A comment on the post below addresses my stating "overarching" goal for my children: that they be happy. You can read the comment for yourself, but my effort to avoid prolixity for once appears to have left some room for misconstruction.
Saying that I want my children to be happy is a deep statement for me, since I've worked long and hard to achieve my own understanding of what that means and yea, verily, to achieve it for myself. I like to think that my personal mission in that regard has been accomplished. But I'm an experienced traveler on the Road to Happiness, and I think one of my main responsibilities as a parent--besides the usual provision of food, water, and a roof--is to share with my children the fruits of my experience, whether that's an understanding that hard work and failure (sometimes at the same time) are both legitimate and necessary options or a belief that sometimes, going your own way--even if you're alone--is just fine, thank you.
It certainly is not an empty phrase or an empty desire that I think can be filled with toys or money or whatever their little hearts yearn to have. When I think about happiness, I am looking down a long road, one that they'll have to travel and maneuver and manage, full of bumps and obstacles. At the end of that road lies Happiness, that peace you feel when you know who you are and accept who you are. Some of us reach the end of that journey sooner than others. For some of us, it takes many stops, detours, dead ends, before we finally reach the core of what is Self. But making peace with that core is, in my mind, what happiness is. If I can at least serve as an experienced tour guide for my children on their journey, I will, and I will do so without any false offerings of a magic pill that will make them into something they are not. You can see why working this into a post deriding a comparison between polio and autism would have been a tad...awkward.
What I mean by happiness has absolutely nothing to do with the material world--in fact, I probably mean anything but that. Even if I had $10-G to drop on a birthday party, that would never happen. I don't believe in excess--not of expenditure or material acquisition or food intake or emotion. I find it repellent. The only excess in which I indulge is an excess of words--words taken in and words pouring out. And in the interests of restating, as succinctly as possible, my original overarching goal for my children, I have this to say: All I want is for my children to learn to be at ease with themselves, to be happy about who they are. That's about as happy as any of us can be.
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8 comments:
Thanks for reacting to my comment in the register in which it was given.
I suspect we are on the same page, singing the same tune, with slightly different lyrics--as they should be, given the difference between our parenting statuses (stati?)
My three kids are all more-or-less neurotypical.
My three kids are 30, 28, and 19. The oldest two (my stepsons) are launching into parenthood themselves. The youngest is away from home, in college, for the first time.
And I live and work (I'm an educational therapist) in a high-pressure community--"all our children are not only above average, they excel." I think my knee-jerkiness has to do with the reluctance of parents in my area to let their kids struggle and fail....and to learn the tremendous lesson of getting up and trying again. And of the inability of parents in my area to understand the importance of supporting the kid in getting up on his (or her) own self.
Well, I'm ranging far afield here from the thrust of your original post, and the follow-on post.
I think that we agree that what we want is for our children to feel complete in their own selves.
And -- at some point (if you are still in the greater Northern California Metropolitan Area) we should meet for real-life, real-time conversation.
And thanks for not taking offense at my...knee-jerkiness.
Liz, I completely understand the knee jerkiness. I deliberately want my children to try and to fail, to fight and fall down and then pick themselves up again and start it all over. And I live in a very similar school district with parents who try so hard to shield their children from everything, and I wonder whether it will be so much more painful for these kids when they learn those inevitable lessons about struggle and earning and failing. We're big proponents on self sufficiency around here, and we push it, autism or not. Just ask poor TH, who had to survive a brutal piano practice last night.
We're (unfortunately and fortunately--Jordan likely will understand that) no longer in SF, but I'll probably be out there in August. I'll get in touch if we're headed that way.
I know this post wasn't really aimed towards being a rant on materialistic parents, but as a very new dad, that's a topic that really got me - and keeps resurfacing frequently.
The "showing love through deluging my child with stuff" mode of parenting is, IMO, not only misguided, but also considerably lazy. As I told a co-worker recently, my child doesn't need whizbang toys and interactive gizmos - he needs attentive and interactive parents. You can imagine the stunned, deer-in-the-headlights look I got from Mr. Gen-X.
For his birthday party we held yesterday, my wife's mom & uncle confessed feeling very guilty because they had not known what to buy him for a gift. We quickly - honestly - explained that the very best gift he could receive was their presence. Considering their advanced age and declining health, we consider any time he gets to spend with them to be part of a priceless gift worth far more than any "thing" they could ever give him. I only fear that they'll be gone before my toddler is old enough to see that value too.
I forgot to say last night--the circle time pillow is awesome.
You all would love the book I am reading right now: "The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids" by psychologist Madeline Levine. It's so good that I have flagged far too many pages. She has a private practice in Marin County, I believe, which might interest Liz Ditz...it sure rings true to my experience as an SLP in Marin, but of course this problem is not isolated to that part of the country.
Jordan, thanks for the suggestion. Liz, aw, thanks. I feel very crafty having produced something like that.
Rob, TH likes trees so much and we were so sick of all the nonsense with toys that by the time he was...I think four...we had his birthday party and simply asked anyone who wished to plant a tree or donate for the planting of a tree. It was an idea that TH really liked. And we've also done the "no gifts please" thing, as well. I just can't stand all that...stuff.
The only presents I really enjoy nowadays are new music, books and the occasional Batman: The Animated Series DVD set. :)
As for happiness, my journey has been a long one as well. And I'm still on it, obviously (the alternative is death).
I'm pulling the starving artist grad student motif right now. It's amazing what a full-sized meal can do for one's happiness. My standards are rather low right now. Basic.
The thing that I do that's different from the old me is that I listen to myself and I support myself. I mean, I'm always with me, you know?
Thank you, Emily for linking me to your site and this conversation. Nice to meet you.
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