parenting

April 9, 2023

To Love in Spite of Everything

Most of us have stories about our parents. When I get together with my brothers, we always call up funny incidents or their witty sayings.

The folks have been gone over 20 years, and I can assure you not all the events were rosy. These days, however, at a more than two-decade distance, we don’t care much about our old complaints.

Like water against the rock, they have been worn away.

Had you asked me about my early years a few decades back, I wouldn’t have spoken as often about the fun times as the dark ones.

They grew up in the Great Depression, and nothing about the economic survival of the Fabians (Jeanette Stein’s family) and Milton Stein’s home in the same period was easy. Nor did their parents win childrearing awards.

I was a therapist to people who still carried the psychological wounds of childhood. My understanding of their experiences sometimes grew out of my own youth. 

A number of my patients wished for different parents, a desire I never thought about but could grasp from the stories these women and men told me.

That raises questions.

Did you long for alternative guardians? Do you believe such a solution could have saved them from each other? Would it, at least, have prevented a portion of the emotional injury you incurred?

Of course, almost all of our caretakers did considerate things dumped in the same garbage can with the bad ones worth erasing.

What else would have lodged in the discard pile if the wish became real?

All your school friends, including a magnificent classmate met in fourth grade and held close to the present day. The games you enjoyed, especially those you won.

Remember too, the people who recognized the lovely voice you possessed, how fine your drawing was, and the teachers who displayed kindness or demanded more academic effort until finally, you gave it.

You’d never have encountered the next-door neighbor who played catch with you because he knew you missed your dad and the kindly owner of the corner candy store. He called you “son” and shared baseball stories. 

Don’t forget another adult who saw the goodness in you when the folks at home turned away in disgust.

In this imaginary vanishing of the elders, your first love departs, too, along with all the joyous, light, romantic dates with others.

These and 1000 other experiences — absent from your life.

Well, I hear you saying your life would have been even better with an alternative Mother and Father designed for each other and you.

Perhaps, but you’ve forgotten one missing ingredient to that superior life.

You.

I’m speaking of your life itself because if the same imperfect pair hadn’t made love when they did, you’d never have been born. Imagine a different growing sperm/egg couple taking your place on the bridge to the world.

Your parents gave you life, a chance, even if the winning ticket didn’t seem worth the paper it was printed on. Since you are reading this, it means you’ve found value in the time and the opportunity.

Much as we curse the darkness, the door exists to seek the light.

Do you doubt this? Read or listen to the thoughtful short poem by Sharon Olds, I Go Back to May 1937.

If the author’s apparent autobiographical details are her own, she describes how she invented a way to manage despite her parents.

There are many ways of overcoming.

Take one.

==========

The top image is Georges Braque’s Still Life with Ace of Hearts, 1914.

The first recitation of the poem includes the text as read by Guy Mulinder. His version allows you to read along with him or turn off the sound and read silently.

The second, by John Lithgow, is also very fine.

May 15, 2022

An Unwritten Diary

Its title is All His Life. The book’s cover illustrates a beautiful baby boy with garlands hung above the newborn’s crib, topped with a ribbon sewed into and above the fabric.

The 9″ x 12″ object has a satin-like covering, perhaps rayon. For the time, the volume probably wasn’t cheap. A gift, I suspect.

The first printed page offered the following:

All his life
is written here.
In pictured prose
And records clear —
From Infant small
To manly state,
Are told events
Both small and great.

The hardcover was published in 1944, but I came along later.

This particular copy of All His Life was about me.

The pages are yellow now, despite the old plastic bag in which the volume has been housed. I’m not pristine myself.

After naming the doctors who delivered me, the date, and the time, Jeanette Stein wrote her first question to my dad:

Is he cute??

Dad’s answer:

Don’t expect too much at first!!

I guess Milton Stein never got trained as a cheerleader!

The remainder of the 60-page volume is filled with more babies and boys, in colorfully lithographed paintings by Edna Mason Kaula, and space for answers to more printed questions. My mother’s elegant handwriting is featured in each response.

For example, the 11th page lists early visitors to the hospital or our apartment in the Logan Square neighborhood. Many spaces instruct the writer to “paste snapshot here.” Two blank spots are shaped like feet, two others like hands, all awaiting a bit of ink on those body parts for an imprint of my tiny appendages.

Gerald M. Stein’s weight at birth remains readable, written with a fountain pen in the same deep blue used for all the other entries. The mass-market ballpoint variety was new and uncommon.

Then?

Nothing? The last entry listed my height.

No first words, date of an initial carriage ride, or timing of the first smile. No record of when I discovered my hands. Nor can one find evidence of when Gerry began to walk or photos of anyone else, though I have an album including many early childhood pictures.

