reap benefits from who their students are.
Now, given the professional disparity between the mentor and the student, this would seem unlikely at first glance. In fact, any substantive benefits reaped by the mentor or behalf of the mentor seem to run counter to the idealized notion of mentorship we tell ourselves about. Beyond those benefits grounded in notions of charity or sentimentality, we aren’t inclined to think the mentor should receive any benefits for their work. Self-satisfaction, personal warmth, and maybe the occasional token of gratitude should suffice, and demanding more is suspicious.
And while I can’t pass judgment on any possible reward a mentor might receive--or expect to receive--for their work, the narcissistic mentor has something particular in mind, and this particular goal or desire can have judgment passed upon it.
What the narcissistic mentor seeks out is the perceived cure to their ‘narcissistic wound’ or some sort of compensation for that which they assume has been unjustly taken away from them. They seek great status, influence, more renown, more accolades, and the like, but hitherto, they have received less than what was desired. For whatever reason, they have found that their current output does not generate the results they want. Whether it be the amount of material they produce or the fact that their name/identity is not working in their favor. Or maybe they believe that growing their research field--particularly a niche topic within a subfield--will lead to a ‘rising tide lifts all boats’ situation, with them at the top. Or--at the very least--they would certainly like to have the influence that comes from their students parroting their ideas and assigning their books/articles to their own students at whatever universities they end up working for. The narcissistic mentor can accomplish all of those things by turning their students into an ideological copy of themselves or--in other words--by erasing the student’s sense of self in the same way a narcissistic parent might (Young-Bruehl, 2012, p. 245)
The exact methodology is not the matter of discussion here. This is not to be dismissive of this part; rather, I present it in this way because the sort of manipulation required would vary from person to person. For some, more direct pressure might work. For others, direct threat of professional ruin or blackmail--professional or otherwise. For others still, the mentor might find better luck approaching the mentee with a passive aggressive, pseudo-parental kindness or tapping into deep seated needs on the mentee’s part before ripping the rug out from under them. In fact, The mentor may not care about the ‘how’ or any sort of lines of decency. After all, the narcissist’s self-absorption leaves them unable to emphasize with those they crush in their wake. The concern is them getting what they want, and in erasing the student’s innate inclinations or intellectual identity in favor of one they constructed, they do just that.
In theory, the mentor’s copy--once transformed--can then carry on the mentor’s battles for recognition and prestige. They can cite the mentor’s work--boosting a critical stat--or assign the mentor’s work when teaching--boosting critical sales. They increase the research field in a way that is slanted towards the mentor’s influence. More than that, in the beginning, the mentor can insert themselves into the mentee’s research, adding their name as co-author where it may not be warranted, pushing their way into presentations, or imposing their research agenda onto an unwilling student.
This then creates a situation that can be difficult for the student to escape from. As I previously said, the student is--for one reason or another--dependent on the mentor. It goes beyond the intellectual guidance the mentor can provide and even beyond the formal duties the university entrusts a mentor with. In many ways, the mentor can shape the student’s experience in a program going forward regardless of the direct role the mentor plays. Should a conflict arise surrounding the mentor’s attempts at erasure, the student may not invoke the previously mentioned informal escape clause. They may find themselves unable to. Despite the objective agency of the student with other aspects of their life, fighting against this erasure proves to be just as challenging for them as it would be for the child of a narcissistic parent because “the self that might resist is exactly the self that is being erased” (Young-Bruehl, 2012, pg 245).
Even if resistance is possible, however, the consequences experienced even in the best of scenarios might prove to be too much for a student to willingly take on that risk. After all, the mentor is a member of the student department, has likely been for several years, and will be around for many more. The mentor is someone other faculty recognize as a colleague and expect to work with for the foreseeable future whereas the student is--at best--a temporary fixture: someone who is just passing through even in the best of circumstances.
This influences the outcome of events in two possible ways. On one hand, if a conflict comes forward and needs to be resolved, there is the incentive for senior faculty or even university officials to believe the mentor’s account over the student’s. The mentor is someone that other faculty have developed a stronger relationship with, and human nature is inclined to trust those who are familiar over those who are not. Furthermore, past interactions and the perceived integrity of them are a testament to the faculty member’s credibility. Meanwhile, the student has little more than an allegation that tips the status quo.
Then again, even if the student is believed, it does not mean that faculty will be inclined to act upon that belief. For one, this person might be a senior member of the faculty with enough internal power that no move against them would have any sort of effect anyway, and it could be that siding with the student would do nothing more than ensure others go down with them. But even if the narcissist mentor was merely a run of the mill faculty member, it may simply be that the promise of repeated interactions would be enough to protect them from their peers. After all, being a bad mentor in and of itself is not a fireable offense. When weighing priorities, it is understandable that wanting to keep the peace with a figure they see every day would be more important than appeasing a student who can flee from the scene in time.
