for an intelligent child
is having needy parents.
Parents who, having failed to get what *they* need during *their* childhoods,
pass those needs on
willy-nilly,
helter skelter,
to the intelligent child, who
far beyond her years,
reaches out to comfort those
who *should* be comforting
*her*.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
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3 comments:
You are doing very good work. I can tell. Hard is it not?
I can remember at age 3 being able to figure out things that my parents can not figure out today.
No only did they expect me to do things they should do they got angry when I did not and were not appreciative of me dong what they should do as they did not understand.
To dumb to understand they did not understand.
Still happens today if I let it.
I used to think that things came easy to me. I can accomplish things that they can't. Part of it is I work harder.
You struck a nerve with this one.
Thank you! Hard work - well, mostly it's as you mentioned on *your* blog somewhere, it's 'hard in the sense of logistics, making it all work, juggling time, money and energy to allow it to *happen*.
For me it's a bit like my saying, "When conditions are right, the flower will bloom" - when and *if* i'm able to create the right conditions, *and* other external factors are in favor of this happening - well, it's kind of like those flower shoots that bust up through the soil in spring. They just *happen*, it's not really very volitional. In fact, I probably have to do more to *resist* it happening than to *make* it happen. If I didn't have to stop to eat or sleep or stretch my legs or talk to other people or fix my car or buy groceries, or even just let my 'brain' cool down a bit so it doesn't melt and fuse up solid from overuse - well, I'd probably just keep going and going 'til I ran out of things to do.
You must have been (still are?) really smart! I'm not sure I was *that* smart - I think I knew, or possibly *understood*? some 'gut level' things that my parents *seemed* not to get. But I think that's a product of life experience, circumstances and the fact that I had a *much* softer, easier upbringing than they did. I never worried about having enough to eat, for example, or having sleep next to parents' bed (as my mother says she did until she was 18!). So there were ways in which I *could* be clued in that they simply didn't have the resources for - their 'resources' were fully occupied in dealing with 'lower level' survival needs, as Maslow might possibly say.
Yeah, there's a whole *lot* of things people seem to do without *any awareness whatsoever* that they're doing them. Very crazy-making.
I wonder if the 'working harder' thing is something like what I said above? Possibly, you maybe had 'resources' (not only internal, but *external?* such as, more time and energy and freedom, in the Maslow needs hierarchy sense?)
I often revert to a favorite quote in such situations, which is that "People would rather die than think - in fact, they often do!"
I wonder if the 'work harder' and 'accomplish more' may be that, starting higher up the 'ladder' of life than previous generations, we are *able* to see, perceive and reach for, things that they simply *couldn't* see, or that were so far out of their reach that they never even considered going for them?
So there might be (unconscious?) resentment on their part? and possibly, some kind of 'stymying' - sp???) action as a result.
Your comments are helping me get some much-needed perspective on some of my *own* parents' behaviors, so thanks for that! I hope that, in the process of my explication here, I'm not somehow 'neutralizing' or 'negating' what you're trying to express. Don't mean to be, just 'riffing' on what you've said here.
I hope the 'nerve striking' is a good thing!
Nerve striking is a good thing. Actually not a good way to express it.
I do think that there is generational resentment. First unemployment in the depression was 15%. Worse then not not what it is talked about.
Second the great US. The US being isolationist at the time entered into the two world wars late. It is reasonable to consider the two worlds wars one war as history will eventually do so.
The US entered the wars late and lost few men comparatively and lost no infrastructure. They won the second world was with the A bomb. A technical achievement achieved by Germans working for the US.
So our parents had a better life because of luck. What did the do with this luck and financial boon. They had children and got as rich as they could.
Our parents lived in a time with the most financial opportunity in the history of mankind.
When I entered the work force in 1973. It was much like it was today. It was not get a 4 year degree and pick your job.
Kinda a rant on the last generation. They are not as good as they tell. Nor did they have it as bad as most of them tell about.
Pretty much the last generation gave their children what they thought they needed and they did not have a clue of what it is like not to live in the biggest boon in history. One of the biggest differences is they were not alone. In the depression everyone did poorly it was not like you were blamed.
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