Lately, I've received compliments about my children, and what *good*
boys they are. It always makes me feel a little uncomfortable, being
given praise for something that wasn't even my goal. It's not that I
don't like that our boys are good people, or that I don't appreciate
that they are typically kind, generous, patient, friendly, and so on.
But never did I consider it my *job* as a Mom to turn them into good
people. I just assumed that they'd be good people. Always, my goal has
been to help them become happy people, peaceful people and, someday,
loving gentle men. Really, my first goal is that they be happy -- that
we all be happy. Because I value happiness. I also happen to believe
that happy people ARE good people. It's happiness that gives us that
*filled up full place* from which we can share goodness.
Part
of why I feel awkward receiving such compliments is that I feel like I
didn't really DO all that much to turn them into nice people. At least
not much in the traditional sense. We don't punish our kids; we don't
insist that they do something now; there are no set bedtimes or arbitrary
rules just for kids. We've never required them to say thank you or
please; there are no *magic* words here.
When Andy told me
someone asked him how he *became so obedient*, my first thought was
that I abhor the very idea of obedience for either children or adults.
Obedient people worry me, because the word obedience implies not only
that one does what one is told, but that she or he does it even when --
especially when -- it goes against his or her own instincts. If the only
reason one has for being honest, friendly or helpful is fear of
punishment for not being obedient, where is that person's innate sense
of what's loving? What inner sense, aside from fear of punishment,
guides him? Certainly someone whose only reason for being good is
because his parents require obedience (to whom? God? the parents? the
law of the land?) isn't a good resource in those moments when there's no
rule book, when a situation or a relationship calls for creative
solutions. And for me life is all about relationships and creative
solutions.
I grew up hearing that happiness and pleasure
weren't acceptable goals. Doing what made one happy was *hedonism* (one
of my Dad's favorite slurs to throw around then). For the record,
hedonism is defined as "the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the
highest good". I always wanted to ask why a desire to be happy was bad,
but it was clear that just asking that question would have exposed me
as a bad person. Why does our culture elevate obedience and goodness
above happiness? Do people really believe that happiness and goodness
are mutually exclusive? Or do some people believe that obedience will
bring us happiness? You know, once we make our peace with being obedient
to rules that make no sense to us.
I remember hearing often
that parents need to teach children to be good, the idea being that
letting children have too much of what makes them happy spoils them, and
they'll turn out to be selfish, bad people. Or maybe more accurately,
that if people aren't forced to be obedient, they'll never learn to be
good. I believe that we all start out good, and what our society so
often desires from children (and from adults, too) is not obedience, but
cooperation, consideration, compassion. Because we've been conditioned
to think that cooperation is unnatural, we believe that obedience is
the path to cooperation. Experience tells me that happy people are
naturally cooperative; children whose needs are met have the emotional
space to cooperate, to think of the feelings of other people, to share.
Children whose needs are met become adults who know how to get their
needs met, which is more likely to make for happy adults whose cups are
full enough to be considerate, compassionate and cooperative themselves.
When I became an adult, and later a Mom, being happy
topped my list of goals. I wanted to be a happy person, to have happy
children who would become happy (and maybe undamaged?) adults. Often,
when people learn that we let our children do what they want, eat what
they want (or not eat what they don't want), sleep when and where they
want, that I carried them when they were tired (long after they could
walk), that I bring them food when they're hungry (rather than making
them wait until mealtime or insisting they come to the table), there are
admonitions -- that they'll be spoiled, and think only of themselves;
that they won't learn how to do for themselves or others.
Happy
people are kind, patient, gentle, generous and cooperative. I think
happy people are all those things because being happy is easy, it's not
exhausting, doesn't demand extra time or energy. Being told you must do
all the things on some list IS exhausting. When someone makes a list
that implies you'd not figure this out on your own. Exhausted people,
with unmet needs, don't have the energy to reach out to others, to be
kind or to care what anyone else is doing, how they feel or what they
need. Tired, stressed people are too busy trying to be sure they're
"good enough" to have anything to share with anyone else.
Often,
in children, happiness and cooperation look like obedience or a sign of
a good upbringing. Really, it's just the result of being happy people
who live consensually, who are heard and honored and whose needs are
consistently met. If that happiness results in them being good children,
that's bonus in my book.
