Is blaming your game?

You might have come across a video in social media sites: a cute 2+ year old boy, with heavy prescription glasses and a Real Madrid home jersey on, replies, "A batman did it" (with an adorable British accent), when his mom asks him who used her lipstick to draw all over the mirror! It became an instant Facebook sensation, so much that the mom, Laura Hopkins, mentioned it in the YouTube description of the video. She also confessed to something anyone watching this video would already know; that her little boy's instant response was too cute and innovative to be mad at what he had done!
I wish this was the picture all the time! The video, however, seemed interesting to me for an entirely different reason. I was amazed at how pre-programmed a human brain appears to be, when it comes to blaming someone else! Even a mere 2-year-old manages to produce an instant response, irrespective of how unreal that "someone" he is putting the blame on is! This act of his little mind can trigger numerous analyses, but that is not what I wish to do today.
Somehow, from the very childhood, we develop this sense of blaming someone, for things that went wrong. There are great research works and studies available, and many are still ongoing addressing this phenomenon of blaming someone, and why humans do so. For me, from a very basic level of understanding, this feature is exclusive to humans. While some cats may try to impose that whatever they have done was destined to happen, and most monkeys may have their own thing, I don't think any other animals actually play the "blame-game" like we do! To many psychologists, it is a form of narcissism, where the blamer has an uncontrollable urge to keep his/her name clean; as if he/she is above any mistakes.
If we look closely, we would find two types of blamers primarily. The first kind consists of people we all know of; the ones who like to blame others for anything and everything! The second kind, however, seems more concerning to me- the one that includes people who blame themselves for everything! Especially in cultures like ours, blaming ourselves and/or our fate for things that did not happen as they should have is common. While keeping ourselves under check is good, overdoing it might cause severe outcomes. I have seen people fall in unnecessary despair thinking that everything is their fault, their bad luck, even when nothing is technically wrong at all! You may think about your mom when she blames herself of everything that you do wrong. We might find things like that funny, but it is not!

When someone constantly blames him/herself for every little mishap, it not only lowers their self-esteem and confidence, it also somehow allows others to come and blame him/her! So, when your mom blames her womb for carrying a useless child like you, it is not an everyday drama she is overdoing. It also is an indicator that how women have been blamed for all the weird things that their children do for centuries, whereas fathers are usually credited with the so called "achievements"!
So how can we find a solution to this? Honestly, I do not think it will ever be possible to remove the sense of blame-game from the entire human race. What we can try is to learn to accept, more. If anything does not happen the way we thought or planned, it does not mean it is the end of the world! When we learn to accept that it is okay to fail at things sometimes, the whole scenario might change, and improve. I know, in many cases, there might not be any room for error! But still, it is not the end of the world! People make mistakes, and they need to admit, accept and learn from it, instead of blaming it on others or on themselves, irrationally. It might hurt when we have to go through failure, punishment or humiliation, but if you think about it, the practice of blame -game may lead to even worse consequences!
Mehnaz Tabassum is a Lecturer in the Department of English, East West University, and is a critic and writer.