Re-Legacy

Patterns are everywhere. Visiting with my friend Paula Whaley was sinking into the presence of a woman who has affirmed and appreciated me since I first met her. We were both the on the Medicine Wheel Elder group who met monthly with the Baltimore Youth Ambassadors, a peer-counseling group, to hear their stories and offer advice and encouragement. I appreciated all the different people in the group but felt an immediate resonance with Paula and admired the essential wisdom she brought to every encounter. As we became friends, I learned she was the youngest sister of James Baldwin, a writer I felt like a force of nature, so powerfully could he convey the human heart. Because her father died the day she was born, he and her mother raised her. Our backgrounds couldn’t have been more different, yet we arrived at the same inner image of the world. An artist herself, her dolls expressed a world of feeling that I understand but haven’t experienced in the same way. While we were talking Sunday, I confessed to her that I hadn’t grieved for my mother. I told her I was reading a book by a former child actress called, “I’m Glad My Mom Died”. I’d forgotten about reserving it because when I requested it, there were 109 holds already. That was when she looked shocked. I reminded her of a conversation she once told me about with “Jimmy” and her mother around the kitchen table in their Harlem apartment. She was just a little girl and she asked them why white people were so mean. Her brother answered that it was because white parents didn’t love their children enough. White parents would object, but it may have more to do with definitions of love, particularly of children. White parents often see love as what they think is best for children without appreciating the way the child is. Jennette McDougal’s story is an extreme example of a parent trying to get a child “right” according to their own aspirations. The model fits many mothers I’ve seen in my parent’s and my own generation. I watched many times as they not only set goals for the kids but projected their own attitudes, kids’ own preferences and tendencies not even acknowledged. Disappointment, disapproval, and inadequacy are instilled at an early age as parents worried more about where the child wasn’t measuring up according to doctors, teachers, and themselves. Children are all different and the world would benefit from the range of new ideas that might emerge from their individuality, but channels of choice narrow and opportunities for self-discovery evaporate. Understand, I do not judge my parents. They are agents of the culture and did everything they were supposed to according to the acceptable models they were given. The generational heritage matters. Patterns repeat themselves. Studies on the relationship between child-rearing and the emergence of the Nazi party show that desire for an authoritarian who says they know best repeats the family structure. Frustration at what never had a chance to flourish is projected at the designated enemy. At a time when these kinds of attitudes are emerging again, we need to encourage the change in approach with the growing number of parents who have shifted from a fear-based approach to acceptance, support and love that connects beneath the surface.