The publisher’s plan anticipated the growing young man would take over entering information after a while. I didn’t even know my parents received such a present until they died in their 80s, over 20 years ago.

Empty room for entries included friends’ names, hobbies, teachers, favorite subjects, ambitions, and space for “my philosophy,” which makes me laugh. Not the kind of thoughtfulness I possessed as an infant or a young man.

Funny about that in another way, as well. I only began dedicated reading of philosophy at age 65.

There is a blank spot for adult fingerprints. Perhaps someone imagined I’d take up a life of crime! Ah, but the times were more innocent, as evidenced by a place for my social security number, making identity theft easier. That common form of illegality took more years to emerge.

I’m sure my birth overjoyed my parents. Moreover, I quelled my mom’s fears by turning into a good-looking, curly-haired little boy. Well-behaved, too, by all reports.

Why then no additional attention to the book? I imagine my folks had plenty to do, buying the required necessities, doctor’s appointments, teaching me language, and learning how to handle a vulnerable creature. Everything was the first time for them and for me.

Mom told my wife she didn’t understand how to put me into the crib and just dropped me in at first. I hope she bent over a bit. Guidance from her mother couldn’t have been helpful, given grandma’s tendency to criticize.

Still, I would like to know more about my first few years. My children might, too. The time and its history fled like a sandcastle’s erasure by the incoming tide. So are the names of my parents’ youthful friends and distant relatives in the surviving photos stored in the bedroom closet.

Some people look familiar, but not even nicknames or occupations remain, except perhaps in the memory of a few of their descendants. As Goethe expected, names vanish “like sound and smoke.”

Most of us hope to make a mark on the world, something to outlast our lifetime. Children and grandchildren are the only posterity I care much about. That and the continuation of a habitable planet, a republican form of democracy (also called a democratic republic), along with the presence of enough enlightened and committed people to make it so.

As I got older, having achieved more in my life than I imagined (though nothing of grand, historical importance), my ambition slipped away. No major loss. I never persuaded myself of the meaningful value of what the Western World was selling. I didn’t even try.

Beyond what I’ve said, I will add a couple of things you’ll find contradictory and add one more thought as a bonus:

  • I don’t find most well-educated people as rational as they think. And, yes, I include Dr. Stein in this group on occasion.
  • Despite humanity’s irrational pursuits, life can be delightful. I find myself smiling and laughing more than ever.
  • I take myself less seriously, too,

No advice today, just the above observations. Make of these statements as much or as little as you wish. And I should add, try not to carry grudges, but give as much love as you can muster. You will never run out.

Any other way will reduce your well-being and the happiness of those you care about — and those you will care about if you know them.

I guess there was some advice after all.

September 8, 2021

On Adult Attachment to Children

There is nothing like the wordless sadness of a beautiful face dear to you. I’m referring to the small, huggable, wide-eyed ones when overtaken by uncertain illness.

“Mine!” is one of his favorite words, claiming property his bigger brother shows an interest in. The malady, however, offered nothing he wanted to keep.

The upbeat mood of the smiling, sweet-as-chocolate cherub melts in a few minutes. Energy departs, spirit evaporates, words transmute into inexpressable discomfort. The flush of heat rises, but the body descends.

The sick two-year-old loses his chatter.

My youngest grandson does not reach for a hand — doesn’t lead you to a toy, or a place, or try to have you for himself instead of sharing you with his six-year-old brother.

It must be tough to be a little fellow, hard to make your imperfect utterances understood.

Now he wants the hugs only a mom and dad can supply — seeks their comfort and embrace, the safety he can’t describe.

You watch this happen. COVID fertilizes your fear, growing like Jack’s speedy beanstalk. The concern is new, though other epochs had their own dangers — smallpox, polio, plague …

The moppet slumps into slumber. You depart, but the precious person grips your heart, now shadowed by a cloud.

The day passes. Your wife’s sleep is fitful.

The golden boy holds the sorrowful power to instill worry.

Daughter #2, his mother, sends a message early the next day.

A long nap, his parents’ knowing, double-duty attention, food, and more sleep sweep the danger away. The tentative all-clear sounds.

The news makes the sun shine brighter today. The superpowers of small children extend to the stars.

Sir Francis Bacon wrote, “He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.”

What the writer didn’t say might have also been spoken about love. We are held fast by our loves, the closest friends, our offspring, and our grandkids, too.

Those attachments can do far worse to us than the bit of concern we had that day. Much, much worse. Many near misses and joys await. Best not to borrow trouble.