At least, it is understandable when one emphasizes the personal ramifications. In some sense, that is all that matters. Or it is all that can matter. One incident of a student winning the day does not change the overall structure that makes such toxicity thrive.
On that note, even under the best of circumstances--in which other faculty stand up for the mentee and for the mentee’s protection, one must wonder how much would really be accomplished. In some cases, this still leaves a potential blackmark on the student’s record that comes from changing mentors abruptly (rumor or otherwise) or the one that comes not having a very close relationship with the mentor listed on your thesis or dissertation. After all, if the young scholar must borrow off of the reputation of those who taught them, being unable to access that bond tells a certain kind of story. It is an incomplete story, but in those gaps, negative assumptions can take hold, and once again, the student suffers.
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The Aftermath
In terms of what the student suffers, it both depends on and does not depend on context. Obviously, with the nature of the mentor/student relationship being one of trust, violations to it have the potential for deeply personal effects as the student tries to address and resolve the damage the attempted (or successful) erasure might have caused them. And though their identity and research interests are rightfully theirs, it can be a different thing to reclaim.
In narcissistic childism or any form of childism driven by narcissism, children “are blank pieces of paper on which an adult’s story is written” (Young-Bruehl, 2012, p. 247). To further borrow metaphors from Young-Bruehl, lacking all the rightful autonomy, they are an occupied territory (p. 247). In the course of their maltreatment, all that they are as a person has been taken away from them by a trusted person who felt entirely justified in this act of taking. This was the story the mentee was told and the story that defined a great deal of a student’s life. As I see it, the power of the mentor to erase the student comes from this sort of narrative hammer being wielded by a person the student must rely on. The mentor had woven a story in which the mentee had a (less than ideal) place and drew power not necessarily from persuasion (though that could have been part of it) but from authority.
Regardless of the ‘how,’ Young-Bruehl does report that this tendency to take the side of the narcissist--or at least to resist the notion that the self that was attacked deserved the attack--is characteristic of those brought up underneath the narcissist (p. 248). In fact, the student does not see the incompatibility of the mentor’s desires and theirs as a litmus test for the narcissist’s beliefs or plans. Rather, it is evidence that validates the narcissist’s perspective, as the student/child focuses on their failure to “serve well,” which makes them “rebellious” (Young-Bruehl, 2012, p. 249). When the prejudices one experiences become internalized, the young person will come to believe in their proposed inadequacy, and that they will always fail at the task set up before them.
After all, it’s not that they don’t understand the narcissist’s wound (Young-Bruel, 2012, p. 249). This is particularly true for the student who either is confronted with the same trials and tribulations of the professional or at least has enough of an awareness of them to be sympathetic, if not outright empathetic for someone in the position they may find themselves in. It does not initially occur to them that the narcissistic mentor’s reaction to their perceived loss is out of sorts or irrational. Either the narcissist’s lust for compensation is carefully concealed or simply does not seem to come up in the face of the opportunity for commiseration or compassion, and all parties move on and deeper into the relationship.
This internalization manifests in a lack of self-confidence or internal drive. Even if the student/child of the narcissist has the necessary insight to see what happened, they are left feeling hollow and without desire for the future or for correction (Young-Bruehl, 2012, p. 251). The operating core, so to speak, of the person’s machinery has been wiped away. As a result of the self-absorbed mentor, there is no longer a self in the student for the student to be absorbed about.
For the narcissist mentor, this result ends up being somewhat ironic. This is where the different potential end results start to reveal themselves. For the undergraduate--or any student in a lesser degree program looking to advance to graduate school--the drive to even apply for a PhD (or equivalent) program is completely effaced. Whether it be because the student lacks drive or is running from what they perceive as a trauma, they reject the entirety of the path that the narcissistic mentor wanted to push them down and not just the details.
In some ways, perhaps, this is merciful. Given the difficulty that comes from an academic career, perhaps you would feel more comfortable with steering ‘weaker’ candidates away. Only the steadfast will make it, so why not tell everyone else to pursue other interests?
To that, I should point out that it is not that I am unsympathetic to this view. However, I would say that it is a matter of intention. In every way, this was not the narcissistic mentor’s point. The narcissistic mentor wanted the student to go into academia under certain terms. And yet, the mentor so overplayed their hand that they achieved the opposite of their goal. In an attempt to create an ideological copy of themselves, they have completely obliterated the potential scholar who could have been that vehicle.
For the PhD student, with so much work already under their belts and how much is already invested, the sunk cost fallacy ends up being a sort of safety rail. It is less likely that they would jump ship, and yet, because of this reluctance, they are even more trapped. Because they are trapped--potentially within the mentorship but certainly within the university department--they can choose to resist (and risk ruin) or submit, which they may already be inclined to do.
