Having been in the music business for most of my adult life I’ve had the opportunity to interact with people from all socio-economic strata. My experience has taught me one thing:

There are families which breed and cultivate anti social behavior.

A case in point: A few days ago I reconnected with a musician friend from a band I produced almost 25 years ago. One of the other band members, who had passed away suddenly about 15 years ago, became the subject of our conversation. As I recalled, his wife’s family had been one of those that always seemed to be in trouble with the law.

“Did you hear the latest”, my old friend began.

“His wife (the deceased band member) was caught embezzling money from the State and his son (who was 6 years old when he died) was doing time in State prision!”

Somehow it didn’t surprise me. Her other family members had or were doing time for various unlawful activities.

Back in 1985 I had spent a few hours with the family, in their home talking about the music business and plans for the future. The Matriarch of the family was a hard working very pleasant woman …someone hard not to like. Other family members had notorious reputations but treated me very well. At first glance you would think this was an average blue collar family excited about the future.

You would be wrong.

It turned out to be one of those “families” every law enforcement agency knows about in their given locale. It’s something that exists in our society, but for some reason nobody seems to talk much about. The fact is that there are certain families who literally breed criminals. When you look at the family tree you see a re-occuring pattern of anti-social behavior extending to brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, fathers, mothers over many generations …you get the picture.

These are families without a sense of right and wrong.

There is no “little voice inside” that says: “Don’t do this …It isn’t right!” These are people who are blind to the ramifications of their actions. They don’t know how to “connect the dots”. They never see what’s coming next and always seem to make the wrong decisions.

The family of the deceased musician had no such history.

What happened to his son was the result of being raised by one of “those” families.
I believe the kid didn’t have a chance. The interesting thing is that nobody has to ever “take some one by the hand” and teach them how to be anti-social. I don’t believe family members sat around teaching the kid how to lie, cheat and steal. I think it was a much more powerful teacher that influenced the behavior of this kid.

Attitude: The invisible language of your inner feelings.

Seldom verbally communicated within a family, attitude, which is the first “feeling” before opinion and belief (step in to justify and rationalize that feeling) is learned long before the opinions and beliefs that go along with it.

At a very early age the youngster was already being “programmed” with the attitude and feelings of anti-social behavior. His upbringing and life experience then supported and cemented those feelings into a mind-set. A mind-set which would give him a way of looking at life that would in time put him in a prison cell.

What I’ve just described is an extreme case of “family disease”.

The real question is how much of your current attitude about life is is nothing more than a by-product of your own family’s “disease”? Those attitudes that have become so much a part of you, that you’re not even aware that they, not you, are controlling your life.

Hey, you’re not a bad person ….but you may still be suffering from a form of the “disease”.

If you feel stuck and feel like something is missing in your life …there may be a direct correlation to a “family attitude” working against you, holding your life progress in check.

-Bob Baran