3 Different ways how children inherit trauma

The saying is that trauma is inherited in the new generation. If you're growing up poor, there is a large chance that your children will also end up in poverty. But how come? In this blog I tell you more about how this work.

When your little one is still in the belly, it already learns. The pregnancy and the first thousand days are the most important days for a child to create their inner beliefs. In this time, your little one will learn its own perspective of life. It builds the basement of inner values and beliefs of how life works and 'what's in it for him or her'.

So, if you live in poverty, your little one will adopt the inner belief that it's meant for him or her to live in poverty and that's the way it is. If you have a stable, lovely home, your little one will learn that it deserves stability and love.

Energetically bound

In this period, the mother and child are energetically bound. This means that the child is attached to the energy of the mom. The child can feel everything the mother feels. So, if you're a mom and carry a trauma like all moms, your little one will know your trauma. If it's significant to him or her, (s)he will adapt the trauma to her inner beliefs, like that's about to happen in life.

But trauma doesn't only pass on energetically. There is a second way your child learns from your past: they inherit all your experiences through your DNA.

Cellular Memory

How does this work? During your pregnancy, your baby is nourished through your placenta and umbilical cord with your blood. This blood contains your cells, your DNA, and your genetic material. Every cell has a memory, the cellular memory. Through this memory, the cell remembers what it experiences and what its task is in your body. The cell remembers which actions it must take when and how it should react to unexpected situations.

Your baby in your belly gets access to this information through your blood. Your baby learns through your DNA how to breathe, move, and how their body should grow. The placenta is primarily grown by the cells from the father's sperm. In this way, he passes on his 'knowledge' to his baby.

But your cells also contain personal information: information about traumas, happy moments, eating habits, and how you feel about yourself. Your child's soul also receives this information. Research shows, for example, that twins who were separated at birth largely develop the same habits and preferences. This is because they received the same information from their parents during pregnancy.

Although your cells live shorter than you do, the information the cells carry can ultimately remain in your body for a lifetime. Cells divide into new cells, passing on all information. So the new cell also contains your emotions and experiences that the old cell has stored.

Much of what you have experienced in your life, you pass on to your child. What you pass on is not only about emotions, fears, strengths, or traumas. Your baby also receives information about your self-worth, norms and values, respect, and social norms. And for example, also about safety, setting boundaries, and the space that you, as a woman, can and may take in life.

Poverty, traumas, happiness, and wealth are thus passed on from generation to generation. Your baby learns during pregnancy whether they may be rich and happy and that relationships should be safe. Or they learn that they should be poor, or that unsafe relationships are the norm. The situation in which you live and how you think and feel about things determine the way of thinking and acting for your child when they are older.

Female Line and Male Line

Although this is not really a way your child learns, it can inherit trauma. I do want to briefly mention the female line and male line. The female line and male line influence the life, perspective, and health of your child. Through the so-called female line, girls inherit themes, karma, contracts, and traumas from their foremothers. Boys inherit this through the male line. This invisible burden, or invisible strength, your little girl or boy carries with them until they get the chance to resolve or process it. You can recognize the themes since they're coming back over the generations.