On the bright side, because one enters a PhD program with a certain idea of what it is one wants to study or research, there is only so much damage the narcissistic mentor can do on a student’s research agenda. Rather, the manipulation shows itself in the details of a student’s CV: an abundance of co-authored papers or presentations that the mentor can then include on their own with arguments or interpretations that the student may not have initially been inclined to agree with.
And yet, while the change may not be as drastic, it is certainly more permanent. The nature of academic work is such that it often builds upon itself. One could publish work contrary to what came before in your oeuvre, but is it necessarily a wise decision to fill your CV with such drastic shifts in opinion? And is the loss of time that comes with constantly starting over worth it when you no longer have a strong sense of self, anyway? Never mind the emotional trauma of constantly seeing a name you have a negative association with all over the document that represents you.
This is a less drastic hampering. The young scholar still exists, or so is the hope, but they do not exist as they could have been. They do not exist as the independent entity whose work shines in its own light. Rather, they exist as a chimera of sorts: part themselves and part the mentor that infected them.
In that state of affairs, the narcissist mentor gets at least some of what they were hoping for: a vehicle through which their career can continue to grow without any direct effort on their part. The loss experienced is largely the student’s. As far as it is a loss, of course. Unfortunately, therein lies the narcissist mentor’s defense: because the young scholar needs to borrow the reputation of others, in some ways, they gain in equal measure to the loss.
Or at least, the ledger sheet promises balance, but is it truly? I would have to raise the question of what values might slip through the assessment. Rather than asking if the ledger sheet totals out, the question should be what goods typically are not measured relative to profession success? Simply put: personal well being. In this case, it is the sense of self that is lost from entanglements with narcissists. However, in theory, the student could always reclaim it. Setting aside the issue of difficulty, as previously mentioned, one should ask how possible it is for a student to begin that process when, as said before, to lose the self is to lose one’s drive: a trait that is critical to life in academia.
At the end of the day, this shadow of all the scholar could have been is not just a shadow in terms of academic achievement. Rather, they are a shadow of a person, going through the motions with a sense of disconnection--as a patient of Young-Bruehl describes in her own life (p. 256 - 257). The exact reach of this feeling could very well depend on the individual affected. Namely, it would depend on how strong they were before their affliction or how much there was to spare as the self is gradually chipped away.
There is a great deal of uncertainty at this juncture, and I fully recognize that. But it is at this point that one’s academic or professional life bleeds into one’s personal life or their real life. And at that juncture, while Young-Bruehl’s clients are more relevant in this consideration, there is no predicting what the effects will be. Who someone was will affect who they will become. And yet, isn’t this bleeding a sign that things have gotten too far? The narcissist mentor’s tactics still have tangible effects on their student. They have caused real loss either way. In whatever form, there is still cause for grief.
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The Enlightened Mentor
Perhaps the occasional detail or snarky aside has given this away, but I do believe that in the course of my studies I came across a narcissist mentor. Worse yet, I had to work with that person. I worked with that person and experienced the loss of self that came with it. Shortly put, at the time I knew this person, I was interested in ‘continental philosophy,’ amongst other things, but I doubt anyone would have realized that. It certainly wasn’t in the research statement I was prompted to draft for graduate school, for a PhD program that I wasn’t sure I should be pursuing.
There are many things I can’t prove in my account, but I can say that in conversations about my future, it was hard for me to get a word in. And what words left my mouth were largely words repeated from someone else. I was being talked over, constantly, and I was bending towards a research agenda that didn’t resemble what I wanted to do.
And what I wanted to do was pretty much everything. As this project will show, I wanted to bend norms and buck traditional parameters. That’s not the sort of thing you can do in academia. At least, not with a great deal of success.
However, in many ways, that is the interest at the core of what this project is meant to be. The existence of this project (as are my others) is a testament to the recovery of my sense of self. The part of me that was erased has returned in enough form that I’m making the sort of project I have always wanted to make.
This is--I would say--the result of the ‘enlightened mentor.’ Now, the ‘enlightened mentor’ is a term that I have devised as opposed to drawing from or adapting a term in Young-Bruehl’s book. Young-Bruehl doesn’t provide alternate portrayals nor do I think it was necessary for the work she was trying to do. However, in this context, I feel compelled to provide as such. After all, this piece is meant to be an experience-based supplement to Young-Bruehl’s book, and this was a key part of my experience.
And in some sense, a conception like this offers support to Young-Bruehl’s endeavor in the face of its greatest challenge. If childism is so entrenched in the way we live and seems so inevitable considering that children are and have to be dependent on those who care for them, alternative conceptions of healthy childminding or rearing would be critical evidence. After all, if an alternative exists, then what is seen as inevitable cannot actually be inevitable, and the invocation of the word ‘inevitable’ or the word ‘necessary’ is only an indulgent fiction that saves one from the daunting labor of self improvement.
