"What's done to children, they will do to society"
About this Quote
A warning dressed up as a simple behavioral law, Menninger’s line lands like a diagnosis: society isn’t a mysterious patient, it’s a case history. The quote’s punch comes from its cold symmetry. “What’s done” puts the child in the passive voice of harm and handling; “they will do” flips that passivity into agency with a time delay. It’s not just trauma-as-tragedy, it’s trauma-as-inheritance, trauma-as-policy.
Menninger, writing in an American century obsessed with “character” and personal responsibility, drags the conversation back to causality. He’s a psychiatrist saying: stop pretending adult cruelty, addiction, violence, or authoritarian hunger are merely moral defects that bloom out of nowhere. If you want to understand the adult who can’t tolerate ambiguity, look at the child who was punished for curiosity. If you want to understand the citizen who romanticizes domination, look at the kid who learned safety only through submission.
The subtext is accusatory in a particularly modern way: it implicates not only parents, but institutions. Schools, churches, courts, and the broader culture “do” things to children constantly, often in the name of discipline, tradition, or protection. Menninger’s phrasing refuses sentimental loopholes. He doesn’t say children “might” replicate harm; he says they will, because social life is where private injuries go to find a stage.
Read in context of postwar America and the rise of psychological thinking, it’s also a political statement: child welfare isn’t charity, it’s social engineering in the most literal sense. Ignore the early damage, and you’re not sparing anyone; you’re just postponing the bill.
Menninger, writing in an American century obsessed with “character” and personal responsibility, drags the conversation back to causality. He’s a psychiatrist saying: stop pretending adult cruelty, addiction, violence, or authoritarian hunger are merely moral defects that bloom out of nowhere. If you want to understand the adult who can’t tolerate ambiguity, look at the child who was punished for curiosity. If you want to understand the citizen who romanticizes domination, look at the kid who learned safety only through submission.
The subtext is accusatory in a particularly modern way: it implicates not only parents, but institutions. Schools, churches, courts, and the broader culture “do” things to children constantly, often in the name of discipline, tradition, or protection. Menninger’s phrasing refuses sentimental loopholes. He doesn’t say children “might” replicate harm; he says they will, because social life is where private injuries go to find a stage.
Read in context of postwar America and the rise of psychological thinking, it’s also a political statement: child welfare isn’t charity, it’s social engineering in the most literal sense. Ignore the early damage, and you’re not sparing anyone; you’re just postponing the bill.
Quote Details
| Topic | Parenting |
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