But this two-year-old deserves credit. His bounce-back brought the sky’s warmest blue. Only the dearest hearts inside you do this. He sprinkles fairy dust and doesn’t even know it.

==============

The first photo dates from 1934 and was published in Modern Screen magazine in 1950. The two-year-old girl is Elizabeth Taylor, with her mother Sara Sothern and brother Howard.

The second image was taken by Rita Martin and shows an unnamed child in 1912. Both of the photographs were sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

August 15, 2021

Are You More like Your Parents than You Think?

Judging how much you take after your parents becomes a question of whether you can bear reality, at least if they fell short. 

Short of what?

Benign attributes such as respectability, kindness, or caretaking.

In that case, our forgiving brains tend to airbrush the reflected image shining back at us from the mirror, so we miss the resemblance.

We’d rather observe a face we admire or tolerate than one with enough flaws to trigger the scream, “Oh, no!”

Why?

We are prone not to unsettle our self-evaluation or family relationships. Nor does society want to hear from “ungrateful” children.

A human’s capacity to create a beam of insight into himself and the world always contends with his desire to sleepwalk through the undesirable parts.

Experience suggests the majority choose the parent they like as the one who they most resemble. The adult child also may have acquired a blindspot for his own dark side, the part resembling one or the other guardian.

Clinical psychologists, however, comment on the danger of becoming like the person you hate, as if you received a transfusion of his hot temper or critical nature. Therapists encounter patients with unresolved parental issues with regularity.

Psychotherapists attribute the cause to continuing anger at the one who harmed them. As the top painting illustrates, such emotion gets displaced, whether at another or ourselves.

We all possess the capacity for ire, a quality required for self-defense. If the fund of internal fury looms larger or smaller than conditions justify, it becomes a problem.

Anger turned inward is a longstanding definition of clinical depression. An oversized storehouse of rage within a human receptacle is corrosive no matter where it is directed.

To continue the topic of blindspots, we not only turn from recognition of lamentable similarities to a disliked parent, we often put the “good” one on a pedestal. This calls for a bit of a whitewash to disguise his shortcomings or invent excuses for him.

The paint-over also ignores our favorite’s failure to acknowledge or prevent unfortunate actions by the one we identify as the principal contributor to our unhappiness.

Our folks always require some slack, especially when they lack supportive social institutions, friends, or family to help with childrearing. Neither does single parenthood, and the necessity of moneymaking allow much room for attention to little ones. Inadequate housing, unsafe communities, and more compound the demands of bringing up offspring.

No mom or dad manages the task without mistakes.

Part of our life’s work is to choose models for our behavior. Parents are the obvious and necessary candidates because of every youngster’s long period of dependency. Therefore, the default tendency is to view them as better than they are, lest we live in fear of having no adequate protectors.

With the passage of time and the enlargement of independence, it is beneficial to recognize this pair represents only two versions of pursuing a satisfying life — two sets of values and choices.

Moreover, because they are usually older than we are by a matter of decades, their perspective and guidance do not necessarily fit us.

A wise parent remembers enough of his early years to be helpful. One with little recall of what it means to be young might not do his best.

Nor do those who dismiss the unique difficulties of their children’s lives increase their chances of offering the young ones empathy.

—-

The ability to discover ourselves in our folks must overcome the age difference. The obstacles to seeing sameness are magnified by the physical and psychological differences that come with the passing years.

Allow me to explain.

A dad, say, 30 or more years your senior, later might no longer be the same person he was when governing his life and yours. Aging, personal growth, self-reflection, and experience cause revisions of his former state, though not every alteration enhances his being.

On the other hand, you may begin to recognize similarities not before discernable when you get older. Growth into adulthood should increase psychological awareness, though not everyone becomes enlightened.

Once the wellspring of your existence is dead, of course, he doesn’t run ahead of you in chronological progression, and you might perceive yourself in the later versions of who he was.

Gender differences also hide qualities that would have been discerned had you shared the identical birth assignment of sex with the parent you believe to be less akin to you.

The essential message here is to beware of mutating into a form of yourself you would advise others not to become.

Consider taking an occasional moment to reflect on the characteristics describing those who gave you life. Time and experience sometimes alter the look back.

While I cannot promise what visions then emerge, don’t rule out the possibility of surprise. By examining the contents of old luggage and saved correspondence, the opportunity exists to assume the role of historians of our families and ourselves.

The task can be like reading an outstanding book for a second or third time, spaced years apart. The writing has not changed, but the reader has, thus remaking the words and their meaning.

New discoveries and insights are possible when we revisit the memory of long-departed people, especially those who were once so important. Unrealized gifts can be uncovered even in the baggage they leave behind, including an unsuspected one: your forgiveness of them and its blessing to you.

