family rod hypothesis

The belief that children who are abused (emotionally, physically or sexually) inevitably go on to abuse any children they have themselves. Thought up by an abusive and deeply narcissistic parent who wanted to dismiss any misgivings on their own or their offspring's part as the idealism of green and inexperienced minds, and who held to the belief that if everyone does something it must be OK. Truly adult minds are not impressed by such phony reasoning. If the family rod hypothesis were true, the human race would rapidly be descending into violent dysfunction, with new traditions of bully-boys being established as the old ones persisted. A rather dangerous idea in the age of the multi-megatonne thermonuclear warhead, don't you think?