The Haven Called Family

Disclaimer

It is not my intention to paint my family in a bad light. It never has been and never will be. However, I need to depict my experiences, in all honesty and not in overly negative words, so that those founding a family might learn from what I went through.

As an adult and nearing retirement, I think it is my responsibility to give whatever I can to the coming generation, in order to contribute something meaningful to their lives.

Family: The Adults Have a Duty to Society

It is the duty, and ought to be the pleasure of age and experience to warn and instruct youth, and to come to the aid of inexperience.

— William Cobbett¹

Family is where education begins. It is, for the child, the first exposure to society. That is where the grooming of the future citizen begins and a failure in the family could lead to a total failure of the child.

Broken families are becoming more and more common. Listing all the factors leading to that is a herculean task and would exceed the limits of a blog article such as this one.

The Motivation for this Post

The BBC published on 4 October 2019 an article on the psychology of attraction: Why do we fancy certain people? I am not linking the article here, since it is of no relevance here. However, the wording made me reflect on the people who entered my life.

What was it that carried a special meaning to me? The majority of them had a constellation of problems, which corresponded to my life: Broken families and broken family relationships.

Would I be right if I were to say that people often depart from reality and logic? This is what I observe very often. In the city, while shopping, while in the metro, etc. I am noticing trends.

We all know that when children get hurt, they cry mama. However, I knew a child who cried papa. The case will not be discussed here because it is a highly personal one.

In fact, I myself come from a broken family and I know a few persons who have the same background. Of late, I seem to hear more and more such stories.

Hence, I thought it was high time to write a post around the topic of family.

My Lessons on the Lone Path Home — Respect

My roots were in a very conservative family structure, which I cherish even today. Although the negative experiences in my life were unfortunate, they taught me lessons, which are reflected in this article.

A few years back, while in the metro, I witnessed a situation which pained me. A group of children, about ten to twelve years of age, were so loud that an elderly man got up and asked them to be silent. His language was stern but respectful.

The result was that they became silent for a moment and then collectively booed that man. They continued that until they alighted at their station.

What did I observe? The children had no respect for the person who was old enough to be their father. It exposed their upbringing at home. They were not disciplined. They did not even realise what they were doing. They just exposed their inner culture to the people present in the compartment.

How did the grown-ups in the compartment react? They sat there in utter silence. Nobody responded in support of the man. As a new person in the society, I did not even know how I should respond. As a foreigner, I held myself back and felt guilty. As a former teacher, I felt guilty. As a former soldier, I felt guilty.

The incident opened my eyes. I decided to observe the people around me, which was not a difficult task. Since the age of nine I had begun observing my surroundings. As a child prone to anxiety and inner fear, I was an observant person.

What Did I Notice?

As a student of literature and linguistics and as a former teacher, the first thing I noticed among quite a few people was the absence of politeness in the presence of children. Yes, I mean the language and the social intercourse.

Not all the people fell into that class of the impolite, but surprisingly many did. Here, I shall speak about the shortcomings, which need to be set right.

What the Children Think about the Adults: Schooling

Children imitate adults. Adults are examples for them, whether we like it or not. Throughout their childhood, children are interacting with adults in one form or another.

They give feedback in their own way and if their feedback is not taken seriously, they can suffer serious damage, which will show up later on. They feel hurt if the elders do not pay heed to their voice.

An incident that I remember is the case of a child who was sent back home (from a boarding school) because of a contagious disease. When he was home, he rolled on the sofa, rubbed himself on the chairs, opened the wardrobe and, taking the clothes out, he wrapped them around himself. All this was done to infect everybody in the family.

The above incident is a case of inner rebellion. I do not have the details, but even if I had them, I would not publish any of that.

Nothing serious happened, but it reminded me of my own rebellious nature because of various sufferings that I myself underwent as a child.

Just as a new person needs to be trained in his profession, a child needs to be trained in how to behave in society for his own benefit. The adults have the duty to educate the children and need to teach them by their own example. Practising what one preaches is the best way to teach them.

This is to be practised not only in the presence of one’s own children but also in the presence of other children. That means honesty with one’s own self is a mandatory factor. There is no escaping this fact. Directly or indirectly, the children consider the grown-ups as examples.

Schooling is not restricted to the school itself. The domestic surroundings are a part of the child’s education. Everything that the child registers will influence the child in one way or the other. That learning can be both conscious and unconscious.

What Do the Children Think

There are two sides to this question. Very young children assume that adults are the best guides. Hence, they turn to adults for answers and opinions. A few years back, I read a very interesting article. Unfortunately, I can remember neither the title nor the author.

The article said that to be a good father, one needs to know the answers to a few questions. Two of the questions have remained in my memory. They are as follows:

• Why is the sky blue?
• Why is the sea green?

Indeed, I remember the author saying that a father can expect these questions and that the children think that the father can answer them.

