I have created a class:

class PolicyJSON:
    def __init__(this, path:str="", values:dict={}, children:list=[], parent=None):
        this.path = path
        this.values = values
        this.children = children
        this.parent = parent 
        this.path = this.getfullpath()

This class is hierarchical – it can have many children of it’s type, and it can have a parent (of it’s type). I have wrote several hundreds of lines of code already, basically creating whole hierarchy, my codes are working just okay so I was happy, until now.
I have started spawning multiple instances of these hierarchies (see mymethod below), only to find out that for some reason python simply ignores parameter default values defined in __init__(), and, for some weird reason, it’s putting existing variables in these places!

Can someone please explain to me, what is going on here, and how to make class behave like a class?

Basically, I have lots of code that generates PolicyJSON instances with hierarchical data, and then, I do this:

#here is lots of code that also creates PolicyJSON instances, then I have something like below:

def mymethod(someparams):
    result = PolicyJSON()
    return result
myinstance = mymethod(...)

At this point, result, instead of being empty, already has data filled in – I can do result.children and it will return actual data! When I paused debugger at that result = PolicyJSON() line, and then Jumped in (F11), the __init__() constructor had its parameters filled in with data (i.e. children:list=[] was not [], but an actual array with data. How? Why? How can I make it behave “the normal” way?