Myth of the Bad Seed: The Dangerous Belief That Some Children Are Just Broken

CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT · Jul 28, 2026 · 25m

“He's been hard since the day he was born.” “Something in her is just off, and always has been.” “Is there something broken with my child?” Whitney traces questions and the fears beneath them to a centuries old belief that some people are simply born bad. It’s a belief that has changed costumes across religion, science, and psychology but never fully gone away. Whitney brings questions like these into the present for the parents living with a child with a mental illness, an addiction, or a disability they can't fix.

In this episode, you'll learn:

- How the "born bad" idea traveled across…