Hush, hush “sweet” Charlotte

“Charlotte”

This will be my final piece for the good old Journal of Child and Youth Care and, since nobody submitted any questions for this issue, I’m free to sign off in a flurry of unabashed self-indulgence. I have no idea how many people have taken the time to read my scribbles over the years, or how many will read these final words, but this little niche, tucked away at the back of the journal, has been a quiet place for me to play with some of my own thoughts about working with kids. So, with nothing more to offer and nothing left to lose, I’m about to lay bare some of the poorly disguised assumptions, opinions, and beliefs that have influenced my responses to reader’s questions since Vol. 7 No. 1.

First and foremost, I’m convinced that the best hope for this troubled planet is for us to pioneer a different way of being with our children. Forget all those worn out cliches about kids being “our future” or “our greatest resource.” We are that future and we are that resource. But we cannot give to our kids what we don’t have “ our Selves. Forget all the experts and their recycled prescriptions for parenting, teaching, curing, and fixing. Unless we are prepared to bring our Selves fully into our relationships, these will always be empty prescriptions for passing on the legacy of our own fears and blindness to those who now need all the courage and insight they can muster. We cannot fix our kids but we can learn how to be with them in a way that offers our experience and our guidance without entangling them in our own designs. In other words, we must come to understand that our kids can’t fix us. Our work is to recognize that the roots of our fulfillment lie within us and not through the actions of others, whether they be our gods, leaders, gurus, teachers, friends, bosses, partners, or children. Our task is to rediscover and reclaim the pieces lost somewhere within our own childhood, to become whole, visible, and vulnerable. Then we can offer the gift that has always been ours to give, the gift of a Self that can suspend its own agenda of unmet needs in order to see and hear another emerging Self.

To know and accept our Selves in this way is to reclaim the perfect core of our humanness. To bring this Self forward is to rediscover the miracle of our connectedness. Only in this place do we experience our authentic caring for those who need our presence, our compassion for those who struggle to survive, and our love for those who choose to be at our side. And our kids may be any or all of these. From here, we can free ourselves and our children from the bondage of the old relational contracts and experience the simple joy of being together. This doesn’t mean that we must all have complete and fulfilled Selves, only that we have the will to look inside and the courage to take ownership of whatever we find there. We may never know fully who we are but we can certainly drop the pretentious masks of adulthood and stop reinforcing who we are not. Whatever fears we might have about allowing ourselves to be seen by our kids, our visibility and vulnerability will not undermine our responsibilities, influence, or authority. On the contrary, we may discover that our strength lies more in our ability to be personal than in our quest to be powerful. And the wonderful irony is that, through their very innocence, children can become our most effective guides and teachers on our shared pathway to freedom “ quid pro quo.

Viewed from this perspective, what many of us think of as the traditional family has become an anachronism. Yet I never cease to be amazed by the number of people in our field who believe that problem kids should be placed in “normal” families and that such problems would never arise in the first place if we could only help families to stay together. Presumably, they’re all part of the reactionary “right” that would like to enforce, or even legislate, a return to good old-fashioned family values. But while it might seem easier to return to the familiar world of established roles and power relations rather than jump into the unexplored world of vulnerable Selves and human relations, it really isn’t a viable option. However much we might long for the safety and security of the role-based family system, the evidence suggests that men have grown tired of it, women have grown beyond it and, surprise, surprise, kids are no longer buying into it. This is not to devalue the family as the basic human group or to deny the efficacy of the role-based unit in ensuring our past physical, social, and economic survival. My point is that, unless some fundamental transformation takes place at the very core of the family experience, most kids will continue to grow up enmeshed in relational configurations of unmet needs and unacknowledged “contracts” held together by social pressures, cultural prescriptions, and legal sanctions.

