In the parable about Adam and Eve and their sons Cain and Abel, whether one believes its religious message or not, we begin to see through the DOLF lens that the example of this family could well be thought of as a forewarning of how life will unfold for humanity. The paradigm reflects the way that humankind has been plagued by problems of jealousy, anger, and conflict throughout history.
What are the lessons to be learned? One may be about the immutable human social instinct of SIBLING RIVALRY. The story may be there to illustrate that these inborn instincts propel human behavior and that they form part of the rules of intimate family interaction. It may be one of our children will always garner More Favor and the other Less Favor, or comparative Disfavor and that (b) there will necessarily be intrafamilial strife in all our lives, and to be prepared to face it. Thirdly, perhaps we may be instructed that (c) the drive to carve one’s own path of existence by conjuring ways of opposing and being opposite to a next-born sibling is powerful, overwhelming and an important part of our humanity as distinct from the animal world. Another conclusion relates to (d) the universality of the DOLF family pattern, in that it is meant to include ALL human groups. All these principles are no doubt meant to hold true despite conventional visible differences that occur among humans such as skin color, physical features, lifestyle, religious beliefs or culture, that may cloud our judgement. A fourth conclusion could be that (e) these original, unbending rules of Sibling Rivalry are actually an intended source of diversity in human nature and experience.
Ironic is the fact that we have been oblivious to these lessons for so long, even though they were in plain view and imparted to us millennia earlier, and occur blatantly in the first chapter of the holy scripture. But while the rules of DOLF Theory were NOT in any way extracted from the bible, since the story is only reviewed for the purpose of discussion, in retrospect, the parallels between the bible story and the theory are unmistakable. DOLF is merely a framework for analyzing this well known example and for considering the possibility that it might have been written to deliver its message to us.
Now DOLF can venture even further by arriving at a concrete methodology that instructs parents in how to reverse our inborn destructive instinctual system of human conflict, and undo most of its consequences. For the first time in psychology, DOLF is a theory that actually offers a solution to our dilemmas about raising children. Its application even expands to unearth the root causes of most of the social problems we face. At the same time it gives us the license to discover that all these low lying Emotional dynamics are entirely NORMAL. This means that parents no longer need to hide their troubles in shame, since they can be assured that every household is struggling with the same problem. There is no longer a need to envy the next door neighbor or be teased by their success or outward vision of peace. DOLF comforts us with the information that NOBODY is blessed with having an easier life than anyone else, but that others are having just as difficult time as ourselves in raising their families and are suffering equal pain and heartache from their Disfavored children. DOLF tells us that every household with more than one child has Disfavored children since the formula for family functioning is fixed and standard. And with our knowledge that this same set of dynamics must be happening in every family, we know it is true regardless of the attractive picture people might try to paint about their lives at home with their spouse and children. We learn too that such conflict has the potential to become the undeclared, sinister cause of marital discord as well. For example a client of mine, after many discussions about her son’s unruliness and irresponsible behavior, finally expressed her conclusion that “The problem is not my child – he’s a good boy. It’s my husband!” She then proceeded to file for a divorce. On a grander scale too, society at large can put DOLF knowledge to work in the interests of furthering the quest to improve the general human condition by helping our mentally ill, criminals, substance abusers, homeless and disenfranchised people, and more.
In conclusion, DOLF teaches us that your behavior and personality traits are in great part NOT inborn and DO NOT come from somewhere inside yourself, such as your DNA or good or bad genes, or your good or bad intentions. Despite extensive research with genes, these factors have NOT been found to be responsible for forcing you or your progeny to behave in certain ways. Rather in the majority, your character traits and behaviors are induced, cultivated and set up by the people and events that make up your earliest life experiences, most particularly your Family of Origin, the immediate family that consisted of your parents and siblings. Your behavior and personality are merely the observable, behavioral expression or outcome of the quantity and quality of parental LOVE you felt you received, or did NOT receive, in comparison with a next born sibling. This was the original mold of either Favor or Disfavor into which you were cast and your social standing in that Family of Origin with the parents who raised you and the sibling next to you. Whatever came later in terms of your life experiences as a teenager and adult in our Intelligence-dominated world only served to add to and solidify your original childhood mold. In short the conclusion of our study is that your actions, thoughts, personality traits and behavior were NEVER your own, but were assigned to you by those around you in your social environment. So we may even say that you are NOT responsible for the way you think and feel today or who you became and are now. And if you behave badly or outside social boundaries, you should not be entirely blamed or held responsible for it. Rather, strange as it may sound, the onus falls upon society to assume a much greater part of the responsibility for your state of mind and your behavior today. That is, this study finds that it is society and our social environment that makes us who we are, and NOT something that is conjured up by each individual or determined by their genes.
