Conflicting Expectations

Unfortunately, I am lacking in gender qualification and personal experience when it comes to describing and analysing the development of male children. Although, I am aware of what is was like to grow up female in the latter half of the twentieth century I lack insight into the male condition. According to a popular book, I don't even come from the right planet! If it is true that men come from Mars and women come from Venus, then I am looking at the male experience through Venusian coloured glasses. However, I do believe that sanity, spirituality and having a life (SSAHAL) are similiar for both sexes.

The Parental Fallacy

If parents, authority figures and school systems wish to produce emotionally healthy and competent young people, they need to perceive each child as unique and valuable in her own right. The child is not a product or a result of parental and social conditioning. Such conditioning definitely influences the development, attitude and skills of the child; however, profound differences of character and temperament are visible even in infants.

James Hillman's The Souls Code covers the topic of the parental fallacy far more adequately than I could. It stresses the fact that although we tend to categorise children and people according to age, social status, certain skills, and common characteristics, each child possesses a singular identity and a unique way of being. It is up to the parent and the social system to provide the child with opportunities and encourage her development as an individual and as a member of society. Being accepted as part of the family, group and community is important, since these factors also influence the child's sense of self and her ability to function in society. However, this does not mean that a child is merely a by-product of parental and social conditioning.

Although childhood experiences are not the sole determinants of whether a person will be a sane, spiritual and autonomous adult, they play a major role. I am including a few examples to illustrate this process and its consequences, negative and positive. The characters in each example are fictional, though they reflect a certain reality. However, I will give more attention to the functional and dysfunctional development of girl children, because I feel more qualified and comfortable writing about them.

SSAHAL (Sane, Spiritual and Having a Life)

Between 12 and 18 months of age Sara discovered music. She realised by pursing her lips and curling her tongue, she could make the most extraordinary sounds. She could create beautiful noises by taking an ordinary word and prolonging its duration "Maaaaaaaaaa h" and its pitch. There seemed no end to the sounds Sara could produce and when she discovered the kitchen cabinet world of music makers, she was in heaven. Her musical repetiour extended exponentially when she learned to bang pots and pans together, hit them with a spoon or with her chubby hands and feet. Sara's mother was in favour of exploring this talent and often made sounds back at Sara. "BO!" was a mutual favourite, but her father really got Sara's career under way, when he came home with a small set of bongo drums.

NOT SSAHAL

Doug's decision to become a wolf could be explained by his early exposure to howling dogs and screaming adults. In a fit of good will, Doug's father decided that the children needed a family pet. Unfortunately he did not consider that keeping a large dog tied up in the back yard for weeks and months on end, was not conductive to the animal's health and happiness, neither did it assure peace and tranquillity in the neighbourhood. Doug enjoyed the sounds the dog made and was well on the way to emulating them when the rope securing Fang tore through. The liberated canine made a mad dash through the garden, knocked over Doug's wind up swing and ran out into the street. Doug was not too impressed by his fall and added his screams to the rage noises of his father, the cries of his mother and the peculiar sound the dog made after the car ran over it. Consciously or unconsciously, he never forgot the amount of attention the howling dog received once it broke free. Doug's hatred of any form of restraint, his refusal to comply with the requests of authority figures and his adult habit of baring his teeth and snarling when thwarted could be traced to this particular incident.

SSAHAL

Julia had just mastered the intricacies of the potty-chair, when she developed a fascination with the design, construction and variety of diverse potty-chair rooms. She spend as much time as possible in the family bathroom, determining which objects could float or sink in the adult size potty chair. She enjoyed creating her own whirl pool with a simple pull of a lever and insisted on visiting all bathrooms, when ever her parents took her out. While her parents were delighted with Julia's bladder control and her unfailing determination not to have an accident, they were baffled by her choice of play areas and more than a little irritated by the size of their plumbing bill."

"It's just a stage, she's going through", they told each other and "all children are fascinated by bathrooms." However, after an upchucking toilet flooded the entire lower floor of the house they decided to limit their three-year-olds favourite pastime. Fitting the two and a half bathrooms with "child proof" locks worked for a while, but Julia's resulting misery and accidents (not to mention the time her grandmother couldn't get the door opened) made their solution more of a problem than an answer. After due consideration of the real hazards of Julia's hobby, her parents decided the real flaw was not in their daughter's mode of play, but in the design of the toilet bowl receptacle. There-upon, Julia's father designed a fine meshed wire net, carefully fitted it in the toilet bowel and made sure Julia's grandmother had her own key to the bathroom. Although Julia eventually grew out of her fascination with bathrooms and their fixtures, in later years she credited her father with setting her on a career path of ergonomic research. She made her mark in life by designing buildings, kitchen's and bathrooms to suit the special needs of children, elderly and disabled individuals.

