The Scarlet Letter Rerun
I’ve been listening to a pop psychologist during one leg of my commute lately – just half an hour or so on the way home. She can be very annoying the way she cuts people off and quite possibly misses the real point of their calls. But, then, people tend to ramble on, giving way too much background and/or whiny self-justification. I often agree with the advice this woman dispenses, especially when women complain about their husbands. I am all for acknowledging that women have rights equal to the rights of men. However, I do not countenance women usurping the rights of men or subjecting them to emotional abuse. What I see on the TV sitcoms is truly abhorrent in the way the women denigrate the men and browbeat them into believing that to be male is to be wrong. This is not reasonable behavior and it is reprehensible to show it on every sitcom every week, knowing, as we do, that children will accept what they see on TV as the norm for behavior. There is no value to our society in the emotional crippling of men any more than there is in the emotional crippling of women. So far I’m with the doc.
Where I part company with her is when she advises people to throw the children away. She gives lip service to the ideal that children are precious and deserve our best efforts in rearing them but all too often she gives advice that is counter to this ideal. For instance, yesterday she took a call from a woman whose unmarried daughter had just given birth and wanted to come back to live with her, bringing the baby and her boyfriend, who happened to be a parolee. The doc’s instantaneous advice was, “No way.” The daughter had made her bed and must lie in it. If she couldn’t take care of the baby, she was to give the baby up for adoption. She was to take responsibility for her own life and her mother was not to rescue her anymore.
There are several assumptions that underlie this advice that deserve a closer look. First, the fact that the boyfriend is a parolee does not necessarily mean that he cannot be or become a good citizen. Must we all shun parolees so that they can never associate with any but other parolees – which by the way, it’s against the law for parolees to associate with each other – and never have a chance to re-enter mainstream society? Are the rest of us, the ones who are not on parole, really that much better? I think a little reflection will show us that a bit of compassion might be in order. If it appears that this parolee is not yet ready to shoulder his responsibilities, then by all means, cast him into the outer darkness. But leave an opening so he can have a relationship with his child if that should be feasible.
Secondly, the doc in question is the mother of a son but evidently not the mother of a daughter. In my admittedly limited experience, having had only one daughter and one mother, the mother-daughter tie is very strong. Even in situations of great emotional tension, the bond is tight. It is not the work of a moment to sever this tie and tell a daughter to take her baby and go to the devil if she must but don’t come home. That would certainly teach the daughter something about responsibility but are there no other lessons to be learned in this situation? Perhaps the mother could learn something about giving and receiving. Perhaps the daughter could learn something about gratitude and a love that surpasses human understanding. Perhaps the baby could learn something about mothers standing together to protect each other and their own.
If this mother takes the advice and disallows her daughter and grandchild to take refuge with her, I predict dire consequences for all three. The mother will suffer guilt of an intensity that will at times make her wish she were dead. The daughter will sink into poverty and suffer the torment of not being able to feed and shelter her child adequately. There is a host of possible outcomes, most of which are painful. Few of the happy possible outcomes are likely. It is extremely doubtful that she will give her baby to adoptive parents, which means that the baby will probably live in poverty and deprivation and will quite possibly never be able to pull herself out of it.
Thirdly, if the daughter should allow her child to be adopted, what makes this psychologist think the child will automatically live a life of middle-class affluence with two loving parents? Adoptive parents are not necessarily better at parenting than birth parents. They are screened for income levels and criminal records but there is much more to good parenting than those considerations. Most adoptive parents are loving and most adopted children live good lives with them. But it isn’t automatic. Death, divorce, bankruptcy, job loss, mental illness, disease, and accident can happen to any family. And every parent has psychological quirks to some degree that children must learn to live with. It is a rare and fortunate child who leaves childhood without some emotional scarring inflicted by faulty parenting.
The most important consideration is spiritual. I do not believe that life on Earth is meant for us to live the most selfish and hedonistic lives that we can manage to create for ourselves. I believe that we are entitled to comfort and even happiness and that we should work toward those goals. But we are not individual units, who should be working for our own good irrespective of our fellows. We are interconnected and we must work for our communal good. When our children stumble, even if they are grown up, we help them regain their balance. When our parents stumble, we reach out a steadying hand. When our neighbors stumble, we work together to smooth the way.