In reality, the enlightened mentor is a possibility: one I encountered in a couple different people but the most relevant being the one I had during the course of my master’s program. This juxtaposition of having an enlightened mentor shortly after my encounter with the narcissist clarified the ways in which these two types of mentors dramatically diverge.
At the core of it, the enlightened mentor enters the agreement with a concern seated outside of the self. They enter the arrangement in the same way we assume all mentors enter: with care and concern for the student’s development. However, there is no stipulation as to what that ‘development’ should entail.
The enlightened mentor knows that a student’s development traces a path that no one but the student has any chance of predicting. Whereas, the narcissist mentor believes themselves to be the author. The enlightened mentor sees a dialogue between themselves and the student. Whereas, the narcissist mentor sees a lecture. The enlightened mentor listens. Whereas, the narcissist mentor speaks. For the enlightened mentor, the student’s self-realization is the final goal. For the narcissist mentor, the student is a means to a personal end.
This shift in perspective has profound shaping effects on what the mentorship ends up being as an experience for the student. In the course of the mentorship, the enlightened mentor--who is themselves better able to connect with, care for, and empathize with the student because of their ability to differentiate--can respond to the student’s needs and then creates a figurative space where the student can grow into themselves. The literal office space becomes the site of an expansion of the student’s sense of identity, and from that core, the student can then direct their own path. They have drive, something the narcissistic mentor’s student lacks.
As previously said, I have been fortunate to have numerous enlightened mentors for the one narcissistic mentor I unfortunately encountered, and the last of these mentors in particular delivered me towards this end: in which I make online and decentralized content. Content that cannot be traced back to the enlightened mentor in the same way academic publications can be.
The enlightened mentor’s irony lies in how thankless the work really is. Yes, I have expressed my gratitude to all of my enlightened mentors, but at the end of the day, the metric that comes up when evaluating their impact on the discipline is not a student’s gratitude or how many thank-yous they might have received. Rather, the issue that comes up, particularly in graduate student forums, is placement rates. And by ‘placement,’ I mean what is your students’ track record for getting jobs in academia after graduation and the nature of those appointments.
Student outcomes is an important metric, granted. Students pursue advanced degrees with goals in mind, and part of that success would be in achieving that goal. However, the scope is incredibly limited. This only considers one aspect of one outcome. Would it not be a bigger success if a student finds a path that is personally fulfilling for them rather than one that checks off a box? Never mind that this only considers PhD students, and faculty members have to work with students at other levels. In no way can this metric be considered a complete picture of a faculty member’s mentorship abilities. Regardless, that is the one that matters and gets all of the attention.
This is a spotlight for the narcissistic mentor not the enlightened mentor. And yet, the enlightened mentor has the grace to accept that their version of success may or may not benefit them. Because they are not governed by their own self-absorption, they are at peace, and hopefully, that will sustain them.
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Conclusion
Young-Bruehl closes her book with a sort of projection concerning the end of childism, laying out the progress that has been made. But if recent events have made anything abundantly clear, it’s that once a prejudice has seeped into a social framework, removing it proves to be more like a whack-a-mole game than anything else. It finds new ways to reveal itself, and my point in this essay was to reveal another form of it.
Beyond that, I must admit I do not have much else to contribute to the discussion, How can this form of childism be overcome? Seemingly, it cannot be. The narcissistic mentor is one that thrives in the current academic climate. Their motives allow them to play the proverbial game more aggressive than their colleagues, and no amount of healthy skepticism will ever reveal the cracks in their resumes.
Perhaps simply, the takeaway of this essay is more for those of us who had mentors like this--who had mentors who may not have been outright narcissistic mentors but who were happy to risk our sense of selves for whatever it might have gained them. That being, none of what we went through was our fault, and we owe that mentor no praise or support. It is more than acceptable for us to go along our merry ways, not allowing them to live in our minds rent free.
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Final Note
Now, I want to make one thing very clear to those I have known in my life: if you believe this essay is about you, it would behove you to package your wounded ego on the shelf and click away from this essay. Your name is not tied to this essay, and my legal name is not tied to this project. If you want to out yourself as being a less than ideal educator, that is your choice, not mine. There is no direct accusation in this text. In fact, I know I cannot make any direct accusations.
This is not about what was done--and the morals surrounding it. Rather, this is about why it happened and how repeatable it is. I breathed your name to no one and confirmed only when it was guessed. If your reputation precedes you, then the fault certainly does not lie with me.
Work Cited:
Young-Bruehl, E. (2012). Childism : confronting prejudice against children . Yale University Press. Purchase Link