My Inner Child Is An Attention-Seeking Brat

Sometimes I coddle him when he really needs a time-out.

The Mandate focuses on topics that men don’t like to talk about. It’s written by Olympic Medalist and frequent Men’s Health contributor Jason Rogers. If you were forwarded this email, you can subscribe below.

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I'm not particularly proud of the fact that I occasionally regress to a much younger version of myself. During these moments, my body moves like an adult, and my mouth speaks adult-sounding words. But a cranky, attention-seeking child has commandeered the steering wheel in my brain. 

This internal persona often shows up when I feel uncertain, embarrassed, or sad. Any good therapist will tell you to attend to your emotions when they arise. So, when I realize that my internal kid is upset, I often rush to console him. But lately, I’ve learned that sometimes I need to tell him to shut up.

The concept of the “inner child” traces back to ideas put forward by Carl Jung. However, it gained mainstream popularity through the former-alcoholic-turned-self-help-author John Bradshaw. His writing drew heavily from Internal Family Systems, an approach to psychotherapy that acknowledges co-existing sub-personalities in our minds. 

But Bradshaw’s main message was that we all have unresolved experiences from the major and minor traumas that occurred during our formative years. These experiences stay with us, impacting our decisions long after we become adults. We must care for and heal our wounded inner children to become our best selves.

My inner child is timid and perceptive. He’s also unsure about almost everything except for his grand hypothesis that I’m to blame for every mistake. That is, he operates like an unethical scientist — gathering many observations but only keeping the data that proves he’s right.

This is partly why I have an unhealthy relationship with praise. If I’m not receiving constant affirmation that I’m doing a good job, my inner child concludes that I’ve done something wrong. 

This little bundle of joy can show up at any moment. However, he often surfaces in my professional life. Writing for magazines involves sending many pitches and receiving a lot of “no’s.” It’s part of the deal. Still, when an editor passes on a potential piece, my inner child sits and sobs in the corner of my mind. Sometimes it seems like he enjoys feeling sullen and morose.

As you’d expect, he’s also unhelpful in the bedroom. Unfortunately, my personal history in that arena has caused a fusing of desire, embarrassment, and shame. (I’m still working on that!). My inner child likes to show up and tell me I’m still a fumbling teenager. In those moments, I am often self-conscious or worried about initiating sex.

If you Google “inner child,” you will get results like “Why Our Inner Child Needs Attention” and “7 Things Your Inner Child Needs To Hear You Say.” In general, I agree with the idea behind these headlines, but I think I’ve personally become too permissive.

I struggled with some traumatic stuff during my younger years (traumatic with a lowercase “t”), and there is good reason to believe that I have internalized experiences that I still need to resolve. But I also have had doting parents and grew up in an emotionally supportive environment. So, saying that my inner child has been “neglected” is really a stretch. 

When my wife and I have difficult conversations, I’ve noticed that my inner child sometimes shows up and wants to feel scolded. He trips himself, skins his knee, and starts crying so that the adult version of me (or anyone else in the vicinity) will race to soothe him. By constantly engaging in this little charade, I’ve taught him that he can do no wrong and that he deserves to feel however he feels.

This doesn’t serve the people around me because it forces them to walk on eggshells. It’s also counterproductive to my personal growth because it keeps me stuck in old problems even if I’m emotionally ready to leave them behind.

To be clear, I’m not planning to ignore my inner child from now on. He will always be a part of me that I must nurture. However, I seek to become better at determining when he needs help and when he’s acting out. If he’s on a mission for attention, I hope to have the courage to welcome his presence, whisper something reassuring in his ear, then kindly send him back to his room. 

Link Party

• 💻 Mandate Media Club — Trying something new this week. Going to host an open session on Thursday, July 28 @ 5pm (Pacific). We’ll start by discussing this piece but rove into other topics. Free. Limit 10 people. Join! — Register

• 🔥 The Crisis of American Masculinity — Just came across an excellent piece written for Esquire in 1958. It’s paywalled (unless you have a Hearst subscription), but I captured a couple of meaningful quotes on Twitter. In short, it reads like it should have been written today! — Twitter

• 😫 Last Night I Had a Panic Attack — A friend of mine (and excellent former editor over at Men’s Health) wrote a great essay about experiencing a panic attack. Suggest you read. But the basic takeaway is “Fuck Shame.” — Late Greats Music Club

• Thinking Solves Overthinking — I love this comic. Enough said. — Poorly Drawn Lines