As I’ve implied, holding anger forever punishes the one who holds it regardless of whether the other ever receives his just deserts.

==========

The top image is called Anger Transference by Richard Sargent, 1954. It was sourced from History Daily. The next one is Happy Parents and Baby by Sheldonl, from Wikimedia Commons.

July 5, 2021

Realizing You Do Not Own Your Child’s Life (and Other Parenting Challenges)

Children ring bells in us. It is as if we were programmed to recognize ourselves in them, often unconsciously. Our instinctive response to feelings, vulnerabilities, and turning points experienced by the offspring touch upon similar vulnerabilities in us at about the same age.

This personal reaction is a historical one triggered by seeing the self in them, a kind of identification.

Significant and challenging things happen to all of us as we grow up. You are now the dear parent. They happened to you, too.

Each new life is vulnerable and tender, not yet hardened to defend itself. Perhaps you suffered humiliation or felt pressured, ignored, bullied, or worse. Maybe you pursued a course you later identified was wrong for you.

The paternal or maternal role now requires thoughtful consideration of how to proceed. Will you give your offspring what they need to avoid the damage you sustained? Perhaps you might push them to make different life selections or sidestep wrong turns you continue to regret.

The decision you made might have been running with the troubled crowd, sex, drugs, or giving up on school to emphasize sports. Numerous possibilities exist.

Haunted by the shadow of the road not taken, you are in danger again. So is the boy or girl in your charge, though not necessarily from the risk you encountered.

Time to look in the mirror.

I am suggesting you, dear parent. Your place in the minor’s life places him or her in jeopardy if you should fumble the job of being a mom or dad.

You face a test of your adequacy as a guardian, one who can separate your own identity from that of your youngster.

For example, your authority allows you to demand this admiring schoolgirl to study. No one will stop you from ominous hovering and harsh enforcement of failure to ensure the desired goal.

The power imbalance also permits you to restrict her participation in social life with people you decide are bad (even when almost everyone looks dangerous to you).

These decisions carry a substantial downside. Take another example. Detective-like inspection for signs of substance abuse (or any other actions you find uncomfortable) may drive the son who loves you toward the behavior you wish to prevent.

Regardless of your motives, results count more than noble intentions.

Other possible pitfalls also await moms, dads — kids and young adults.

Again the question hangs in the air. What do you do with your individual history of upbringing by your folks? You now occupy the role they did.

If you believe they were always right, you might impose a similar manner of child-rearing used with you. If the young one is like you and your parents did a fine job, this style could work.

But what if he isn’t like you? What if the circumstances of his life and the time in which you both now live have changed? Will the default tendency to do unto your child what was done unto you still suffice?

Do you instead believe the teen’s grandparents made dire mistakes with you?

Yes, you say. Will you then dispose of every thought and action they had? Will you throw out even their preference of one faith over another, fish over fowl, and their enjoyment of vigorous exercise?

Understanding you are not your offspring (and he is not you) is essential, no matter the likenesses. To the degree his temperament and inborn talents are different from yours, basing your parenting strategy on what you needed is questionable.

The blueprint for fostering any unformed life must be tailored to whomever he is. When parents say they treated all their children in the same way, I always imagine the fitness of such an approach was doubtful with at least one.

Here is another piece of hard-won advice. I am assuming you are a loving custodian of your kids in all these examples. You gave your infant life, an experience beyond words, the most astonishing of your life. Wishing the best for this helpless, beautiful creature is your desire. She depends upon you for everything.

However, with time, if the child proceeds along the usual route, he acquires skills and the goal of independent life. A moment arrives when he wants to make choices with which you disagree. Say, a different career, school, moving to a new location, or his own vision of the place of religion in his life.

To the extent your ideas don’t match, reasoned discussions should not assume he is mistaken. He may be the wise one in this. In any case, remember this: you gave him life, but you do not own his life.

Our daughters and sons take the captain’s chair on their voyage into the future. They often want our support, but they do not want us as their judge.

Check the proprietorship records or the birth certificate of your kids. What you will find, perhaps in invisible ink, is a rental agreement. The maternal and paternal responsibilities of direction and safekeeping last for a short while, not forever.

After that, the baton is passed to the next runner in the relay race we call world history. He might not be everything you envisioned. Do not let your preconceptions block you from honoring the best in him. He could be less in some areas, but he also may be much more.

