Creating Culture for our Kids

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 “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned 

so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” 

Joseph Campbell

   

     I thought I would be a pastor at this point in my life. At least, I hoped I would. That was a dream I had held onto since I was 15 years old. I was one of those kids who was willingly choosing to follow in my father's footsteps. My dad never put any pressure on me to pursue that line of work, but I was around it all the time as I grew up. You could say it was a part of my culture. 

      Speaking of culture, I have a few thoughts. The older I get, the more it seems I become aware of the cultural lineage from which I - and all humans really - have descended. We are both the beneficiaries and the victims of our cultural heritage. The environments in which we grow up can literally turn off some genes or turn on others (look up epigenetics sometime). How amazing - and sobering if you're a parent - is that? So, should we just float through life waiting for cultural changes to happen to us? Hell, no. 

     Each of us has an opportunity in our own lifetime to create culture. As a matter of fact, we are creating culture whether we want to or not. Even the hermit who retreats from the world to go live in the woods is creating culture. Now, that hermit will probably pass on less of that culture to the next generation, but even his choice to leave the "civilized" world will have a ripple effect on those he leaves behind. And so the story continues. 

     As a parent of four children, I think about this topic of lot - what kind of culture am I creating for my children to grown up in? How will that environment affect their development? What aspects of that culture will they be dissecting with a therapist's help when they're in their thirties? (I say this even as I hope they will, unlike me, start seeing a therapist even earlier than that; I wish I had gone in my twenties). We're still in the discovery phase of that metaphorical court case. I'm not sure who would be qualified to judge it, anyway. I certainly am not. 

     Nevertheless, we must make value judgments about the efficacy of our parenting techniques. Like any good science experiment (parenting is that, if nothing else:-), we should evaluate results and modify our approach as needed. Unfortunately we don't always get to choose the variables in these experiments. If we try to create a control group, it inevitably breaks loose and changes. "Life finds a way," as Ian Malcom once so eloquently put it. So we must adapt. But we humans are pretty damn good at adapting, are we not? So, I think we'll be ok. 


Good luck, all you beautiful parents of beautiful children. You are amazing human beings. Don't forget that. 


Cultivating Your Child's Natural Curiosity      







Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash

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