Wednesday, April 09, 2008

We can't all be winners

I keep thinking about something Jamie Lee Curtis said on Oprah the other day. (And that was strange, Oprah seemed frozen in time, like she hadn't changed in the slightest from a decade ago.) She was talking about mothers today, as though they are freakishly different from mothers of yesterday, and how they try to protect their children from all sorts of pain and injustice. That in shielding the children from pain and injustice, the mothers are doing a disservice to their children because, and this is what I loved her for, life is FULL of pain and injustice. Emotional pain is certainly something that is universal across the entire spectrum of humanity, rich or poor, liberal or conservative. Shielding our children from it will not help them when they experience it time and again in their lives. The result is a bunch of young adults who believe they can ALL be winners ALL the time. Young adults who are ill-equipped to deal with the reality that part of life is suffering, and much of it unfair. Plus, failure is what teaches us. Makes us grow. If we prevent our kids from ever failing, how will they deal with it when it inevitably occurs?

It reminded me of when I got beat up by my friend (until then anyway) and his friend next door. We were playing what? I think it was freeze-tag, and I can't recall what the misunderstanding was, but there was some shouting and then my friend and his friend were on top of me pounding their fists into my eye sockets. Somehow I wriggled out and ran all the way (next door) into my house crying. My mother asked what was wrong and I told her that they had attacked me and punched me over and over in the face. I thought I'd be coddled and pet. No. I can't remember exactly what she said, but in essence, "It's your own fault for getting into a fight." Oh how I harbored resentment over that for years. Of course I was no longer friends with the next door kid. Barely ever spoke a word to him again. But I learned an important lesson there. Sometimes bad things happen to us and there will be no retribution, no coddling, no, the injustice must be swallowed, digested and from there we can move on. Indeed, every time I cried "that's not fair" as a kid, the invariable response was, "neither is life."

(I'm getting better, it's morphed into a snotty cold, I'll live.)

24 comments:

Snooze said...

I agree that kids can't always be protected from injustice - very cool that Jamie Lee said that. Still, I would have given you a hug.

Anonymous said...

"I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden". Life sucks, then you die. (Feeling my age sorry)Ed

CoffeeDog said...

I had some incident when I was a kid, being spurned by my two best friends. I never understood why, and it hurt intensely. No one was there to protect me. I agree, mothers of today and too protective. I think some of that over-protection is justified, in today's world of creeps !

Lemuel said...

Excellent post! there are far, far too many people/families who have never learned this kernel of truth about life. Your mother did you a great service.

Doug said...

Wow, that's just what I needed. Are you spying on me?

I guess I'm still chewing on my injustice. It's kind of slimy and rubbery and gross, like a week-old oyster. I'm gagging on it, and find it difficult to swallow.

Patricia said...

I dunno, I think the reality and the lessons can live alongside the comforting of home and mom's hugs. One doesn't negate the need for the other.

I heard the "life's not fair" retort also.

Anonymous said...

My oldest kid was staying at her grandma's once and came in the house, complaining that her boy cousins "weren't treating her special." We still tease her about it! As a mom, it's hard to watch your children struggle, but you must in order for them to grow. I watched Jamie Lee yesterday on the dreaded Oprah, and I agree with her. Too many parents are treating their kids with this weird reverence and it is raising a generation of "entitled" people. The former vice principal at one of my kids' schools said "Thanks to the Oprahtization of the world, so many kids think they deserve to be treated like kings and queens!"

I noticed at one point in the interview, Jamie was saying something and Oprah cut her off with "Oh, did you know I did such and such?" I puked in my mouth then when Jamie walked off, I shut it off. That damn Oprah.
-Rox

Cooper said...

I agree with you, but another important lesson is to learn to give compassionate response to human pain. At the same time we need to teach kids to come to an acceptance that life isn't fair, but we can reach for justice, and we can certainly be a part of that justice. I, too, am concerned about the tendency now to over-protect and coddle children in a way which prevents them from becoming whole, integrated adults. Kids need to learn that sometimes feeling sad ... and unhappy ... and hurt is normal and part of being human. The main thing is not to try and prevent these emotions, but to find healthy ways to deal with them.

I would have hugged you. Oh, and I love Jamie Lee.

GayProf said...

I so agree with you/Jamie Lee Curtis. My classes are filled with students who have never been told "no" by the adults around them. They also imagine that any set of words that they set to paper must be brilliant and beyond critique. It turns out that university can be an eye-opening experience for them.

ChickenStrip said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ChickenStrip said...

Very well said. By both you and JLC. The BF and I were talking about this recently (the subject is a HUGE pet peeve of mine). He recently saw George Carlin in concert and that was a bit in the show - "not every kid is special." Context was (I think, I wasn't at the show) about passing kids or giving grades just to bolster their self-esteem. I say fuck that. Let them learn the hard way there are consequences for laziness, apathy, stubbornness and a nasty personality.

Oops, soapbox time.

TED said...