========================

The top image is Mother and Child by Pablo Picasso, 1921. In second place comes Oswaldo Guayasamin’s 1989 Ternura. The last masterpiece is Mother and Child by Wilfredo Lam, 1957. The first and final works were sourced from the Art Institute of Chicago. Guayasamin’s painting came from Wikiart.org/

June 10, 2021

The First Young Love

The three-year-old beauty flapped her arms to express her urgency. “Put those away; he’s coming, he’s coming!” The mother smiled and followed orders. The tiny sweetie knew a remarkable young man and his family were about to arrive. She didn’t want him to spot the box containing her diapers. Accidents still happened, knowledge to be hidden from her first love.

Who was the object of her concern and admiration? My not quite six-year-old grandson, the heartthrob of her sister’s kindergarten class.

W met his classmate, the older sister, soon after moving to the new family home. This was their first in-person school experience. Herself a cutie, Maddie sent W a note before her at-home competitor knew of his existence. “I Luv yu,” she scrawled, along with a heart and Cupid’s arrow. Writing, reading, and spelling are new to these kids.

The youthful hero, one of two grandchild carriers of my DNA, is the real deal. He is tall, handsome, and charming. Moreover, my boy is an outgoing storyteller and knows his future profession: paleontologist.

The number of those smitten is growing, sending similar love notes taxing to the postal service. Now you know why the mail is late.

Unfortunately for his admirers, the young man’s mind is on dinosaurs, the extinct creatures of his intended full-time occupation. Live beings hold interest for this prospective scientist for playing, friendship, and nothing more. They are playmates, but not the Hugh Hefner kind.

W has no idea he is the talk of his youthful cohorts and their parents, but he doesn’t appear fazed by the frequent tender offerings from the captured hearts. I’m sure the unawareness of his charm makes him more appealing. Asked by his mom about his matrimonial future, he said he doesn’t ever intend to marry.

Yesterday I watched a video of Mr. Gorgeous making repeated climbs to the top of a pool slide, then giggling all the way down. The young man’s joy should be bottled. The only difficulty was that each of the slides caused his swim trunks to edge south. W’s dad reminded him to pull them up. Insubstantial hips didn’t block the downward drift. God help his fan club if they should discover him this way.

During summer days in safe residential neighborhoods, you might see colored chalk drawings on the sidewalk. Some of these could be the handiwork of female children like those who dream of my oldest grandson. They display many hearts, rainbows, and good wishes.

Lucky adults like me remember those days. The world is simple and benign for such fortunate kids. It is a vision more precious because it isn’t permanent. Still, some will keep the sense of wonder, goodness, and innocence embedded within them — and be better for it.

We should all be so lucky. In the meantime, W and his lady friends — and I do mean friends — warm my heart, bring a smile, and even an occasional tear to my eyes. Such moments make life wonderful.

Note to myself: cherish them.

———-

The image is called Love Since Childhood by Katyatula. It was sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

May 9, 2021

A Basketful of Moms

There are lots of moms out there. You might even have had one yourself. Or more than one.

Here are some to cheer or miss or wish they’d been better:

  • The One Everyone Wants. Loving, supportive, defending us when needed, encouraging and challenging us, too. Always there.
  • The Overburdened Mom. Too many kids, too many jobs, too many issues of her own.
  • The Stepmom. She can be either of the first two, just not the one who gave birth to you. This mother might favor her own kids or accept you as if you arose from her body.
  • The Big Sister Mom. Usually, the oldest sister, especially if you have an overburdened mom.
  • The Nextdoor Neighbor. She might have made you wish she were your own mother.
  • The Favorite Teacher Mom. If you had a winning teacher such as this, I don’t need to tell you how much she influenced and helped you.
  • The Dad Mom. The double-duty father has to take both roles when the mother is absent or ill. He might be a stay-at-home dad when the mother is the breadwinner, too.
  • The Mentor Mom. A supportive guide you find in the workplace.
  • The Role Reversal Mom. She expects you to listen to her and, to some degree, be her moral support and caretaker (long before she gets old). You hear stories from her you shouldn’t hear.
  • The “I Know Better” Mom/Grandma: She won’t accept the second banana, supportive job you’d like her to take with your kids.
  • The Good Mom/Grandma: This lady allows you to grow up whether you have kids of your own or not, and limits her unrequested advice. You are allowed to be an adult, your own person with your own ideas.
  • The Mother Who Played Favorites. Yikes is all I can say.

Well, I’ve probably missed a few, including some of the least admirable, but you get the point. I hope the stork deposited you in the lap of the kind of mother you needed. If not, that you found a substitute elsewhere. An impossible job, for sure, but the most essential one on the globe.

A round of applause to all the best of them and perhaps some kindness even for the rest of them.

And to all of you who are mothers, will be, or wish you could be.