On the other hand, grown-up children might have a completely different opinion. They, probably to assert their own personality, might opine that the adults cannot know everything.

That takes me back to my years as a child, when one of my schoolmates said that very sentence. It was a comment about a scolding the boy got for a behaviour, which I do not remember. However, I remember his frustration. Modern research, as stated above, confirms the statement of my school mate.

Confidence in Daily Activities

Many children, I have noticed, do not have confidence when it comes to daily activities. They exhibit insecurity and doubts when they need to make decisions. This can only come from an atmosphere where the child was frequently told ‘you are a dunce’ or ‘you are a fool’ or ‘you know nothing’.

Such statements work as a suggestion that finally takes deep roots in the child’s mind. When confronted with a situation of decision-making, children with such a background take a step back.

The Fear of Making Mistakes

While working as a teacher, I noticed two types of pupils. One group went ahead with doing the task, although they were not sure. However, they did not exhibit any fear of making mistakes.

The other group consisted of pupils who did not even attempt the task for fear of making mistakes. They did not want to end up making a mistake. Their thinking was ‘I might get a scolding’. They anticipated negative feedback.

Since I was afraid of asking them directly, I decided to reframe my question thus: Were you afraid of making a mistake? Their facial expressions changed a bit, showing fear but when they saw my smile, they ventured to answer in the affirmative by nodding their head. They were even afraid to utter yes.

The shorter version of the story is that I told them to not be afraid of making mistakes. They were not convinced that I really meant that. Finally, when I asked them how they would know the right answer when they did not know the wrong one, they believed me.

Indeed, I admit, it was a kind of naughty trick, but they took my word for it. If you ask me where I got this idea, the answer is simple. From my own experiences as a child.

Family as the Safe Haven

There was a time I was a full-blown rebel. Even today, I do possess that trait although it comes out only in extremely rare situations. However, I have learnt to recognise it and channel the energy into a different direction (thanks to my NLP and CBT training).

For a child, the family is a safe haven. When everything else fails, there is the family. This is how children think of this institution. This was also my own thinking, although that belief was shattered more than once.

Later on, as my thinking about life continued on a completely different lane, the path that I took to define my life was founded on all my accumulated experiences. This, in the course of time, I named the lone path home.

Later on in this article, I shall explain why I called this the lone path and why the noun home was appended to it.

Fear as an Emotion

When confronted by a difficult situation, the child can feel accosted. Now that is a harsh term. However, I can confirm the degree of harshness from my own experiences.

When questions were put to me and I could not come up with the answer, the fear that resulted was genuine and extremely upsetting. In a way, I can say that it became an existential anxiety. In fact, I should say that the fear was already there deep in my mind, which, on many occasions, resulted in my forgetting what I had learned.

The fear of a scolding or a spanking can be as deep as an existential anxiety. Most of the time, the questions prove to be the very stimulus to a fear response. The fear response comes from deeply rooted doubts such as Will my answer be correct? What if I make a mistake? I might completely confuse the sequence etc.

That is no fiction. I still remember that I could feel my palpitation distinctly in such situations! It was this fear that I wanted to take away from my pupils. It took a few days until they realised that they were permitted to make mistakes. Whether the relief carried over to the time with the family remains an unknown factor to me.

Unity in the Family

Children, as I explained above, consider the family as a safe haven. They should be given that conviction so that they grow up to be confident adults. In order for this to happen, certain factors must be made available to the children.

Children expect unity at home. When they notice that their father and mother have conflicting opinions, they are filled with doubt. Hence, I think, the discussions should show a friendly and open approach. Outright denying the other person’s argument will already spark the conflict in the children.

It is always better, in my humble opinion, to formulate the argument in this way: ‘If I may opine’ or ‘Don’t you think that it might…’ or ‘May I put it this way…?’

When children are listening, they will remember the way a point is being debated and those words will indirectly influence the way their inexperienced minds think.

The children need to be made aware that the parents do stand united.

Resilience: An Inseparable Tool in Life

Life is not always easy. We all know this and we have gone through situations that tested our patience. However, solving problems without exploding is an ability for which our life will thank us later on.

Keeping calm and poised in the face of difficulties is a must, especially when children are present. They learn unconsciously and imbibe lessons from what they see and what they hear and experience.

The Lone Path Home — Why So?

Each person is an individual in his own right because each person experiences life and its pleasures and pains in his own individual manner. It is about his interpretation, his comprehension, his generalisation, and so on.

It is his journey, and he has to make the journey himself. He might get help from others. Others might cause hurdles in this path. It is his individual task to do the journey with his strength, his vision, his interpretation. Hence the term lone. It is not necessarily lonely.

Home is the person himself. His inner self. That is his home. That is where his happiness exists. Happiness is not, in my humble opinion, an external phenomenon. It is not a goal. It is a state that exists in every individual who simply has to reclaim it.

Srinath 23.11.2024 Srinath
23.11.2024

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