Children of Divorce

My grandchildren spent 5 days with me recently, as their parents had to work and one night was spent in the hospital with our grandson for some testing. By the end of their stay, Hannah was asking for her Mommy and saying how she didn't ever want to leave her Mommy, "ever again". I knew she didn't say this because she had not enjoyed her visit with me, but because she had a real need for her "Mommy". When I asked her what she would do if she got married, she just smiled and said," I'll take Mommy with me."

I know they love me, as they express this often, but their hearts belong to their parents. and so it should be. What happens to such hearts when they face a loss "they can't imagine". Would it be the nightmare of their lifetime? And how would it affect the rest of their life?

I know of a case where the parents were divorced because of the husband's infidelity. The little girl was only 6, but was affected so deeply, a psychologist suggested regular counselling. But, how was a single mother to afford such an "extravagance"? This little girl had three other siblings; an older sister, a younger brother, and one yet to be born. This was the time when divorce was not looked upon lightly. It was a great stigma.

 The children and mother moved to a house beside their maternal grandparents, so the mother could work and the grandparents be ready made babysitters. The grandparents weren't too easy-going with the children's newfound anxieties. And with the newborn, it was almost too much.

Several years later, the mother and children moved to a small house near the hospital, where the mother held down a job. They were dirt poor, and had to make ends meet by sharing clothes and eating the bare minimum.

These experiences left deep scars on the children. All of them grew up with an unusual need for material security, and the "finer things in life", which I suppose was due to the shame they suffered from being so poor.

The good news is the mother got re-married when the children had become young adults. The oldest daughter marrying a year later and the next eloping a few months after that. A child was born to the eloping couple 9 months after their marriage. The mother was only 17.

How did that 17 year old mother think? Was she able to be equipped to parent her little girl? Wasn't she even in the best of circumstances at a grave disadvantage? And didn't her background make it even harder for her to "care and nurture"? What about her need for counselling that had not been met? Was this need exasperated by such stress as a teen marriage and teen motherhood?

I can't imagine how hard it would've been to be in her shoes. But, I do know the little girl could not have gotten good mothering. She couldn't have. And how did that affect her?

Children of divorce are more likely to get divorced themselves. I have wondered the reasons. Is it because they haven't the example of commitment? are they emotionally immature? or is it that they sabatoge their own happiness? or do they fear intimacy? do they expect and perhaps, force abandonment? Do they mis-read and mis-communicate due to their anxieties? Do they manipulate for fear their needs won't be met? do they feel unworthy and have a low self-esteem? are they low achievers or driven persons?

I think all of these apply in indivdual cases. And even divorces that happen after children are grown still has a grave affect. I had a friend in her 30's suffer after her parent's divorce. She was disoriented. Her identity was traumatized. She didn't see it coming. And she worried for her own children's sake!

I have several other friends who live in the house with their husbands, but have no intimacy. Which is worse? What is the answer?

I have seen in my own family my grandmother, and three of her four children suffer divorces. And the dynamics that are normally difficult are doubly compounded. Divorce should never be taken lightly. It affects everyone.

Neither Nature or Nurture, or Universals

The individual should not be determined by Church or State, nor should the individual be determined by nature or nuruture....

Although we live in contexts which do limit us, and all individuals have distinct natural giftings, these cannot be determined in any specific outcome in free societies. There are various "outcomes" in which the individual may use their certain giftings.

Those that want to prescribe a universal value are determinists and will use power to undermine liberty. And these do so with impunity of conscience because their value is absolute, or ultimate. Aren't there various ways of understanding universals?

Children are impacted by their family or origin, but the "impact" does not have to be permanant. All humans have the capactity to enlarge their understandings, or to re-orient themselves to healthier ways of viewing the world or themselves.

Just as we are impacted by our familial envirounments, we are impacted by our physical environment. But, to say that humans are only submissive, compliant "outcomes" of such, is short of true. Humans are resposive to their environments, but aren't prescribed as to how or what they will respond to.

The human mind is a mystery in some sense. Though we respond to stimuli, do we always take the same actions? If the human brain were only a computor then it could be assumed that humans are little more than robots to various stimuli. Don't humans all have various ways of processing information and putting that information together? Isn't finishing a dissertation adding a "new dimension" of understanding and knowledge to the human race? How, then does new information come about, if humans all process their information in the same way?