================

The drawing is called Mother and Baby. It comes from a 1923 advertisement for Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound. It was sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

November 22, 2020

Have Men Changed? Curing the Culture of Complaint

We live in a culture of complaint, as Robert Hughes first called it in 1993. Maybe a malicious physician transfused the once belittled stereotype of the angry old white men into the national bloodstream. Some younger men now glorify their righteous anger.

It shouldn’t have been surprising to find the written word “unfairness” used 36% more often in 2018 than in 1961.

Raucous whining was not always tolerated when I grew up. Loud expressions of self-pity and bellyaching served as the stock material of situation comedies. Fulminating males like Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Kramden and Carroll O’Conner’s Archie Bunker depicted the stuff of laughter and futility.

A “real” man projected quiet, decisiveness, and courage, enduring disappointment in silence. Pushed far enough, he settled matters with his fists or on the playing field. After a loss, he got up, shook hands, congratulated his opponent, and returned to do better the next day.

This male accepted the rules. Dads of his kind lived next door to everyone in the 1950s and ’60s. They weren’t an easy bunch, however. A few pushed the family around or worse. Some drank to excess but had comrades and friends who believed in shared sacrifice. Shouldering responsibility was taken for granted.

A dark side lived inside them: crushing, unspoken privacy. One had the sense they kept secrets, things about which they harbored shame.

The “real man” role demanded they carry too much weight, but not the kind measured in numbers on a scale. It came from the psychological armor covering their tender parts. The burden of maintaining a livelihood also added poundage. The home was for the spouse to care for in a time of unmentioned gender discrimination.

Their battlefield, they’d been told, was downtown.

These gents did not kick down or suck up, but the toll of all they were and what they weren’t stalked them. Such fellows put their hearts into fulfilling the standard image of manhood. The ticker continued to beat but also beat them down, failing at an alarming rate in a time before statin medication and a healthy diet.

Much has changed. I’ve described a myth, of course, but one that featured select qualities worth admiring. Its white and black quality matched the lack of color in the movies and on TV. Black men, too, aspired to the white man’s model. They understood endurance.

These fathers were solid. Hard at times, yes, but when a broad hand rested on your shoulder, it encouraged and melted you. You wanted to embody it, to create yourself in the mold out of which it emerged.

The best of men still aspire to a modified version of the old fiction. A new gentleman’s design encourages him to show love to his offspring, listen more, and recite fewer solutions. The spouse is a partner saluted in her desire for fulfillment beyond her mother’s old and conventional slot.

Kids today still want certainty and security from their parents, who, if they allow themselves to remember, recall their own place as children once: young people needful of adults to rely upon.

Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626) acknowledged the challenge: how to persuade your family you will protect them from everything when you aren’t sure you can ensure your own survival.

Bacon believed achieving this required hocus pocus, a magic act of sorts. Guardians hide something, a least for a while:

The joys of parents are secret; and so are their griefs and fears. They cannot utter the one; nor they will not utter the other.

For most, this entails self-deception, burying enough self-doubts to accomplish the charade, both in the competitive workplace and at home.

Perhaps the irate men of today are finding the masquerade more difficult. They return from work without a living wage of the kind their poppas achieved — if they have employment. Many seek a reason for this outside themselves and, it must be admitted, there is no shortage of unfairness to point to.

Our triple troubles of unemployment, inequality, and pandemic enable the defensive closing of too many minds. Certitude takes the place of thoughtful examination. Belief in demigods squeezes out the supreme beings who are neglected once the sabbath is over.

Simplified answers drip from those who would misuse the widespread terror of failing at the basic job of meeting family expenses and caring for one’s kids. Their demagogic rants offer an example their followers imitate.

Francis Bacon recognized this dilemma, too, offering the remedy of mindful inquiry, not unsupported jumps to judgment:

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Despite the distracting and desperate circus performance sometimes masquerading as leadership, the modest, neighborly man and woman deserve respect. The world would do well to toast their everyday labor to make an honorable living and a home.

These decent souls put their families ahead of their own needs. They form the ranks of our best public servants, the people who do their jobs with integrity. This group of adults continues to give us reliance on the democratic republic we live in. Their oath of office binds them to serve the Constitution and not loyalty to any person.

Hope and the possibility of trust survive, partly due to the faceless and nameless citizens who do not place their advancement on the auction block.

Most of us recognize the same values and work to instill them in our children: enough fortitude to overcome hardship, enough effort to meet challenges, and enough humanity to comfort our fellowmen.

