The Battle Of Peer Dependency: Chapter Four - Part Twelve

Hello!

I'm sitting on the couch with my favorite tiny person who has a snow day from school today.  We're in the middle of  an expected snowfall of 3-5" which isn't terribly unusual, but there is a high wind that makes the 26 degree F temperature feel much, much colder.

Spawn's ok with having a day off of school while we watch "train crossing" videos on YouTube.   He was decidedly more sad when school closed unexpectedly - from a preschooler's point of view - due to COVID for three weeks.    Spawn turned four during the COVID closure and he missed his friends from school.   Every day, Spawn would ask about various classmates.  "Is Travis at home?"  "Is Cici with her grandmother?  "Is Izzie playing with her siblings?"  Thanks to a weekly class meeting through Google Classrooms, Spawn got to see most of his classmates on the computer - although that was a bit of a mixed blessing.  One day, Izzie got a hold of a cookie and half the class declared that they wanted a cookie as well.  Suddenly, four moms were trying to explain that just because  Izzie has a particularly desirable type of cookie in her hand doesn't mean that we have that kind of cookie at home, too.

Reviewing Marina Sears' "The Battle of Peer Dependency" has made me more aware of my son's budding interest in his peers. 

And, in a very strange alignment of events, I am currently reading a book on the short lives of the Romanov sisters Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia.   

My son is having a pretty standard American childhood  - or as standard as possible during a pandemic - where I expect that he'll have some number of friends who are not members of the immediate family.

The Romanov sisters, on the other hand, had very limited interaction with people their own age.   Some of the restriction was for safety reasons; assassination was a serious threat to any member of the government and Imperial Family - and a frequent use of bombing created a high risk of injury or death to the daughters despite their very distant chance of ever ascending the Imperial throne.  Some of the restriction was due to be members of a royal family; princesses couldn't associate with just any local kid.   Some of the restrictions were due to the personalities of the Tsar and Tsarina; Tsarina Alexandra shared a common personality trait with her grandmother Queen Victoria that made Tsarina Alexandra extremely attached to her husband and often refused to let people outside the immediate family spend much time with him or her children.   Finally - and in hindsight, most damaging to the family - was Tsarina Alexandra's sheltering of her children from the worldliness of Russian nobility.

When the daughters were children, having the four of them born in six years meant that they were not unduly lonely.  The daughters, though, became more and more fascinated by any young person they met as they matured into school girls and young teens.   Their lives were so circumscribed that several young women of minor nobility or acceptably wealthy families wrote about how grateful that they were that they had far more freedom than the Imperial daughters.

I was strongly reminded of the Romanov daughters asking detailed questions about what going to school was like or what it was like playing with neighbors when I re-read this section from the fourth chapter of the book:

Recently, a group of twenty-five workers joined our family as we held a week-long family camp for single mothers and their children. The camp was located 20 minutes west of San Antonio, Texas, on a very beautiful 40-acre camp. It was held in August with no air conditioners, lots of dirt, and work that was very hard. The schedule was grueling, with children's groups to be taught, meals to be cooked, daily camp cleaning, and bathing children so they could be put to bed. It truly was a time to say, "A regular person's job is from sun to sun, but a worker at a single mother's camp is never done. As we gathered after camp to reminisce and share stories, I marveled at the young people's attitude and perspectives. They commented that it was the hardest week of their lives, but they couldn't wait to do it again. The adults groaned as some suggested doing a camp every other month. When I asked them if we should have the same young people on kitchen duty all of the time, they said, "No, we want to work in the kitchen. It was so much fun." I realize that doing something for the Lord according to His will is what brought true joy. The work was hard, long, and dirty, but the rewards were incredible and long-lasting. The workers had new gratefulness for their intact families, a burden and genuine love for those to whom we were ministering, and a picture of the true work of the church.(pgs 59-60)

Back in 2003, I was a camp counselor at a camp for at-risk kids in poverty located on Lake Michigan.  At the time, I spent most of the summer completely exhausted and overwhelmed by caring for a cabin of girls for 5 or 9 days at a time while planning workshops.    

I don't know that I'd ever do it again - it was physically and emotionally exhausting when I was in my early 20's - but I also met a group of awesome counselors and very cool campers as well.

When I read this, I honestly wonder how much of the Sears' children's excitement was from being around workers their own age for a full week.   Pre-teens, teenagers and young adults are primed to spend far more time around peers than they are around young kids or older adults.  This is a positive, universal development milestone rather than a sign of moral weakness as the CP/QF crowd declares.  Teenagers are going to be finding spouses among peers.  They are going to be making future business connections among peers.  The people with who they will be raising their children will be their peers - not people of their parents' generation.

The funny bit about this section is that Sears undermines her own premise about peer-to-peer relationships.  Remember, Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull often teaches that families with lots of kids don't need outside friendships - and that outside friendships without excessive family oversight will lead immediately to sinful behavior.  Presumably, many of the 25 workers were teens or young single adults - but the world didn't end.   In fact, it sounds like those teenagers got a whole lot of work done as a group - and I've seen that happen in a wide variety of setting with teens as well.

Throughout this book, I've noticed that Marina Sears would be a nightmare to have in a playgroup since she's got a very rigid, very uncompromising set of views about how everyone else should raise their children - and she doesn't want your failure of children around her children who she is frog-marching to be soldiers for Christ, thank you very much.

I picked this next quote to show why she has no adult friends either:

Wrong focus in a friendship is not only limited to young people. It has been my sad experience to see wives replace the friendship and intimacy with their husbands for a best girlfriend, and to see their husbands trading precious memories of friendship with their wives, for that of fishing, hunting, or golfing "buddies". (pg. 61)

Having close friends outside of your marriage is not a threat to your marriage - but expecting your spouse to fill every personal need is.

There are entire topics of importance to me as a woman that my husband has no practical life experience in.   For example, I keep my hair in a variety of lengths and styles depending on ever-changing seasonal needs and personal whims.   My husband will tell me that he really likes how my hair looks - but he's of no help for situations like "I have a wedding this weekend and my hair is at a weird length.  I need up-do ideas right now." 

Two years ago, I traveled with my husband to a family wedding.  The wedding was in mid-spring - but the weather was unseasonably hot and humid.  This meant I needed an up-do to stay sane - but I was struggling to get a reasonably finished look.  I kept having strands of hair drop out of the hairstyle....and with my arrow-straight hair, that looks sloppy rather than artistic or cute.   With the help of $10 of emergency hair accessories and a ton of hair spray, I managed to wrestle my hair into a French twist and trap it against my head using two combs attached to either ends of an elastic beaded web.   

The top of the twist did have the ends of my hair sticking out and looked odd to me.   I turned to my husband who was putting his shoes on and asked "Does this hairstyle look ok for an adult woman at a wedding rather than like a college kid?"

My husband turned about five shades paler as he blurted out "I don't know!" 

 At the exact same moment, I replied, "Sorry.  Wrong person to ask."   

We both laughed pretty hard - and a female family friend I ran into before the wedding told me my hair looked fine.  

And even that points out the difference. 

My husband appreciates my hair and makes me want to feel good - so he compliments my hair as pretty.     My female friend understands that there are entire societal situational rules about appropriate hairstyles for women - and so she let me know that my hair was fine (e.g., appropriate for the situation).

It's sad that Marina Sears doesn't recognize the difference herself.