Social Construction and Social Identity

All cultures in the human and animal "kingdoms" seem to intuitively "know" that social structures form their young. These social influencing elements in the human realm are family, friends, and ethnic tribe.

Social construction is the process of internalizing the social norms, and values in a certain culture. These norms, and values help the young to frame their understanding of the world. Identity is not fully formed in such environments, because of the young's dependent stage of development. The young need the environment to further the internalization process.

In free societies, the family is not stingently defined by outside sources, other than the values of those entering into that commitment. But, religious cultures deem it necessary to define such structures in a uniform way.

The dissolution of such stringent structures has led to much debate about whether it has brought value to society in general. Have such "flexible norms" produced young that have no conscience or regard for society as a value? Has it led to the demise of "civil society" because the young tend to act out of their resistance to what they deem to be oppressive? Or has society "grown" in its understanding of the human need for flexible norms?

The young need nurture. This fact is not debated, but there does come a time when the young must outgrow and think for themselves what is important and of value. Does strict upbringing leave room for promoting intellectural growth? Or does it produce guilt, anxiety, and fear whenever such boundaries are ignored, dissolved, or re-defined? Where is the responsibility of the parent, and teacher/professor?

The child must develop beyond helpless dependence, not only in the physical areas of his life, but also his personal areas. This is the formation of forming the child in his own image and not to a source outside of himself. And when the young adult finds that he has formed and thought out his own values, then he will then be able to commit to a social group, not because of "felt need", but because of his own chosen values.

The Question of Why.and Which.....

I was talking to a couple of friends last night and something came up in the course of conversation that made me start thinking of why it was that an individual prefers one choice above another. Some have believed that the preference is due to cultural upbringing, which conditions the child to a certain "bent of mind". I adhere to the value and necessity of an affirming culture, but are all our choices due to cultural conditioning?

As I am the only one that knows and has experience my family, culture, and innate nature, I will "consult" my memory and share my questions.

I was brought up in the South; strong, and proud of its heritage. I have come to appreciate some of the pride I before distained. But, it makes me wonder why? Was my resistance, or "rebellion" of my Southern heritage because of my own innate preferences (biological determinism) or because of my nurture and its failures (self-concept)?

My family was conservative Baptist, but not fundamental in the true sense. I was "raised in the Church" and found friendships there. But, always longed to move to a large city (New York) and experience a larger frame of reference. Was this because I innately preferred large cities and a more liberal environment? Or was it because I didn't feel I "fit" or belonged in a provincial setting, due to family divorce and bad parenting?

In choosing friends in school, I didn't always choose those in the sororities or the popular bunch because I fear rejection and felt like tha "little guy" who couldn't "make the grade" was of value just as I had wanted to be. So, while grandparents chose the doctors, lawyers and "Indian chiefs", I chose the "little guy". And while cousins became debutantes and sorority sisters, I chose to distain such distinctions. Was it due to my self image and fear of rejection or was there something about me as a "person" that innately did not desire such position?

In school, I never excelled or valued education, except for two years that I attended an experimental school that "tracked" individual students based on their ability. Since this was a new type of school there was no way for adminstration to know where to "trac me", when I moved from another school. So they put me in the bottom level of each subject. I worked my way up to the top level of every subject, even though it meant a lot of "catch up work". I was proud, but no one else was. So, I moved on to junior high school interested in finding friends and boys to "give me value".

So, which is it; nature, or nurture? I can't seem to tease out which is of more importance. I only know that it matters that environments be conducive for the individual to excel as far as possible and that includes many social/political dimensions of life.

Altruism

Evolutionists are in a quandary over whether altruism is innate or formed. Since evolution understands the world in a "survival of the fittest" 'worldview', evolutionists wonder how humans become "more than animals".

Some evolutionists go with Aristotle's virtue or Kant's categorical imperative to formulate their understanding of enviroments that produce 'productive and propering" humanity. Others believe that scientific investigation must understand human innatedness, so that natural/biological scientists can inform social and psychological scientists on human development, while others believe that religion can be useful to "form society" in "a perfect" and "ordered" Marxist way. ("Relgion is the opiate of the people")

Nature and nurture has always baffled social and natural scientists seeking to understand the human. What baffles me, is their arrogance in the face of an individual, when they speak out so loudly against "imperialism". That smells of paternalistic attitudes that they themselves are strongly against when it comes to paternalistic views in certain communities or countries.

Postmodernity does have its drawbacks.