Today on the red line, in a train that was too crowded for me to board, I saw a little girl, sitting in the crowd and staring out into space. She was probably 12, dirty blonde shoulder-length hair, with the watchful but not frightened look of a city child. For a minute, there on the platform, I got her confused with me. This happens for me from time to time, as I’ll catch a glimpse of a kid that reminds me so much of my childhood self that it gives me a start. I have a magical-thinking moment, and imagine that the little girl turns and is me. And then I’d be faced with what to do next.
I suppose that’s one of the great psychological questions of our lives, isn’t it? What do we do with the little child who was us when we meet her? In an instant on that platform, I imagined pushing my way through the crowd, sitting next to the little girl on the ugly orange seats, and wondering what I should tell her about what is coming for her. What kind of resilience could I build in her, what kind of words of comfort or warning might I offer? The best I can ever think, as I wonder about this, is to go to her and tell her, “It’s all going to be ok, better than OK, better than you ever thought it might be.” I would love for her to have that for the dark times, for those times that all adolescents have when they are lost in their own pain, for those times all little children have when they fear monsters—and some of them are real. But then the girl in the subway turns, and I look into eyes that are blue or teeth too straight and see the little me disappear, and I’m left as me, an adult on a subway platform, waiting for a better train.
So, if little Jenny doesn’t ever appear in a metro train, little Naomi does sometimes. And so do little Aidan and little Julio and little Minh. These children sit in subways and classrooms and kitchens, and all they have is the experiences they’ve had thus far—and the adults who are there to help (or hurt or ignore) them. Every day is vital, because every day is a key percentage of the experiences they’ve ever had. What could I say or do now that could make lives better for the adult Aidans and Julios and Naomis and Minhs of tomorrow?
The tricky part is that if I could go back and talk to myself at 12, I would be right to assure her that my life is better than I ever imagined at 12. But can I promise that to Minh or Julio or Aidan or Naomi? I can’t. And maybe that’s the other most difficult psychological work of our lives: how do we care for children really well, and also let them create their own futures? Naomi wants to know: Where will she go to high school? Will either of her parents die while she’s still a kid? Will she get a horse for her 11th birthday? Can she have a party on August 4th? Will global warming kill all the fish in the sea in her lifetime? In her children’s lifetime? I tell her I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.
So maybe that’s the other draw to little Jenny on the subway: I have an idea, with some decent measure of certainty, how the first 37 years turn out. There aren’t that many children you can talk to with certainty. And maybe, just maybe, thinking I can look after my younger self makes me believe—somewhere in the most magical places of my brain—that my older self is there somewhere looking after me. I’ll see an old woman with white hair on a street corner and she’ll catch my eye and smile like we’re sharing a secret. And I’ll know that she is me at 70 or 80, that she remembers this time when I’m 37 and don’t know what to do about my tenure bid at GMU or my new house plans in New Zealand. She remembers when my kids were teenagers and knows who they married and why. She has held my grandchildren, and knows which of these details that so trouble me today ended up washing away in the tide—and which ones changed the shape of my life. I like to think of her, thinking of young(ish) Jennifer, and I like to think of what she’d say. “It’s going to be OK, better than OK, better than you ever thought it might be.”
1 comment:
Beautiful.
I agree there comes a time when we enter a new kind of parenting - of ourselves as well as others. We need to experience the earlier life stages in order to experience the wise one within, who can see through the illusory, transitory nature of things. Does the image (albeit a stereotype) of the Native American elder epitomise this life view – a silent and still knowing; accepting and celebrating the young warriors’ dance and display of force; an ironic humour about the path of the ‘somebody’ that leads to the Noble Nobody, a spark in the great evolution. Would that we encourage our older generation to put down the defences of bitterness, envy and jealousy of the vitality of youth and that the youth invite them to take their place as elders and give voice to their silent knowing. Granted some elders will voice crap – age doesn’t necessarily court wisdom. Maybe deeply reflective experience does.
Things are going to be okay. Doesn’t stop us worrying though eh! Maybe we can worry less about our worrying, which is perhaps a necessary part of our sense making. The okay-ness, I think, comes from gradually coming to accept life experiences as okay-with-us. Not in giving up, not in condoning atrocity, nor in defensive ‘see if I care’ stances, but in a detached less self-defining way. Perhaps the irony is that it’s through the confrontations with betrayal, loss and disappointment that we have the opportunity to reclaim as our own and thereby release other people, institutions and carriers of ideals from the projections of our own power and authority. We do like to hand over big sticks for others to whop us with!! At the same time I think we can come to love our projections, for they are the psyche’s way of showing us unrealized potential that our conscious self will not claim. We discriminate between what is ours to author and hold what is/was beyond our control less tightly – as an influence but not a source of self definition. Intimacy is the boon in which we accept ourselves and others as we are; see one reflected in the other; and seek merger not fusion.
In parenting or guiding others we can show comparative examples in the arts (particularly movies and books) of the different life stages as we currently understand them. There will be limits to a young one’s understanding of say autonomy, but at least there will be some ‘imaging’ as signposts for future recognition and a sense of coherence in the overall journey may get through. The Star Wars and Harry Potter series can be interpreted in terms of monsters and group norms, through to their symbolic and esoteric underpinnings. I do think it’s important not to impose or over-expose a particular way of thinking upon an unready mind – leading unintentionally to a kind of cloning. When we want our children to be something that matches our own questionable ideal, we drive their own true potential into their shadow where it will remain undeveloped, distorted and unloved. What we want them to be will be ultimately destroyed if it doesn’t destroy them first. And it may take some personal development before they can stop hating us for the heinous act.
Maybe our parenting can be informed by the products of our self-parenting. As we seek to make society a better place, we don’t neglect ourselves, ending up bitter. To change society we start within. We free ourselves of social constructs of how to love and hold ourselves in esteem. We seek only that we are ‘good enough’ in our ever widening contexts. We become freer to embrace, enjoy and nurture more of life. Punishing perfection is no longer an ally; replaced instead by meaning, satisfaction and contribution that recognizes our human limits. We love and respect our limitations so that they may lead us toward inter-dependency; true community. Anything punishing can’t love you. It’s not worthy of your love and sacrifice. Ask it why it’s so good for you. Say ‘boo’ and it’s gone. We parent ourselves by merging and blending life in accordance with our own artistry. Maybe we thought we’d been doing just that only to find yet another signature on the corner of our canvas.
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