#forgot to post this when I had my convo on discord about this lamooo

[dr-george-ordell]

Page 91 of "For Your Own Good Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence." by Alice Miller, 1980 - (Am Anfang war Erziehung, 1980) / Chapter 7 of "Another Time" by @imadewritingmyjob on Ao3.

Theres so much I can analyse from chapter seven in regards of Julius, and the interesting language he uses which was highlighted in this post. It's clear in Julius' speech highlighted in the post that he is both parroting his own fears about what he could be himself, a "pansy" or "weak", descriptors that Julius despises in others, and most certainly fears to be true about himself.

Alongside the quote "The child's plasticity, flexibility, defenselessness and avaliablity make it the ideal object for this projection," particularly stuck out in regards to Aaron, since in AT as a child he has a heightened sensitivity to his surrounding, compared to Franklin due to being a much younger child and also autistic, and Julius definitely did not like to deal with that further vulnerability of his younger son, hence treated him much much worse as a result of that fear and disgust Julius holds.

It also implies failure on his part to "toughen" Aaron up as well, and in his mind he is too perfect to "fail" to parent the desirable son. Instead in Julius' own mind, its soley the child's (Aaron's) fault for his own flaws, as it is believed and stated in the practice of poisonous pedagogy Miller speaks about.

And so punishment and retribution is the only way Julius expresses his negative feelings of that failure and percived disobedience/disrespect from Aaron, in the form of those training sessions, not to truly prepare Aaron from the horror's he'd seen at war, but rather punish and also discipline what Julius sees as a part of himself which is wholly unprepared, something which the older man cannot allow, lest he allow an extention of himself and also his property to be harmed in the process.