have you ever considered your first seven years of life? i've watched a couple of episodes on iview of a show called 'life at seven'. it's a documentary record of a longditudinal study of the development of a number of australian kids - a great cross section of children, in fact.
much is said about the first seven years of life and their importance in shaping an individual's lifelong inherent traits; essentially, how the first seven years determine our carriage through life. this understanding underpins many schools of thought and philosophies about human development.
but what happens to the growing, developing being when, from the time of gestation, the life circumstances are shitty? what if a child just has to adapt to too much crappy stuff? what becomes of the person they could have been?
what i'm interested in, then, is the quality of resilience. my kids - one and all - have had to adjust to some really awful developments in their lives. their life trajectories have violently changed from one moment to the next, and they have had to suck it up and keep moving in the new direction......for some unfathomable reason, falling to pieces just has not been an option for me, or any of my children.....when all about us lose their heads......
anyway, my kids were not....ahem....blessed.....with ideal soil in which to take root.
so i'm interested in how, and the extent to which the shit of life can be reconceptualised as compost - feeding, nurturing and strengthening the growing being.....
the positive reframe! that's what i'm after!
3 comments:
darling i get it. as a parent we all want our children to be strong and resilient. i think your girls will grow up appreciating life, maybe not taking it for granted like others who haven't had so much of the shitty stuff. remember our amazing ability to survive and with the creativity they have been brought up with i think they will do more then survive they will thrive.
thankyou maire. loving your blog, your honesty and self confidence. you're a lovely example of the benefits of composting!! x
well if it's any help......I wasn't wanted by my father and he didn't talk to my mum for 3 months when he found out she was pregnant AGAIN!, and he molested me at about 2, and I was his favourite after ignoring all my siblings that had gone before me, so now they all still hate me, and then he died at 7, then I got a step father very quickly who destroyed my family and molested me and my sister, and I was brought up a Mormon (and you know the damage that can cause!), and then I lost my horse, cello, piano, cat, family, friends and school all in one foul swoop when I left home at 14........I had pretty much solid shit from end to end in my conception, time in utero and childhood. And I thought it was shit and not much else for a while, but I kept thinking that it HAD to be better than this, and I kept looking for it, and learning (incredibly humbly after having all my confidence eroded), and it did get better....and better.....and it's never really stopped. And for a solid amount of my adult life I've actually been grateful for all that shit that happened, cause it has proved the greatest compost in the world, and ended up being gold really. Wouldn't change a thing. I feel like after all that, I've got the inner resources to cope with just about anything. Whereas, I have a friend, who had a self described perfect childhood, with a loving and talented family, and nothing really went wrong for her, but she knew lots of people who'd had hard lives. And then she got to the point that she started to think that she'd missed out on something cause she DIDN'T have any shit and anything to work through, and she tied herself up in knots so hard that she ended up in an institution, and on psych drugs for many years after that. Which all goes to show that it don't really matter, and there is no perfect, and it will all depend on what you and your girls want to do with it and where your destiny lays as to how all this shit will affect them. And I agree with Maire :)
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