NOT SSAHAL

By the time Ellen was four years old, she knew she was an evil child and would be the death of her mother. She did not look forward to becoming a matricide. However, judging from her parent's reactions to her behaviour, she was afraid that she had little or no choice in her future vocation. Even at age four she was well acquainted with the peculiar circumstances of her birth. She may not have understood all of the words her mother used, nor why it took "24 hours of sheer agony!" for her to come into the world. She had trouble understanding why she was more difficult than the rest of her siblings or a source of pain to her mother. However, the one thing she was sure of, was that eventually she would fulfil her mother's prophecy and be the death of her!

Confirmation of Ellen's future came on the occasion of her fourth birthday. Lured into her mother's pristine kitchen by the aroma of a chocolate cake baking in the oven, Ellen peeked in the oven. Unfortunately, she was not acquainted with oven mitts nor aware of the need to keep unprotected hands out of the oven. The pain from her burned fingers was so upsetting; she failed to notice that while the bright flames of the gas stove were no longer sparkling, a funny smell was filling the kitchen. This was not altogether Ellen's fault; the stove had malfunctioned in the past. However, her mother was too busy dressing Ellen's fingers to notice and when her father lit a cigarette just inside the kitchen door the resulting explosion nearly blew the side out of the family home.

Oddly enough Ellen did not grow up to murder either of her parents, she married a physically abusive control freak and ended up being murdered herself.

SSAHAL

Billys first day at school provided an excellent opportunity to demonstrate his unerring aptitude for speaking the truth and shaming the devil. At six years of age, he hadn't mastered the dynamics of tact, the art of telling little white lies, or of conforming to the expectations of authority figures. He was perfectly willing to reveal the most intimate particulars of his physical body and was moderately surprised when he was sent to the principle's office after removing significant portions of his clothing during show and tell.

Billy wasn't aware keeping one's pants on at all times was a critical factor in a child's academic progress. Being brought up by liberal minded, new-age parents, he assumed his body was not something to be ashamed of or hidden away. Unfortunately, the teacher and his giggling classmates did not see it that way; so he was banished from the classroom and his mother was summoned. Upon her arrival, she was informed her son was engaging in "Inappropriate behaviour" and the principle suggested that Billy might be too immature to be starting school just yet. Since Billy not only knew his ABCs but could actually read and write and was normally helpful and cheerful, she had trouble understanding why he would be considered immature or a troubled child.

After Billy's transgression had been described, she turned to her son and asked, "Why did you take your pants down Billy?"

Smiling, Billy replied, "I was getting itchy, mummy." At that point, Billy's mother asked the principle if either he or the first grade teacher had inquired into his reasons for stripping off his pants. After being apprised of their belief that Billy was "acting out" to gain attention, she removed him from school, set up a home teaching course and eventually put him into a special school for bright and inventive children. Billy traced his adult success as a father and a foster parent to his mother's insistence that he be treated as an individual instead of labelled as a troubled or immature child.

Not SSAHAL

Mary started seeing the psychiatrist when she was eight years old and was put on anti-depressants when she was nine and a half. "She is an intelligent child "her teacher said in her school report," but her inattentiveness, extreme shyness and emotional sensitivity make her difficult to teach." Quiet, unobtrusive Mary was one of those children who are overlooked in a large classroom and it was likely that nobody would have noticed her profound sadness and isolation if her parent's hadn't demanded improved grades. Mary's parents, especially her father, were full of high hopes for her success and never wasted an opportunity to enter her into a contest, a beauty pageant, or a new course. Mary's days were so full of activity, she rarely had time to make friends, play tag or read a book. Her manners were perfect; she attended tennis camp every summer, alternated between ballroom dancing and gymnastics in the winter, and had a closet full of white and pink dresses.

Mary's parents were proud of the sacrifices they made to ensure their little girl's success. Her mother constantly bragged about the time and expense invested in Mary's education. Her father told her if she only tried harder, she would be an outstanding student. It's unlikely either parent would have recognised something amiss with Mary outside of poor school reports, if they hadn't found her collapsed on the bathroom floor with her mother's empty bottle of Valium beside her. Unable to convince her parents that they were pushing their nine-year-old too hard, the psychiatrist finally put, the psychiatrist finally put Mary on Prozac. She remained on the medication until she was fifteen. At that point in time, Mary left home to become a teen prostitute and graduated to heroin.

As the primary educators of humanity, parents need sufficient courage to reject any attempt to squeeze their child into an arbitrary niche. They also need to encourage expressiveness, promote problem solving and display concern for the welfare of creatures and people outside of themselves. Most of all they will actually enjoy being parents and respect and value their children!

Of course if an unborn person decided not to be sane, spiritual or have a life of her own, she would elect for birth in a family where none of these prerequisites are present. For those of us, who want to travel the SSAHAL road during our present incarnation and found our parents lacking in such attributes, we simply have to put up with a difficult childhood. However, it might be useful not to replicate the negative, self-defeating behaviour of our parents and their contemporaries!