Feeling the Evolution of the Language of Self-Esteem

An 18-year-old, arguing with her mother, hoped to prove mother’s inferiority by bringing up something she had learned in school--an eight-stage maturity scale. Her mother, she announced, would rank a three.

“Quit talking to me like a psychologist,” the mother burst out. “Talk like a child!”

The girl, who had been instructed in psychological jargon since the seventh grade, was perplexed. What did she mean, talk like a child? That is how children talk. She clearly didn’t know there was a time when kids didn’t talk like self-help books.

We used to call it psychobabble. Now it’s part of our cultural heritage. It seems as if almost every grade-school student can converse fluently in the language of denial and self-esteem, not to mention the four stages of grief.

One 8-year-old girl had been thinking some things over since a classmate’s father died and a counselor came to school to help the kids sort out questions about death. One evening she told her father, “If you died, I’d be sad for a day.”

“Only a day?” he asked.

“Well,” she said, “I’d have to get on with my life.”

Self-esteem seems to be the word of choice. A mother of a 12-year-old said her son is usually happy after school if he’s been funny in class that day. One day she asked him, “So how was your day? Were you funny?” This time, he replied, “You don’t have to ask me that anymore. I decided I can’t tie my self-esteem into whether I was funny or not.”

Kids also like to advise their parents. A divorced mother remembers her preschooler wagging her finger at her while explaining the three things couples must do to stay happily married. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten now what she said.

Perhaps after a generation of self-esteem commissions, assertiveness-training classes and talk-show psychologists, this situation should come as no surprise. We have a President who feels our pain.

But now, kids dance and sing along routinely to the language of self-help. Consider “Self Esteem” by the punk rock group Offspring:

“All this rejection’s got me so low/If she keeps it up, I just might tell her so. . . . I may be dumb, but I’m not a dweeb/I’m just a sucker with no self-esteem.”

(You wonder how self-help might have changed our own pop cultural legacy. “My boyfriend’s back and it’s a no-win situation.” Or maybe, “It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe, I just needed a sense of closure.” Or what about, “Frankly, Scarlett, I just need to get on with my life”?)

Obviously, our chickens have come home and they’re roosting for better or worse.

At times, it’s hilarious. Sometimes, unnerving. Then again, it can be really annoying when the kids are right.

An insurance salesman, knowing how important social skills can be, said he had been pushing his timid 14-year-old to speak up more in class. But the boy resisted, stating, “Dad, that’s just not who I am.” What could the dad do then--criticize his son’s basic personality? Amazed and bewildered, he threw in the towel.

But often, kids use self-help jargon regardless of whether they understand or believe in the concept. Kids have emotional radar for their parents’ vulnerable spots, and when they want to get their way, they don’t hesitate a minute to lock in the target and go for the kill. Psychobabble gives them the ammunition.

Psychologist Anthony E. Wolf, author of “It’s Not Fair, Jeremy Spencer’s Parents Let Him Stay Up All Night” (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1995), said his own son tried the “it’s not me” argument to avoid having to do a better job with the dishes.

“He would switch it as if we were talking about his character traits, which is then bad parenting.” The boy knew his dad, the professional psychologist, was not allowed to criticize him for being who he was.

“If doing dishes hurts your self-esteem,” Wolf said he replied, “I’ll take my chances.”

Parents, he said, “have to be careful not to get too caught up in it.”

* Lynn Smith can be reached at the Los Angeles Times, Life & Style, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, Calif. 90053.