[Title courtesy of CSNY]
I had some wonderful discussions with my daughter today. Issues she is having with her mother came up and, thus, we got into parenting. Seems Mary (the ex) is sorry about some of the things we did or did not do as parents.
With Sara graduating from college soon and entering "the real world" (her term, not mine. I used to use it, but no more.) we talked a bit about her losing the support of her friends; the people she has relied on the most over the last 4 years. She brought up how she is a bit scared of losing this support group, but that one thing she has learned is that she is good at quickly making friends, so she can deal with it.
I mentioned that the frequent moving was one of my parental concerns over the years, but that I had always consoled myself (and tried to console Mary) that it made the kids good at quickly making friends, and learning that often in life the "good ones" do move on.
See, Mary grew up in the same house until she graduated from high school and left to become "surrogate" mom to her eldest brother’s 3 kids at the ripe age of 18. I moved a few times as a kid, but the main formative years were spent in one location. Either way, we both grew up in safe, secure neighborhoods surrounded by people who would look out for us in one manner or another. We were able to roam reasonably freely and widely, and got the lay of the land for miles around. It was a very stable and steady influence. My kids did not have that in any sense. Mary and I often worried about the effects of constant moving on them, considering that our childhood and adolescence were vastly different.
This discussion with my "baby" girl really heartened me. She is happy with what she learned from the frequent moving. She does not regret that she did not have a (geographically) steady life. She had plenty of close friends who did, and they often discuss such things. She figures why regret what she didn’t have since she can’t even begin to imagine what that would have been like.
Both of the kids learned to make friends quickly and, often, deeply. They have learned to value those friendships no matter how long they may have together (geographically). Another thing they both, thankfully, learned was to be good judges of character. Making deep friendships quickly with the wrong sorts, which was an equally plausible outcome, would not have been a good. But we all got lucky on that one, I guess.
Sara and I discussed a few other things about what Mary and I did "right" and "wrong" in our child-rearing. The main thing was that Sara is generally happy with what we managed to do despite ourselves (my words, not hers). Have I ever mentioned how much I love this kid, and how very, very proud I am of her?
One thing that came up, due to one of Mary’s regret, is her (Sara’s) religious upbringing or, more accurately, lack thereof. Mary was raised Catholic, but wasn’t really practicing when I met her. I was raised Southern Baptist and have been agnostic since long before I met Mary. So we just kind of avoided any specific religious "training" of our children. We figured they could choose when they were ready. We were happy to let them go to church with friends, and so on.
Sara’s regret is definitely not that we didn’t indoctrinate her into some belief, but that we didn’t give her a broader cultural understanding of various religions. Her most critical "complaint" is that she has no cultural grounding in the literature of the Bible. She does not get cultural Biblical references. Her other "complaint" was that being at a school with many, and having many friends who are, Jews she knew nothing about Judaism.
Now, I agreed with her that on this count we "failed" her. I couldn’t have fully done so back then. But, and Sara does realize this, we were in no good position to provide that sort of education. What the heck did white, middle class, Midwestern kids who were born around 1960 know about Judaism? Other than over 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust, we had no cultural or societal references. I don’t know about Mary, but if I knew any Jewish folks I did not know it. I certainly did not know any practicing Jews. Nor did I see them in my neighborhood or schools.
As for the Bible and cultural references, well, I was not in the right place mentally, nor was I properly educated at the time, to realize the vast amount of Biblical cultural references, nor to respect the Bible for the great literature that it is. Heck, as recently as my divorce (1999) I still did not. But I quickly "got religion" as they say. I got a Bible or 2 in the divorce and immediately donated them to the library. Or maybe I threw them away. I honestly don’t remember.
But after a few years at an institution of higher learning and embarking on a quality liberal arts education I came to realize the value of the Bible as a reference source and as the great literature and guide to living that it is. I also learned some honest history of its coming to be, which further cemented its value on those counts into my mind while simultaneously cementing the belief that it cannot be the word of God. I quickly rectified the lapse in my collection and bought a good (used) KJV Bible complete with concordance. And it gets used on occasion. I would also, someday, like to re-read much of it as the great literature that it is.
[On a side note, related to my comments on surveys from Tues night, I recently saw a survey from some Christian organization that was basing claims on how overwhelmingly Christian the US is based on the number of Bibles owned. What a completely stupid claim! Anyone who tried to imply anything based on my owning a Bible, other than that I own a Bible, is a complete moron. The fact that I do reflects absolutely nothing about my religion, my religiosity, my spirituality, or anything else, other than I own one. It would be like claiming that anyone who owns Marx is a communist, or that anyone who owns Mein Kampf is a nazi. Simply ridiculous! Oh, yeah. Idiots do make those claims though. <sigh> An interesting thought, though, is that it is often the same sort of people making those claims who want to make claims based on my owning a Bible. Hmmm!]
