We will never know the exact number of children traumatized in today’s world, with its wars, environmental catastrophes caused by climate change, hunger, disease, and violence empowered by entrenched racist and caste systems.

Artists have taken on the task of drawing our attention to the plight of these children in ways that make it possible to confront the horrors without being fatigued by pure statistic or scared by sensation-seeking news reports. One of the artists I most admire in this regard is JR (yes, he goes by initials only) who has created work that registers emotionally, makes us think about facts, and also generates income that he is donating to funds helping children afflicted by war.

An early series of his was Déplacé·e·s, a collection of super large images of refugee children that were shown in places that housed refuges who had fled from war, famine or social instability. Aerial photographs of 170-foot-long banners—carried by groups of people around the camp or a city—depicted the full image of a child. The project generated a lot of awareness about how many millions of refugees are currently on the move or settled under horrifying circumstances, in many cases.

Currently, the artist is exhibiting a different way of displaying photographs of kids in refugee camps across Rwanda, Ukraine, Greece, Mauritania and Columbia, among others.  Les Enfants d’Ouranos shows images that are photographic negatives transferred directly on wood, producing ghostly figures in a reversal of light and dark. The children, now anonymous silhouettes standing in for all of the displaced rather than an individual child, are bright, luminous, carriers of hope. Ouranos was the Greek God of the sky, creator of the Titans, and I wonder if his fatherly role, alluded to in the exhibition title, is that of punisher or protector. These kids are seen primarily running – away from something or towards something? Did this primordial God unleash the disasters, or is he in charge of shelter? Some of the work can be seen at the facade of the Parrish Art Museum in Waterville, NY, until the end of May. (All images are work of the artist.)

I want to talk today a little bit about what we know of what might happen when these children who lived through traumatic events have children of their own. My field of psychology and also the area of psychiatry has seen an increasing research focus over the last 40 years on how trauma is handed down through the generations. I will relate the story at the most basic level, leaving out most of the specific scientific details, because it matters to me just to get the idea across. For an in-depth overview, go here. That article will also refer you to many other sources, for investigations of specific traumas or ways of transmission.)

What we know: children of survivors of traumatic experiences are more likely to have behavioral or mental and physical health problems than children of parents, otherwise matched for age, education, financial status etc., who were spared tragedy in their lives. These can be externalizing problems such as hyperactivity, impulsivity, aggression, and rule violation, or internalizing problems that are characterized by worry, anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal. They can be bodily ailments like immune system deficiencies, asthma, autism-spectrum diseases, obesity or the propensity towards diabetes and heart disease, presumed to be modulated by the way stress affects the second and third generation.

The original traumatic experiences that were studied in humans range from the Holocaust, the Japanese Internment experience, the Vietnam War, the Cambodian and Armenian genocide, European and African hunger epidemics, slavery, the participation in Israel’s war in 1973, Palestinian displacement, to the exposure of an individual to repeated, serious childhood abuse or being victim to a sexual crime. Animal models have also been used to push our scientific knowledge further. Many researchers agreed that some of the effects of trauma on the next generation (intergenerational trauma) or even subsequent generations (transgenerational trauma) could be related to how generation 1’s experiences affected their own behavior, subsequent adjustment problems, including addiction, violence or suicidal ideation, as well as their parenting styles, aloof or overprotective, leading to problems with attachment for generation 2.

Yet scientists were curious if something else was going on in addition to what happened in the direct, day-by-day interactions between survivors and their children, interactions that of course shaped the lived experience of the children. This triggered a flurry of research into epigenetics, the study of how external factors can change or affect the ways our genes work.

Remember that we inherit our parents’ genes, with the DNA from the male carried in the sperm, and the DNA from the female carried in the egg. When sperm and egg merge they form a single cell, which then multiplies to supply us with all the different cells required to live. Throughout this process, every single cell in your body has the same genes, the same DNA. However, in each cell, some of the genes are activated and some are not; that’s how a single configuration of genes, shared by every one of your cells, can function differently in different locations and at different times. What’s at stake here is called “gene expression” – with the pattern of gene expression in your liver cells making sure those cells function as liver cells should, with the pattern of expression in your nerve cells making sure neurons do neuron things, and so on. One catalogue of genes (i.e., one “genome”) throughout, but different expressions of that genome governing the function of the DNA in each individual cell.

