Aid memoir, part two: Anne Wade looks for the roots of war in childhood

‘What makes lovely little children become violent?’

by Anne Wade 25th October 2024

What makes lovely little children become violent as they grow up? I do know that Adolf Hitler, and his successor as European invader, Vladimir Putin, were treated appallingly as children – as were my parents, and their parents before them. The Old Testament seems grossly unfair when it visits on children the iniquity of their fathers, but perhaps that was not so much a divine threat as an observation of what happens if societies do not unite to intervene where necessary – for instance to curb a father, or a leader, who exploits their power over their family, or people. Could the Peace Testimony and psychotherapy work together to help us with this?