It is imperative for our own spiritual good that we practice humility and realize that as our faults have been forgiven by our parents, children, and spouses, we must forgive their faults. If theirs are different from ours, even if we think they are so much worse than ours, we must remain compassionate and seek to help, not withdraw into self-righteousness and refuse to help lest we seem to condone sin. It may be hard, it may seem futile, it may cost us terribly in money, time, and frustration. The golden rule must be honored. Above all, we mustn’t turn our children and grandchildren away from our homes and our love. What good is a home if it doesn’t shelter our loved ones? What’s the point of love if we refuse it to our own?
Where I part company with her is when she advises people to throw the children away. She gives lip service to the ideal that children are precious and deserve our best efforts in rearing them but all too often she gives advice that is counter to this ideal. For instance, yesterday she took a call from a woman whose unmarried daughter had just given birth and wanted to come back to live with her, bringing the baby and her boyfriend, who happened to be a parolee. The doc’s instantaneous advice was, “No way.” The daughter had made her bed and must lie in it. If she couldn’t take care of the baby, she was to give the baby up for adoption. She was to take responsibility for her own life and her mother was not to rescue her anymore.
There are several assumptions that underlie this advice that deserve a closer look. First, the fact that the boyfriend is a parolee does not necessarily mean that he cannot be or become a good citizen. Must we all shun parolees so that they can never associate with any but other parolees – which by the way, it’s against the law for parolees to associate with each other – and never have a chance to re-enter mainstream society? Are the rest of us, the ones who are not on parole, really that much better? I think a little reflection will show us that a bit of compassion might be in order. If it appears that this parolee is not yet ready to shoulder his responsibilities, then by all means, cast him into the outer darkness. But leave an opening so he can have a relationship with his child if that should be feasible.
Secondly, the doc in question is the mother of a son but evidently not the mother of a daughter. In my admittedly limited experience, having had only one daughter and one mother, the mother-daughter tie is very strong. Even in situations of great emotional tension, the bond is tight. It is not the work of a moment to sever this tie and tell a daughter to take her baby and go to the devil if she must but don’t come home. That would certainly teach the daughter something about responsibility but are there no other lessons to be learned in this situation? Perhaps the mother could learn something about giving and receiving. Perhaps the daughter could learn something about gratitude and a love that surpasses human understanding. Perhaps the baby could learn something about mothers standing together to protect each other and their own.
If this mother takes the advice and disallows her daughter and grandchild to take refuge with her, I predict dire consequences for all three. The mother will suffer guilt of an intensity that will at times make her wish she were dead. The daughter will sink into poverty and suffer the torment of not being able to feed and shelter her child adequately. There is a host of possible outcomes, most of which are painful. Few of the happy possible outcomes are likely. It is extremely doubtful that she will give her baby to adoptive parents, which means that the baby will probably live in poverty and deprivation and will quite possibly never be able to pull herself out of it.
Thirdly, if the daughter should allow her child to be adopted, what makes this psychologist think the child will automatically live a life of middle-class affluence with two loving parents? Adoptive parents are not necessarily better at parenting than birth parents. They are screened for income levels and criminal records but there is much more to good parenting than those considerations. Most adoptive parents are loving and most adopted children live good lives with them. But it isn’t automatic. Death, divorce, bankruptcy, job loss, mental illness, disease, and accident can happen to any family. And every parent has psychological quirks to some degree that children must learn to live with. It is a rare and fortunate child who leaves childhood without some emotional scarring inflicted by faulty parenting.
The most important consideration is spiritual. I do not believe that life on Earth is meant for us to live the most selfish and hedonistic lives that we can manage to create for ourselves. I believe that we are entitled to comfort and even happiness and that we should work toward those goals. But we are not individual units, who should be working for our own good irrespective of our fellows. We are interconnected and we must work for our communal good. When our children stumble, even if they are grown up, we help them regain their balance. When our parents stumble, we reach out a steadying hand. When our neighbors stumble, we work together to smooth the way.
It is imperative for our own spiritual good that we practice humility and realize that as our faults have been forgiven by our parents, children, and spouses, we must forgive their faults. If theirs are different from ours, even if we think they are so much worse than ours, we must remain compassionate and seek to help, not withdraw into self-righteousness and refuse to help lest we seem to condone sin. It may be hard, it may seem futile, it may cost us terribly in money, time, and frustration. The golden rule must be honored. Above all, we mustn’t turn our children and grandchildren away from our homes and our love. What good is a home if it doesn’t shelter our loved ones? What’s the point of love if we refuse it to our own?
posted by Barbara J. Olexer @ 10:43 AM
1 comments