In the face of disease and want, the words of Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) add to Bacon’s 400 hundred-year-old guidance. Roosevelt was a daughter of privilege who lost both her parents by age 10. A timid and frightened child by her own report, she became a voice against racism and disadvantage. Her life was a triumph over anxiety and the second-place status of women:

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.‘

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

———————————————————

The painting Freedom from Fear, reproduced above, comes from the Four Freedoms, a series of four 1943 oil paintings by the American artist Norman Rockwell. The paintings—Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear—are each approximately 45.75 inches (116.2 cm) × 35.5 inches (90 cm), and are now in the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The four freedoms refer to President Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s January 1941 Four Freedoms State of the Union address in which he identified essential human rights that should be universally protected. The theme was incorporated into the Atlantic Charter, and became part of the charter of the United Nations. The paintings were reproduced in The Saturday Evening Post over four consecutive weeks in 1943, alongside essays by prominent thinkers of the day.

As noted on the United Nations website, “First lady of the United States of America from 1933 to 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt (photographed above) was appointed, in 1946, as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly by United States President Harry S. Truman. She served as the first Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights and played an instrumental role in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At a time of increasing East-West tensions, Eleanor Roosevelt used her enormous prestige and credibility with both superpowers to steer the drafting process toward its successful completion. In 1968, she was posthumously awarded the United Nations Human Rights Prize.”

As further noted on the UN website, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages.“

May 31, 2020

Finding Trust Without Guarantees

In village days a scoundrel couldn’t conceal his character for a month. But today every time I take my car to the garage or have a prescription filled, I have to trust people I don’t know about things I don’t understand.

Those comments were made over 60 years ago by Huston Smith, a transcendent philosopher of morality and religion. His statement remains valid today. Where does this leave the wisest and most secure of us, not to mention those for whom trust is a luxury of someone else’s unimaginable life?

Smith found reason to believe in many of his fellow-men. He sought those who wrote about virtue and, more crucial, those who lived it.

He knew iniquity exists, as did those he spoke with, but is not the whole of existence.

All of us suffer betrayal. An ex-patient I’ll call by the initials KF told me a tale of uncommon cruelty.

KF was a college student out West during the Vietnam War, before the volunteer army. He commuted to school from home. The husky, black-haired young man was free from military service so long as he remained in good academic standing and carried a full course load.

His father, who abused this fellow when he was small, now charged him rent for shelter and food. Though my client managed the tuition, the old man offered no consideration on living expenses.

Knowing he was at risk of eviction, KF dropped out of school. The military came for him.

During combat in Southeast Asia, KF escaped physical injury, but letters home went unanswered. Once home, he discovered his father had thrown away or sold everything he owned.

Nonetheless, he surmounted the challenge of finding love and making a family better than the one from which he came.

Not all of us are as afflicted as my former patient, but we share his hope of intimacy. James Baldwin recognized the desire and the risky necessity of letting down our guard to get it:

Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

Yet so many of us do go without – without companionship, absent a confidant, and lacking at mate. Some believe the world wouldn’t care if we disappeared from its face.

Anonymity seems the better choice if your pattern is to encounter bullies and the unfaithful. Thieves, narcissists, alcoholics, and abusers possess their own imperfect radar attuned to human vulnerabilities.

Some people hesitate to trust because they have no confidence in their capacity to distinguish the dangerous from the safe. This leaves them writing-off all of humanity or attempting to obtain information from every possible source, as if diligent detective work guaranteed discovery of unquestionable virtue.

Neither approach works. The former souls inhabit a cloud of ignorance and take a stance of perpetual defense. The latter never find “the truth” because they seek endless data, never realizing there will always be a sliver of doubt.

Both types of individuals remain isolated or disguised, little better than existing in a bunker far from anything but momentary ease. Both are exhausted by near-constant scanning for the self-interested and evil. They suffer preoccupation with misgivings over incidental events others forget.

Because they skate past those who might give them respect and kindness, the negative experiences of their life do not find a counterweight on the other side of the scale to persuade them intimacy is worth the risk.

Everything they believe confirms the danger of mankind. They also discount their own value to those few they acknowledge could merit knowing.

There are no perfect people, no purity even among those who give their lives for others or their country. We all hold to our self-interestedness in no small part of our behavior. Such quality enables us to survive.

In his 1788 essay Federalist No. 51, James Madison wrote:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

He and the men whose thoughts inform the U.S. Constitution knew they were not to be found either in government or out.

Nonetheless, our necessary concern for our well-being still permits the possibility of understanding and decency. Humans pull through because of the ability to join together, trust each other, and benefit from the comfort, love, and security they provide and receive from others.

Disappointment in relationships is inevitable. Those you fear may well also be disappointed by your words or conduct. Avoidance or rejection of available friends or lovers can inflict the equivalent injury on them you wish to avoid for yourself.

