Do certain qualities in a family carry on down from generation to generation?
Yes. Certain qualities, especially abuse, are described as carrying from one generation to the next. A child raised under an abusive father tends, by the greatest percentage, to become an abusive father himself. The pattern can extend as an abused wife turns on the children, who then seek someone to pass it to.
Les teaches that present-day statements from psychologists and psychiatrists show that certain qualities within a family carry down from generation to generation. He identifies abuse as the example: a child who has lived under an abusive father will, by far the greatest percentage of the time, become an abusive father himself. Les compares this to agriculture’s pecking order among livestock and poultry, where every flock establishes a hierarchy and the one at the bottom does not compete with the top. He says the human makeup does the same: an abusive father and husband abuses his wife, who invariably turns on the children, and those children then need somebody to go on.