This is a portrait of my older son, Gabe, when he was 4 yrs. old. We created this together - a collaborative effort. Gabe, especially as a young’n, was very naturally full of his own bigness. And having a big heart to match made this outgoing enthusiasm, and happy engagement with life and people, a real pleasure more than anything. But no matter how beautiful his vibrant being is, this still needs to be appropriately contained at times… and then there’s that pesky personal space reality getting in the way when it comes to friends and “strangers“. So he and I decided to paint him in the context of these boundary issues.In the painting, Gabe is striding away from the big red square of a boundary behind him… free with easy confidence. I asked Gabe what it’s like for him to be reined-in and contained, when he really doesn’t want to have to break his stride. He explained in two ways… one in words which said, that it’s like a dragon inside him wanting to cry out in fiery protest, and the other he drew at the bottom of the painting:
Looks like a pale, incapacitated, flat on his back, little person contained within the boundary to me.
I bring this up because it seems like such a key thing that adults and children have to contend with. And I tend to think it’s a major component of both a concerted effort to anchor pain into the human condition as well as potentially being an important bottom-line to how we can lift us up out of the insistence on this pain of broken will and strait-jacketing being a needed and integral part of childrearing.
There’s much to be said and explored concerning parenting efforts and the respectful embrace of appropriate boundaries. I’m hoping that people will chime right in with their thoughts here. But for now, I’ll offer these links to the great work some people
This is a link to a story NPR aired about an activist's efforts in Harlem - very important work here, and so worth a listen: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94977387
I was looking for a link to this new major study I heard about through BBC world news recently, which the English have done on understanding what’s behind children being so unhappy these days. It’s bound to be controversial, and did not bode well for parents, but I wasn’t able to find it! If anyone can post a link to that here, please do. I did run across this link though:
News - Health - Violent imagery 'harms children' . Last updated: 18 Feb 2005
The team of researchers reviewed six major studies on the effects of media violence on children.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4275131.stm
9 comments:
RE: Children-Violence....the two come together with long term exposure as a learned behavior...that's the bottom line. Violence in this case becomes an accepted norm....and apathetic natures are formed. All people can become victims of their environments. Constant exposure to violence presented as a form of entertainment can be very detructive. Violence begets violence in any form as a product of human nature ..especially when the root sources can be traced to competition in the struggle for life. As humans we have the ability to overcome these base tendencies only through the effort to do so.
Absolutely Hubertg!... here's to developing the muscle it takes to overcome these base tendencies!... here's to seeing and understanding base behavior for what it really is, in the light of wisdom and compassion, so that the taking up of a better way is a matter of willing participation rather than a battle against evil. Even though things like this do come down to a battle between "good and evil", not feeding into the polarized struggle by offering an open door to unbiased understanding (when available), and saying, "anyone who really doesn't want to be in battle and in pain any more... this way to the exit!" helps to unplug the fervor for battle a bit.
"And I tend to think it’s a major component of both a concerted effort to anchor pain into the human condition as well as potentially being an important bottom-line to how we can lift us up out of the insistence on this pain of broken will and strait-jacketing being a needed and integral part of childrearing." I've never thought of the possibility that we could be anchoring pain into the human condition . . . My assumption has always been that pain is part of life. I need to think about this more.
With the pain I have to contend with (which isn't as much as others, I'm blessed), I've been aware that I'm passing it along to my children and to a lesser extent my husband and the people closest to me. My work in yoga and martial arts has helped me to be more in touch with my true essence, which is not the part that has been violated, but is pure, whole and inviolate. I have done what I can to impart this to my children. In the end, they will choose their own experience. I don't expect them to become yogis. I hope they'll find a path more suited to them. I have also told them again and again that their thoughts are theirs, and ultimately their choices are theirs. Don and I have also done what we can to present our sons with a variety of choices and outcomes.
Every blessing, Diana
Thanks so much for your input on this, Diana. It took me a while to figure out how to put what you’ve written in context, and maybe I still don’t understand, but it looks like you’ve taken the very conscientious approach of really honestly looking at how you might be adding to the pain of the human condition, in regard to your parenting. Of course! Right?… that’s what I was trying to address after all. But this just shows me that I need to clarify what I meant by “a concerted effort to anchor pain into the human condition”.
I’m not sure how much this is the norm in our culture today… the deliberate breaking of a child‘s will, as a matter of course, or the various ways a child can be harnessed into a strait-jacket, whether it’s through the confine’s of strict or religious fear-mongering, threat of physical harm, or the most pc form of late being the discreet chemical strait-jacket (Ritalin, Adderall). Just for the record… I know there are times when these drugs are needed and appropriate. But from what I’ve seen around me, it looks like the surprisingly high use of these drugs in “good schools” and other environments where a child is expected to behave according to particularly high standards and achievement expectations, it seems pretty clear to me that there’s a fairly high rate of unnecessary and inappropriate use going on.
So I’m just pointing to a long and well established belief that, on some level, and in some way, the breaking or overwhelming of a child’s will, in order for them to conform, is right and needed. This is what I call the deliberate anchoring in of pain. In working to address and lift us up out of this cycle, I look for ways to provide appropriate boundaries without having to break someone in the process. And I’m not talking perfection here… not looking to foster little yogis by any means. (From what I’ve learned lately about “spirit names”, I think a yogi’s path is similar to that… it’s not something the child or the parent chooses, it’s more that the path chooses the person.) The whole picture involves a broad spectrum of what would be very extreme abuse on one end, and remarkably close to ideal on the other. And just being aware of the fact that each place within that spectrum needs to be approached with respect and wisdom in order for there to be very honest and effective steps taken to address the pain, and help people find their way out, can go a long way. That link to the NPR story of what an activist has been able to do in Harlem is a fantastic example of what can be done along these lines.
