When I was a kid, various adults (especially from my father's branch of the family) would tease me or pretend to do stuff that would make life unpleasant for me ("accidentally" throw out a valued toy, drive away without me, etc.) or otherwise be rather mean to me. My mother would try to comfort me with the in-retrospect bizarre statement "Don't worry, he's just trying to upset you."
But why was he trying to upset me? Why would an adult deliberately try to upset a child? What would they get out of it? Why is it worth doing?
As a kid, I chalked it up to "grownups are weird". But I'm the same age now as my father was when I was born, and I can't fathom, even for the weirdest and most unpleasant of my peers, what reward or enjoyment or amusement they might get out of upsetting a kid that would make it worth the effort.
1 comment:
This was done to me, too. In my case the adults were bullies or had bullying tendencies.
But if you ever get a better answer to this question, please let me know.
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