It seems to me that our options are fairly straightforward. We could flounder about waiting for some “authority” to come up with a new set of rules for us to follow; we could all engage the services of a resident family therapist; or we could each become our own leader by taking the risk to delve into our own experience and explore our Selves in relation to those around us “ specifically our partners and our children. Although it might seem that this last option poses the greatest threat to our sense of family, I predict the very opposite. I believe that through responsible and disciplined exploration we will discover that being together, in whatever form, is a natural state that actually requires no culturally determined conditions, prescriptions, or sanctions. And, while the forms that emerge may be varied and unpredictable, I’m convinced that, from a state of relatedness, there will always be a place where Self-aware and Self-responsible adults will choose to collaborate in welcoming, protecting, and nurturing the emergence of new Selves, without the debilitating expectations and conditions that can never be met. Yet if I, or anyone else, proposed some new model for family life we would step straight back into the prescriptive trap. As human beings and family members, all we can do is to take the leap of faith ourselves and share our experience with whoever might be interested. As professionals, we can take this one step further, using our knowledge and skills to assist others in examining their own experience and considering their options. The family will prevail.

But if we had the courage to break away from the old prescriptions and face uncertainty, could society tolerate such freedom, such Self-responsibility? “ Definitely not. Just as those around us are invested in us being what they would like us to be, so our societies and cultures require constant assurances of our conformity. Hence, such changes will never be proposed or condoned by the voices of authority. And what would a society created by the actions of authentic Selves seeking open connections with others actually look like? Again, I have no idea and, again, I have no utopian prescriptions to offer. But I do know that such changes can only be made from the inside out, accomplished only through the work of one person at a time. And that person could be the kid in the group home, the student numbed out on Ritalin, the leader of the “terrorist” gang, the scared kid down the road who happens to be gay, the “gifted” kid who doesn’t know what to do with her talents, the street kid who seeks connection in the urban alleyways. If you happen to know any of these kids, one thing is for sure “ unless you are grounded in your own experience, unless you can bring your own Self into the equation, all you can offer are the old prescriptions, the voice of authority, and the insidious promises of conformity. And these are the things that your sponsors pay you for.

While we might expect “professionals” to lead the way, in my experience all but a few professional helpers are drawn into this field by their own unacknowledged desire for acceptance and misdirected search for connec tion “ and, yes, I include myself in this. The tragedy isn’t just that we try to avoid our own pain by focusing our attention on the problems of others, but that we carry a secret hope that those we seek to help will somehow fill us up, accept us, make us feel worthwhile, make us whole. In our need for them to need us, we run the risk of becoming invested in their presumed helplessness. But however much we try to fix them, it’s really us who are looking for the fix. With children, who are prime targets for our attention, we create a form of co-dependence but, in the long run, the effects are even more sinister. Because we really can’t fix them and they can never give us what we’re really looking for, we end up feeling let down and resentful “ “after all I’ve done for you.” We may objectify them, slap on a convenient label, and resort to the most intrusive or punitive methods to elicit their compliance. If all else fails, we can always dump them and move on to someone more willing or able to be “helped.” But the task is hopeless and, on the inside, we remain empty. Eventually, we either burn out or seek ego satisfaction from our professional power or from the acclamation of those who pour words of admiration on our apparent dedication to others. One thing is certain: unless we come to terms with our “addiction” by learning to meet our needs from the inside out, there can be no development of Self on either side. But, here again, the kids are our best hope, not as the “objects” of our attention but as our guides in the reclamation of our lost childhood. Then, when we have done our own work, we can guide them gently into the complex world of adulthood.

So there it is, a few last words to further complicate a remarkably simple picture. Whatever my hopes and fears, I remain committed to the belief that Child and Youth Care is the profession best equipped to promote Self awareness and pioneer a different way for us to be with our children. So, even without this column, I will go on practicing, teaching, and writing since this is where my passion lies. But, above all, I will continue working to put myself at the centre of my own experience for this is all there is to know and all I really have to offer.

Bye,
Charlotte

This feature: 'Charlotte'. (1998). Hush, hush “sweet” Charlotte. Journal of Child and Youth Care, 12, 4. pp. 99-102.