What governs gene expression? Basically, it’s the immediate chemical environment of that specific cell, which in turn is governed by a variety of other factors, including factors in your environment. In other words, your environment has a powerful influence on gene expression, and so your environment has a powerful influence on how your genetic material operates.

But now we add two further steps: First, it’s crucial that, when the DNA is passed to the next generation (through sperm and egg), the DNA molecules that are passed onward are (like any DNA molecules) molecules with a particular pattern of gene expression. In other words, in the DNA that’s passed to your offspring, some of the genes are currently “switched on,” and some of the genes currently “switched off.” In this way, the pattern of your experiences (which – again –  influences gene expression) can literally alter the specifics of the genetic pattern you pass on to your offspring. 

Second, trauma turns out to be one of the experiences that matters for gene expression, basically changing how someone’s DNA functions. In particular, trauma changes the expression of genes important for glucocorticoid function – a body chemical that’s crucial for how someone responds to stress. The result? The person (because of this change in glucocorticoids) may be overreactive to stress, and may have unhealthy cortisol levels.

Putting these pieces together: Trauma influences gene expression, and (part of) the pattern of gene expression is transmitted to your children, through your DNA. As a result, parents who have expressed trauma literally change the biology of their children. And, again, this is a purely biological, genetic transmission, in addition to whatever ways the behavior of (previously traumatized?) parents can alter the lived experience of the children raised by those parents.

I am not a biologist, so a lot of the details go beyond my comprehension. But I did learn that multiple variables correlate with different outcomes. So, for example, both maternal and paternal trauma can affect gene expression that then gets inherited by the next generation. It matters how old survivors were at the time of trauma, it matters what gestational phase the fetus is in, if the trauma occurs during the pregnancy and not before. Boys and girls are differently affected. Some studies (with very small sample sizes, so caution) say that the effects of gene expression are even more detrimental in the 3rd compared to the 2nd generation.

What conclusions are drawn? “At the present time, the field has not sufficiently grappled with the meaning of the intergenerational transmission of trauma effects for the offspring. It could be argued that this transmission is indicative of increased vulnerability. On the other hand, this transmission may extend the adaptive capacities of offspring through a biological preparation for adverse circumstances similar to those encountered by the parent. Ultimately, the potential utility, and possible stability, of an environmentally induced trait transmitted to an offspring will depend on the offspring’s environmental context.”(Ref.)

Honestly, that seems a bit bland and falsely comforting by not confronting the fact that so many trauma survivors are part of a multi-generational system. When you think about the historical backdrop of Jews’ experiences across time in this world, or that of Blacks, or the inhabitants of the Republic of Congo, or large numbers of Ukrainians, or Palestinians who have been displaced, killed and oppressed for many, many generations, increased vulnerability through a lineage of multiple survivors is likely to trump adaptive capacity.

We know how war and famine have immediate horrifying effects for those experiencing them. Captivity, whether as a hostage, a prisoner of war, or a human being fenced in a concentration camp or a strip of land with closed borders, with death looming above you or raining down, will do irrevocable, life-long damage to those who survive. Starvation, whether through natural famines, or the intentional withholding of food, during Stalin’s purges of Ukraine or the Israeli war cabinet’s decision to cut off food to the Gazan population, will change the health status of several generations down the line.

Terror and war are, as we now know, generating wounds for those in the future, generations of children who will be affected by the suffering of their parents and grandparents and great grandparents, with gene expression turned on or off in ways detrimental to their health. It will potentially feed into new cycles of violence, perpetuating trauma.

Music today is a contemporary song about refugee children.

Also a modernist’s reaction to war: Richard Strauss’ Metamorphosen.