I think it's usually pretty easy to tell when you've crossed the line from comforting to overprotective. Certainly, there is no shortage of media images of spoiled upper class and upper middle class young adults (any MTV reality series, for example). But what you see a lot less of are the great masses of kids who don't get enough comforting. Many of the parents of these children may have rationalized their inattention as letting their kids learn life's hard lessons. I tend to think there's no shortage of opportunities for kids to learn life's hard lessons, and as long as you're not making matters worse by marching out and demanding justice over minor misdeeds, it's fine to give the child a hug and tell him or her that you know they must feel awful.

On the one hand, you don't want kids who don't understand that the world is a very difficult place. On the other, you also don't want people to just accept that the world is lousy and stop trying to make it a better place. I see way too much of that at all levels today. Understand the current situation, sure, but don't accept that things can never improve.

Uncle Zoloft said...

I had a very similar incident when I was 8. My mother's reaction was worse. All the kids and some parents in the neighborhood came running to see what was happening. I remember my mother standing over me shouting "Fight back!" Only problem was that I had never been taught that skill.

Anonymous said...

I really think that overprotective parents do their children a disservice, by not preparing them for the inevitable fact that life is indeed not fair. This goes double for those parents who think the sun shines out of their little ones' behinds and only manage to create adults (and I use the term VERy loosely) who have never learned the value of work and believe the world owes them everything. Does it show that I am tired of dealing with obnoxious, lazy, over-entitled students (and I only get them at university, I feel for the poor people who have to deal with them earlier)?
Having said that, I would also have given you a hug; just because life isn't fair doesn't mean we can't use a bit of comforting on the side...

Enemy of the Republic said...

I understand this more than I can say. Interesting how you call Oprah frozen in time. I watched Madonna's new video and thought the same.

Anonymous said...

I think it hurts children in the long run when it comes to the actual response to such a conflict. To a point where they don't know how to respond to such a predicament/incident and the child/grown-up child has a hard time dealing with this later down the road. Perhaps making "a big deal outta nothing?".......People who shoot and kill because someone stole their Air Jordans or made fun of them in front of theiur friends.

travelling, but not in love said...

I agree with you - it's all very well growing up thinking life is all a bed of roses, but the truth is it ain't like that.

Equally, I've had plenty of acquaintances/colleagues/friends over the years who have been the victims of their parents telling them that they are something they are (most clearly) not, and who are surprised that the world doesn't think the same of them as their parents.

Princes and princesses are fun to have as kids, but when they grow up? Non merci. Not for me.

Java said...

It's a difficult balancing act, knowing how and when to comfort vs. allowing life to teach important lessons. All parents fail at this sometimes. I sure do! Each child is different and needs different levels of comfort/assurance. No easy answer.
That being said, when my eldest, now 18, was 3 yrs old she fell down in the driveway and scraped her knee. I was on my bed, either reading or on the phone, can't remember. She came in whining. I could tell it wasn't a bad scrape, and I said "don't get blood on my clean sheets." She still remembers that. That was the first time I had not coddled her "boo boo." She survived.

Don't you hate that stuffed up snotty cold thing? I'm glad you're better than you were.

Mark in DE said...

I agree with you.

I know a boy whose parents removed him from public school because he was often teased and called derogatory names like faggot and sissy. (He was both, for the record.) Rather than learning how to stand up for himself or how to modify his behavior while at school, he learned that with enough nagging his parents would "fix it" for him. Indeed, later in life he had a lot of difficulty dealing with adversities his parents couldn't "fix". It would have been better if he'd gotten some experience when he was still a kid.

Mark :-)

Anonymous said...

I think that's why so many of us here in the States are so angry. We all expect perfect fairness all the time.

dykewife said...

i'm glad that your dog is feeling better. having squat and squirts suck even when you're able to use an inside toilet. having to wait until someone lets you out must be truly embarrassing for her.

about the snow...though the farmers here on the prairies might differ in their opinion, all i can say is better you than me. :D we got quite enough snow as it was.

Butch said...

I remember being blamed by my father for something I didn't do and of course, the only punishment he could understand was despensing corporal punishment. As it turned out, they found that I was not responsible for the "crime" of which the punishment was given. I was expecting an apology but what I got was, " Consider that a punishment for something that I haven't caught you doing!" Nothing. Ziltch. No, " I'm sorrys." I have never forgotten that injustice my whole life. I learned many times over that life wasn't fair.

Rick said...

We can all use a hug from time to time. If we don't get one at home we'll get one somewhere. But it seems to be a trend that widens in regards to protecting and blowing smoke up the ass of our children. The kids come in last place on team sports and they all get trophys. It's doing a diservice for children.
Good post.

Patrick said...

I'm not sure entitlement is as new a thing as we're suggesting. Maybe a larger percentage of the population indulges in it now... or there books and TV spend more time showing and encouraging such things. The amount of rage and misery I see on an average day on the subway makes me think that plenty of people are still hearing 'no' and 'life isn't fair' on a regular basis. Your example of the housing crisis here, is a good example of that. I'd also say university students have been seen as over-privileged, often with justification, for centuries. Education was exclusively for the aristocracy until relatively recently, most of those folks believed their wealth and privilege came from God and that 'work' (meaning commerce or labor) was beneath them. Maybe the number of people with over-inflated senses of entitlement is greater today, but it seems to me there are still plenty of people who live without hope.