So Diana, it seems like you went to a place of understanding that even our own pain, that we carry, does have a subtle (in your case anyway, probably not so subtle in some cases) impact on our children (and even your husband! what a lovely and caring thing it is that you see this). I wonder if you can see where you are on that full spectrum. If the greatest anchoring of pain were the darkest end, and the least tendency to perpetuate the pain were the lightest end… I’d say, from what you wrote above, that you’re pretty-much looking at white-on-white.
Thanks for your thoughtful, thoughtful response, Anne. I count on it from you.
So my next question is this: Once pain is released in the world, where does redemption come in? A friend and I were talking about reconciliation (I think redemption and reconciliation are related), and we came to the idea that reconciliation is a bridge between two disparate things, and that this bridge creates something entirely new. Not that reconciliation denies the original pain or conflict, but it attempts to make it into something else that is ideally co-created. Over time, the bridge that reconciliation builds becomes a way for the aggrieved to walk away from the original source of pain.
Namaste,
Diana
Very excellent question, Diana! I love what you've come to on this, and I agree completely. The only thing I really have to add is how this same process you've outlined between two disparate things out in the big world is something I often apply to the inner landscape when dealing with inner conflict as well... that's the "bring it home" part. I'm thinking that the more a person's able to understand/grasp and mediate for internal aspects of them self, then the fewer triggers there are to trip them up on the outside and the more we're able to facilitate the healing or processing of the pain into those much needed bridges. The language to describe the bridging reality on the inside, might also be described as "undoing distortions, loosening painful tangles, and dressing wounds" which, once freed up, allow for much greater personal ease and continuity, and greater freedom.
About: "Not that reconciliation denies the original pain or conflict, but it attempts to make it into something else that is ideally co-created." I see the co-creation part as being essential. Both parties, whether internal or external, really need to be freely willing participants, or else the one who's insisting on "helping" them is really just forcing their will on the other. But this is grown-up stuff. I think a person has to have gained a certain amount of maturity and readiness to go addressing pain and building bridges, to a great extent anyway. Too hard to explain that right now, but I have witnessed this.
So this mutual willingness is a touchy point when talking about kids and parenting. It certainly does apply to a point, but we, as parents, aren't just there as an example, we're there as the creator and guardian of truly needed boundaries. If we're not there to do this as needed, because (to varying degrees) kids just aren't capable of this themselves, then some amount of abandonment comes into play. So in this way, we need to exercise our will's in order to do right by our kids, whether they agree to it or not (which is my least favorite part of parenting). Bringing kids up seems to be about ushering them from infancy to young adult (with love), helping them develop the tools they'll be needing, while sheltering them from as much damage as possible. But everyone knows damage, and everyone knows pain. So once that gets layered in, I think it's more in the young person's best interest to wait until they are ready to take this up on their own (which might not be until well into adulthood), because any forcing of the painful issue (even in the name of healing) is likely to compound the pain, rather than alleviate it. A person needs the necessary tools and inner awareness to sense when the time is right, and go there safely.
Oh my goodness! I feel like I have such a big fat opinion on these things!... but that's all this is... just my opinion. One other thing: nobody's perfect. I do try to aim for and present the ideal. But we're really all just stumbling along, not knowing, making mistakes, and trying to do better. That's life!
Agreed: Redemption and reconciliation are mostly for grown-ups, and the know-how to achieve them is acquired over a lifetime. Unteachable? I think we as parents are planting seeds that our children have the choice to grow, harvest, let lie fallow, pass onto the next generation.
So much of what we do as parents is "out there": preparing food, organizing, caring for them and teaching them how to care for themselves and their pets (I read you have quite the menagerie at your house!). I got a little off topic and into the realm of adulthood with my last response. AND I also hope my kids are benefiting from my explorations and are emboldened to take similar ventures or to feel free to create their own ways of being. This is the more subtle part of parenting, the investment part.
Namaste
Diana - I was really delighted that you brought the redemption and reconciliation process to the table... wasn't thinking it was off topic at all. I've just seen heartbreaking examples of professionals, who's business it is to help kids with their troubles, do just the opposite by forcing the issue, prying into the pain in a way that does more harm than good. So your bringing this excellent process up gave me a chance to voice this concern.
Whereas, our ability and willingness to take up and address our own pain, in a very natural and kind-of sacred way, I think has an awful lot to offer our kids, even if in no other way than we just become more whole and available to them as a result.
I so appreciate your insight here, Diana... it's very valuable. It's so nice that you're interested enough to put the time into taking part here. Thanks very much - Anne
Reconciliation now there is an interesting word. One definition is “Achievement of Consistency.” Now I am not a parent and I don’t play one on television but had parents and was a kid so here goes…
What I remember most about my parents was their consistency. Weather it was eating all your veggies, what time you had to go to bed or their unconditional love for me , my brothers and sister. I could always count on them to not confuse me by constantly changing their minds.
From the that first slap on the ass to watching the Redskins loose another game proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that life is full of pain. I think is important is that we teach our children to not be afraid of it. I made a film about Reconciliation with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and he taught me that the struggle is what is important. His context was discrimination and oppression. As far as parenting goes I think the word should be “Journey.” The journey is what is important.
The world is a beautiful place but it also full of danger. I can’t imagine being a parent and worrying about…well everything. I don’t know how you all do it. It seems to me, that as with most of life, it comes down to how you treat other people whether they are your children or someone you have never met before
I think the professor got it right!
“How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people - first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies are bound by the ties of sympathy.”
Albert Einstein
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