These challenging times present the opportunity to discover the best and worst of our brethren and the identical characteristics in ourselves.

No guarantees come with a new relationship. Remember this, however. The person who represents to you the potential for connection also looks for the same fulfillment himself.

Perhaps he even searches for it because of the qualities he recognizes in you.

—–

The three photographs are the work of Laura Hedien, with her permission: https://twitter.com/lhedien?lang=en. The first is of Mountain Reflections Near Salt Lake City in January 2020. Next comes A Lightening Storm With Stars Above in Western New Mexico. Finally, Factory Butte, Utah, 2019.

November 17, 2019

Understanding Your Parents

We can blame, accuse, or praise our parents. These acts come to many of us with ease. A more complicated task is to understand them.

An old friend told the following story. His mother was waiting for a baby sitter when he was little. Like all tots, he was attached and needed the security of mom’s nearness.

Having nothing better to do, she decided to hide behind a sofa. No warning was given to her son, no announcement she’d be playing a game of hide-and-seek.

When he called out, she didn’t answer. He ran around the apartment looking. The boy’s search turned into a frenzy. Soon came his screaming breakdown into tears.

Mom jumped out laughing. As my buddy asked me many years later, “What was she thinking?”

Here are some suggestions to help you understand your own parents: what they do, what they don’t, what they think, and how their particular brand of humanity came about:

  • Talk to your grandparents if you still can. Try to find out how they raised their children. Ask them to remember what their small ones were like before and after school arrived in their lives. Observe how these elders connect with their offspring today.
  • Look at old family photos. Ask your folks about them. Who are the unrecognized friends and relatives? What became of the relationships with them?
  • Are the people in the photos happy? If you are captured there by the camera, what was your mood? Was the youthful version of those who parented you remarkably more attractive before time’s transformation? What effect might the change have had?
  • Uncles and aunts are sometimes essential sources of illumination.
  • If you have children of your own, watch how mom and dad interact with them. People do alter, but not everyone does. Their behavior is the closest visible example now available of how they brought you up.
  • One by one, do life history interviews if your father or mother cooperates. Some oldsters will be flattered; others will say no. The reason for their choice might be enlightening.
  • Learn the background of their early years: the places, neighborhoods, and economic circumstances that impacted them. Did they change residences and schools often? With what consequences?
  • Find out about significant life events, the downs and ups of love, vocation, and health. How did they respond?
  • Ask about religion, including movement toward or away from the faith. Do they expect you to “believe” as they do? What values do they hold?
  • How do your caregivers talk about their progenitors? Look at their faces for evidence of emotion. Listen to phone calls between them and your grandparents.

  • Attitudes toward money, status, and material things are useful to know.
  • Friends of the family can supply relevant information if they offer you a factual account. Do your parents maintain long-lasting friendships? Why or why not? When buddies depart or are banished, who gets blamed? Do they make new friends?
  • Research the educational and employment time-line of mom and dad. Did they achieve what they hoped for? How do they explain their success or failure? Do they live to work or work to live?
  • If your folks hold racial, ethnic, or religious biases, attempt to uncover the origin of such beliefs. How do you explain their embrace of diversity or its absence?
  • Do you remind either one of somebody from their past? Were feelings toward those individuals transferred to you because of your likeness? Transference grows not only in a therapist’s office.
  • How do your begetters get along with each other? Who is in charge? Does one criticize the other in your presence or privately express spousal grievances to you? Did you ever occupy the role of a confidant or consoler? Was the keeping of secrets required? Was your well-being considered when they overshared?

  • Do mother and father accept responsibility for their actions? How affectionate are they, how distant?
  • Might they play favorites among their children? Are the ones who gave you life reliable and honest? Do they display preferences among their grandkids? Why?
  • How do these guardians deal with their physical issues, as well as illnesses or injuries you have?
  • In what ways are you like those who cared for you? Don’t say there are no similarities, there always are.

Consider this a start. The understanding of another (not to mention yourself), comes from thinking like a therapist. I’ve offered you questions as a launching pad for your inquiry.

Your understanding will change as life proceeds. Until you reach the stage another person passed through, you lack the knowledge such passage provides.

Attaining a complete grasp of the nature of any life is never achieved in full. In the meantime, remember to live not just a good life, but one enriched by experiences. The clock on your time here is always in motion.

—–

The above images in order: 1. Willem de Kooning, Untitled XI, 1975. 2. Pablo Picasso, Head of a Woman, Summer 1909. 3. Paul Klee, Blossoming. Jackson Pollock, one of his untitled, numbered paintings.