Anyway, we were not prepared in many ways to give our children the broad cultural education in religion that they deserved. Now, Sara has rectified some of that on her own. She took a comparative religion class in college, and she took at least one class in Japanese religions, or maybe just Shintoism. But I do feel the pain of failure in her lack of cultural references to the Bible. She does realize that she does have some control in that she could, and should, invest the time to read it on her own.
So, all in all, I left with my heart singing after talking with my beloved daughter today. We mostly did OK, even better than OK. She is an incredible young adult and I could not be more proud of her. By the way, for many, many years I gave all child-rearing credit to Mary. She was, thankfully, a stay-at-home mom and she did an incredible job! I still give her much credit, but I now [and my children make sure of it] take some of the credit.
Sara is confident. But not in some stupid "false confidence" [see my comments here] that is claimed for the rest of her generation. Yes, she and her older brother were much more constricted than their mother and I were. Yes, they had bike helmets…. But they were both challenged. They both were in gifted programs. They took AP classes and tests. They were challenged. They DID NOT get gold stars because ALL the kids did. They were taught to challenge themselves, and they learned that failure, sometimes deep and painful and possibly with serious consequences, happens to us all when we chase our dreams, or even just the object of our immediate attention.
Neither she, nor her brother, are some stupid list of what their generation supposedly is. In some ways, yes. In many ways, not at all. And some of those yeses, well, you need to know their history because it matters. All that crap about growing up completely wired, playing games, blah blah. Yes, they both play video games, now. But neither one of them started playing these games until late in high school. And so on.
Is there any question as to why I get so offended by all of the pop sociology that passes for gen-gens? [Thanks again, Walt! By the way, did you take it out of your post? I wanted to link for attributional purposes but I couldn't find it, even with Ctrl-F.] ["Gen-gens, generational generalizations. Walt Crawford.]
And lest anyone wonder, I so very deeply love, and am proud to the depths of my soul of, my son. But for vastly different reasons. And while my daughter and I may be at the top of our relationship "game," and my son and I may be near the bottom (but recovering) of ours, that has absolutely no effect on how much I love, or am proud of, him. I only wish he’d believe that. Or maybe I should say feel it. I know all about the disconnect between knowing, believing and feeling [See very end of post.]. They all have their places, but often in personal relationships the feeling is vastly more important. Hopefully all three are present simultaneously, but if I had to choose one, sign me up for the emotion.
Who could have guessed that the hour and a half spent with my daughter could have mattered so much. For once that stupid phrase, "quality time", also part of her and her brother’s generations, actually meant something. Quality time indeed! And now I’m sitting here in a bar trying not to cry, but not really caring if I do. Sometimes my heart simply breaks from the sheer amount of love I have for (adult) children.
On a day when I’m missing my father an awful lot, it was lovely to read about a father’s love for his daughter.
And, I laughed out loud as I was reading. I’m that kid — the one with no clue as to the Bible, and all of the wacky cultural references that American Christians instinctively understand. I once failed an oral presentation in a Spanish literature class because, as I presented on the symbolism of a short story, I didn’t list that the main character repeated “why have you forsaken me?” to everyone he met. Which I didn’t list because I didn’t realise it was a religious reference. How was I supposed to know? I was a secular kid raised by lapsed Catholics. I spent a lot of time in college, sitting at dinner in the cafeteria, asking my friends things like, “Will someone please tell me what “prodigal son” means?” or “So, give me a quick rundown on Job.”
Because it’s everywhere. Anyone who wants to proclaim that we have a secular culture should try being secular (and, I imagine, religious but not Christian) in America. It’s not as easy as you might think.
That is the best compliment I could ever receive; thank you Jenica!
Yes, it is hard to be secular in our society. And, thank you for bringing in the being religious but not Christian aspect. I wanted to, but I was trying (for once) to stay focused, but the thought had crossed my mind.
The other side of your point that I considered even more, was that there must be amazing cultural references from other religions. Of course, many of those aren’t real prevalent in Western literature and culture, or at least I am assuming. Maybe they are there and we just don’t know it. Then again, many Biblical stories are taken pretty much whole cloth from prior religions/mythologies.
Again, thank you for making my morning as I get ready to dive into following up on the many comments over the past day or so.
First, the link: http://walt.lishost.org/?p=271
The problems are (1) that I coined “gen-gen” in a comment, not in the post itself (assuming that I did coin the term), (2) that the search tool expects “gen gen” and returns a chunk of the archives that includes that post, not the post itself.
