🎬 What Can Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro) Teach Us About Leadership, Parenting, and the Inner Child?

The deepest wounds are not caused by cruelty or violence — but by rejection of our parents.

The white canvas of childhood

🚨 SPOILER ALERT!

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is not a story about horror.
It is a story about childhood and attachment.

At its heart, this is not the tale of a monster and his maker, but of a father and a child locked in a tragic dynamic:

• One cannot accept what he has created

• The other only wants to be accepted

And between them lies a truth many leaders, parents, and adults refuse to face:

When expectations replace inconditional acceptance, love becomes conditional.

🧠 Victor — The Father Who Cannot Face His Own Shadow

Victor does not reject the creature because it is violent.
He rejects it because it does not fulfill his expectations.

The monster is:

• imperfect

• unfinished

• uncontrollable

• unpredictable

And worst of all, it reflects Victor’s own unresolved shadows.

Instead of seeing a being in need, Victor sees:

• a failure

• a disappointment

• a mirror of what he fears in himself

This is fear-based leadership in its most intimate form:
👉 trying to control outcomes instead of nurturing growth
👉 demanding results instead of offering safety
👉 abandoning responsibility when reality doesn’t match fantasy

Victor wants a masterpiece.

What he gets is a child.

And because he cannot tolerate that gap, he withdraws. He rejects. He attacks.

🧒 The Monster — A Child Looking for Approval

The monster is not born cruel.
He is born open, curious, and desperate to belong.

What he wants is painfully simple:

• to be seen

• to be named

• to be loved

He reaches for Victor not as a creator, but as a father.

And when that reach is met with fear, disgust, and abandonment, something breaks.

This is the core of attachment trauma:

When a child’s need for connection is unmet, survival replaces authenticity. They becomes what we asked them to become.

The monster does not become violent because he is evil.
He becomes violent because he is alone. He is rejected.

🪞 From Rejection to Identity

One of the most devastating truths in Frankenstein is this:

The monster becomes what he is treated as.

Without approval, without mirroring, without safety, the inner child adapts.

Not to be happy but to survive.

This is how attachment wounds form:

• “If I am not wanted, I must be dangerous.”

• “If I am rejected, I must reject first.”

• “If I am not loved, I must harden.”

Victor fears the monster will become destructive.
And by abandoning him, he ensures exactly that outcome.

This is not just parenting.
This is leadership.

💔 Expectations vs Acceptance

Victor never meets the monster where he is.
He only meets him where he should have been.

And that is the tragedy.

At LeaderNess, we see this pattern everywhere:

• parents disappointed by children

• leaders disappointed by teams

• founders disappointed by themselves

Expectation replaces curiosity.
Control replaces care.
Judgment replaces relationship.

And the inner child — in others and in ourselves — goes into hiding. Longing for acceptance.

💡 The LeaderNess Lens — Healing the Inner Child

Frankenstein is a perfect illustration of the LeaderNess dynamic:

🔹 Find

Victor is driven by fear:
– fear of imperfection
– fear of failure
– fear of facing himself

The monster is driven by longing:
– for connection
– for approval
– for belonging

🔹 Feed

Fear feeds abandonment.
Abandonment feeds resentment.
Resentment feeds identity collapse.

🔹 Fuel

Presence, acceptance, and responsibility are the only forces that heal.

Leadership — and parenting — is not about creating perfection.
It’s about staying when things are messy.

✨ Final Reflection

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein reminds us of a painful truth:

Children do not become monsters because they are broken.
They become monsters because their parents treat them like monsters.
Parents project their own monsters in them.
They are abandoned.

The inner child never asks to be perfect.
It asks to be seen.

And when leaders — at home or at work — lead from fear and expectation,
they create exactly what they were trying to avoid.

True leadership begins with this courage:
To face your own shadows
So you don’t pass them on.