What are we doing?

I posted about being surprised at how much people like me and one of the people who commented was Kate, mentioning that she also is always surprised by the fact that people like her. I know this is a common reaction; at the wise old age of 64, I've encountered it before. And the fact that it is so common disturbs me. Most people that I've met have been likeable. And yet, apparently most of them don't know it.

Kate mentioned that she thought my self-esteem comes from living with Auntie. The story on that is that when I was 16 I went to live with my Great-Aunt Julie (for whom my Julie was named and the reason I attended two high schools). That's certainly part of it. Another part of it is that I had that incredible ultimate oney-oney first few years. Not only was I my extended family's first child (and for the first five years, the only one to live) of my generation, I also had my father until he died when I was six. The thing about both my father and Auntie, is that they knew how to treat children. They made me feel utterly loved and as though they enjoyed having me around. They treated me not only with love, but also with respect.

The reason I went to live with Auntie was my step-father, who was certainly a mass of contradictions. He was good to us in many ways; he adopted us when he married my mother so that Forrest and I would have all of the rights that any children he might have with my mother (that would be Colleen). We always had nice things. He never forgot a birthday or other important date. In an emergency, he was there. When I came home at 21, in 1963 when this was an immensely big thing and announced that I was pregnant and not only was not marrying the father, I wasn't telling anyone who he was, my step-father's reaction was, "A baby is always a good thing. What can we do to help?" On the other hand, day-to-day he was impossible. He would take away my library card for a month if I arrived home from playing with a friend one minute late. He regularly sharpened his sarcastic wit on my vulnerable soul. Every time he scolded me he ran down the list of everything I had ever done wrong from the day he married my mother. When Forrest or Colleen did anything wrong, he called them Joy. And when I left home, when Colleen misbehaved, he called her Forrest.

Kate had an equally oppressive mother. She comments that we always spent the night at my house "for obvious reasons" and she means that, as bad as it was at my house, it was worse at hers.

What are we doing to children? I can understand Kate and me having a hard time recognizing that people would like us after spending time in that atmosphere. But, that was extreme. Neither of us was physically abused. (I think! Oh, how I hope I'm right about that one, Kate.) And, although there are many children who grow up being treated much worse than we were, the standard model parent does a better job. And yet, and yet . . . the standard model parent seems to be raising children who don't know their own worth.

Julie commented on that same post that I had been kind to her friends. I assure you, while I would be affronted had anyone said I had been unkind to them, I never thought of how I treated them as particularly kind. If they spent the night with us on Fridays, they knew it meant that they would spend Saturday morning with us cleaning house; they then got to go do our family treat with us as soon as the house was clean, but since I was always border line poor, that usually consisted of taking a picnic lunch to some park, no big treat one would think. They had to abide by our house rules in our house. I treated them with respect; I believe that I treat most people with respect. How are kids treated when they visit friends that is so different that the minimum decency I showed is considered kind? (And, horror of horrors, how were people treating my kids when they visited their friends?) And, Julie must be right, because her friends loved coming to our house and are still excited to see me if we are both in town at the same time.

I know that some of it is the schools. There are gifted teachers and teachers who love children and treat them well. But there are also horrid teachers. I had a few, you had a few. That can't be enough to counteract good parenting, can it?

Society also has something to do with it. Once when Richard was ten, we went to the movies. He got in line to buy popcorn before the movie started. I came out of the bathroom and went into the theater, and at that time he was at the head of the line. Twenty minutes later he still hadn't come in. I went out, he was still standing at the same place at the counter, but he was no longer at the head of the line because it had moved to beside him. The girls behind the counter were simply ignoring him and waiting on the adults. And when I objected to this, the poor excuse for a man standing next to him (one of many who should have directed the counter girl to my child) had the nerve to say, "Don't rock the boat, lady!" And when he limped out of there bleeding profusely at the ego, and I had talked to the manager of the theater and the young ladies behind the counter had been fired, Richard got his popcorn free and we got to stay for the next showing so that Richard could see the entire movie and then the manager sent us home in a cab because, it being Fairbanks in the winter, it was now too cold and dark for us to walk home. If kids get treated like this often, and they do, and not all of them have a parent who goes into Mother Bear mode when it happens, that would certainly serve to communicate to them that they are worth nothing.

We have to fix this, folks. I believe that it is our duty as adults, and if I believed in God I would consider it as having been assigned by her, to clear the path of any child who comes within our awareness to whatever extent we can. If that means telling the skateboarder we haven't met that we need him to wear a helmet so that he will still be here when we get old and need brain surgery or a brake job or our mail delivered and will be depending on him to do it, then we need stop him and do that. If it means noticing the kid cleaning up after her dog and thanking her for it, we need to do that. If it means that when we see a parent losing patience with a child in a store that we comment that it looks like they are having a stressful time and offer to treat them to coffee and soda and sit with the child while the parent shops (not a good idea if you are a man or live in a large city, I recognize. Sometimes looking like a granny is a very good thing), then we need to do that. What else, I challenge you, can you add to the list? Who's willing to take me up on this one and work so that there are fewer children who grow up surprised that people like them?