Michael Jackson as a Reflection for Parenting.

Recently, we lost a legend, a musical genius, and icon. I grew up listening to Michael Jackson from as early as I can remember. I still have his “Off the Wall” record stuck under my Mom’s bed in Oklahoma. I can recall having that record as a kid for years because it sat dusty in the top of my closet, and every now and again, I would just look at the cover. From “Rock with You” to “Billie Jean” and “Thriller,” I practiced every move, won a lip sync and dance contest in my local Mountain View County Fair and Mr. Legs competitions at my local high school. I still remember a group of friends and I put together an entire break dancing routine when the craze hit. We had it all choreographed right there in my friends’ danky, dusty little garage. Scott Dawkins, David Walker, Shawn Jackson and myself prepared tediously for the county fair contest. We sweated, argued, revised, and revised some more until we felt it was good, and then, we coordinated our costumes. When the night was upon us, we nailed it. But we lost. We lost to a little kid moonwalking across the stage doing an impersonation of Michael in “Billie Jean.” I was crushed but had to admit the kid was good.

Michael Jackson was great. No one can ever take that away from him, but also never grew up. From the six or seven-year-old kid singing with his brothers in Indiana, he never grew past that stage. Dr. Bruce Perry, whose work has had an enormous impact on my own, says, “In times of stress, we revert to our developmental zones of comfort.” In other words, when we stress, we regress. Psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow-Lewis, author of the phenomenal book Guilty by Reason of Insanity, states that when children experience a high degree of ongoing stress or trauma, it causes them to become emotionally arrested. Without knowing one iota of truth or fact regarding Michael Jackson’s history and day-to-day family life, it’s easy to consider that his early fame alone was stressful and traumatic enough to have caused him to become both socially and emotionally stunted. Obviously, this is not a choice; it’s a neurobiological reality.

There have been rumors for years about the rigid home in which the Jacksons grew up with their demanding father and passive mother. It has been recounted on many occasions. I’ve never read Michael Jackson’s autobiography and don’t know if he has even written one, but one very telling fact of the tense parent-child relationship is that upon his death, he left his father out of his will. One final, strong rebellious act.

Michael became worth millions of dollars, he bought a ranch and called it Neverland, just like Peter Pan, just like J.M. Barrie, who also had a traumatic childhood and never quite grew up. Barrie literally did not grow up, never growing over 5 feet in height. Jackson, on the other hand, was 6’1” and a very thin 120 lbs. or so. He stocked Neverland with amusement park rides, horses, monkeys, llamas, and tigers. It is rumored that he held elaborate parties for children and their families and held sleepovers in pajamas with the children all sleeping in the same bed – himself included. This obviously led to the first exposure and insight into his emotionally arrested state. A grown man having parties and sleepovers with little children is not considered normal. Society had a ball portraying him as a child molester and pedophile. It should be known that in all of the acts that came to public light, it was never indicated that Jackson had sodomized the young children nor used instruments to penetrate them or any other such vile act. Instead, he engaged in games of show and tell, you show me yours, I’ll show you mine, etc. This is repulsive when we consider it as the behavior of a grown man involved with small children, but what if he were an overgrown seven-year-old? Would we have had the same vile, disgusting reactions? Not likely.

In our society, we only see behavior. We don’t bother to see underneath it. In this regard, Michael was judged a freak and a child molester – not once, but twice. It will be interesting to see if the families and their children that settled out of court with him will now come forward and provide the truth, or at least their side of what really happened.

Based on his behavior toward young children, it is clinically representative that more than likely, he was not sexually abused as a young child. More likely, he was the recipient of parenting primarily motivated toward fame, money, and power as opposed to love and guidance. We have seen this countless times in the lives of famous child stars who rocket to fame with their parents as managers, only to bottom out because of emotional challenges later in their careers – often as short as three to four years later.

Eventually, such as in the case of Macauley Culkin, some of these child stars go so far as to divorce their parents in court to gain control over their lives. Such examples have far less to do with money in the eyes of the child and more about the need to create some normalcy in their lives. It might even be safe to say that many parents of child stars are emotionally arrested themselves – stuck in the adolescent state of needing to be accepted, liked, and perceived as important. Hmmm … that sounds familiar to parenting in general.

The message here is not one of trying to relieve Michael Jackson of any negative or traumatic acts that he may have perpetrated against children or anyone else, but rather a statement of the fact that this man was a child. He never grew up. I see it every day in my work. Every day, I see some child of a traumatic and absent environment still stuck emotionally as a two-year-old. Yet, nearly everyone in that child’s life says he’s 17. Can we see him in any manner different from what his behaviors dictate? Look at this iceberg. It is no different than behaviors. When we judge by behaviors alone, we are only looking at the tip of the iceberg. It’s been said by many a wise person, but St. Francis, I believe, is credited with saying it first, “Seek first to understand and then to be understood.”

Just like with many of the children we serve, raise, and hope to guide, our understanding of Michael Jackson was severely limited. Therefore, he did not, in my limited knowledge, get help. Instead, he was coddled as one would a child who has been raised with material overindulgence but no real help. For that, a musical pioneer and genius of our times will be laid to rest with many negative impressions overshadowing his generous offerings to the world.

May God bless your soul, Michael, so that you might finally have eternal peace.