Second, re your post (a fine one): I had the good fortune to be raised Methodist–in a family of thinkers. Methodism has a nice creed: The only priest is the individual. The folks up front–the ministers/pastors–are teachers, not priests. Only you can decide what you believe. And the Sunday school, at least where I was, was in fact “school” more than “indoctrination.” I learned to value KJV as literature, including the erotic poetry in one book and the final episode, where I have a strong belief in the origins of the episode but won’t mention it here… And learned to value the clarity, but certainly not the literary quality, of RSV. It’s true: Without having at least skimmed the Bible, you miss a lot of cultural references.
(I could tell you about going to what my parents believed was a Methodist summer camp, but was really a Free Methodist summer camp, and having my RSV Bible confiscated because it was written by a bunch of godless Communists, where the KJV was directly dictated by God. And about getting into trouble in sunday school when I did a project on the Apocrypha. But never mind.)
I suspect exposure to Judaism was easier growing up in California–and certainly going to UC Berkeley and staying in a student co-op!
Did you know that one of the great resources for understanding the historic, geographic, and cultural aspects of the Bible is Isaac Asimov’s Guide to the Bible? A fine piece of work, well-regarded by many mainstream theologians–and Asimov was an outright atheist.
Doh! Thanks Walt. I guess I was just repaying your “smart or semantic” issue with a similar mind lapse.
I knew it was that post, and I’m pretty sure I knew it was in a comment. I do get blind on occasion, but at least now I can blame it on the bifocals.
Thanks for passing along the interesting personal experiences from another part of the country. I vaguely think I was aware of the Asimov, but I’ll make sure I pass it along to Sara and maybe look for a used copy myself.
Re: other cultural/religious references — I wonder the same thing. What richness of reference and nuance of understanding am I missing, in this ever-increasingly-global culture of ours?
And so several books with words like “encyclopedia”, “dictionary”, “gods”, and “religion” in the titles sit on my bedside table. And I’m making note of the Asimov.
Son,
When I grew up, mainly in the 50′s, no one talked about other religions or cultures. I had friends who where Catholic, Jewish, Baptist and probably others that I was not aware of. We accepted each other and even hung out in a group together but didn’t date each other for the most part (my folks would not let me date a Catholic boy because I might marry him). I had friends who where African American who were ‘black’ in the 50′s. We didn’t hang out because society wouldn’t let us but we accepted each other at my school and work, we were friends as much as would be allowed. I know this is not necessarily your topic, I just needed to say it.
Rachel, your niece, isn’t religous but her parents have allowed and even taken her to different church services, especially around the holidays. She has Jewish friends and has gone to Bar Mitzvah’s.
I guess what I am trying to say that ‘times are a changing’ and your niece and your children can and are more tolerant of others religions, race and cultures…of people in general than you or I could have been in the 50′s, 60′s or 70′s on.
As to raising your kids, I have learned that a person can only do the best that they can do with what they know at the time. We all make mistakes when we raise our kids, I most difinitely did but unfortunately, they don’t come with instuctions. We as parents, teach, guide, train, discipline and protect our children the best way that we can, at the time.
It is true that sometimes when you are older, you become wiser. I do not profess to being wise in all things, I have just learned a few things along the way. I do know that I might have been able to do a much better job at raising you and your sister if I had known some of the things that I know now. But maybe that is the responsiblity of the child when they become a adult. No child is going to have all the needed answers when they reach adulthood, and I for one, would not want them to. If they did, there would never be any exploring, understand, learning, growing, making mistakes – falling flat on their face and having to pull themselves up again and learning from those mistakes. And best of all, forgiving your parents for messing up your life for you. There needs to be a point in every young adult life where he/she become a better person, no matter how they were raised.
When I was a teenager, I found a saying that said “Rise above me.” I didn’t understand it until I had children. I wanted my children to ‘rise above me’ in many areas; education, compassion, tolerance, you name it. We all want our children to do better than we did. My children did rise above me and I am so glad they did. They got a better education than me and they can and are more tolerant of others than I was allowed by society to be. I am very proud of my children and my grandchildren. I don’t know what my grandchildren will do with their lives but I hope that they will be a compassionate, kind person, whatever they do.
Mom, you did a wonderful job!
Sure, in some alternate reality things could’ve been different, but this is the one we got.
And I don’t want to hear that “My children did rise above me…” crap. We may have got more education than you, and maybe we were able to see more of the world and become a bit more diverse and tolerant than you, but every time I start thinking about how much my life sucks and how’d I’d be better off without myself I think of you and all the shit you have and still do put up with. I could never do it! You simply amaze me; all of the time!
You did your best and we turned out OK. Besides, my own development has been under my control for longer than it was under yours at this point; it’d be pretty petty to blame things on you now.
Sign me,
Your ever loving and ever amazed son.