The Battle of Peer Dependency: Chapter Five - Part Two

 Hello!  

Spawn and I were enjoying our walk to the corner after he got out of preschool when he stuck his thumb out at me and said "Mama, what's this?"

I tried not to flinch as I replied, "That's a splinter, Spawn.  I'll fix it when we get home."

I hate splinters - and this one was fairly big in a very small thumb.  A very small thumb attached to a little boy I adore and who I hated the idea of causing transient pain to prevent a worse infection.

We got home and I got out antibiotic/ lidocaine ointment, tweezers and a band aid.   I showed Spawn all of the pieces and told him that I needed to take the splinter out of his finger because the splinter could cause his finger to get sick if it stayed in.  (I had no idea how else to explain an infection to him.)  I also told him that I thought I could get it out without causing pain - but he could tell me if it hurt.  

He let me put antibiotic ointment on first.  We turned all the lights in the living room on so that I could see a bit better.  The good news was that the splinter wasn't deep at all - but it was long and most of it was trapped under a thin layer of skin with an inflamed part at the farthest end.  I tried to catch the free end farthest away from sore spot with tweezers but the tweezers were too large to work with easily.  Spawn was starting to get anxious so I decided to quickly press on the opposite end to force the free end out a bit farther, then grabbed the free end with my fingernails and removed it in one quick motion.

Spawn yelped and started crying when I pushed down.  I felt like the worst human ever - like Nurse Ratched set loose in a kindergarten - but I got the splinter out.   

I snatched him up in a big hug and apologized a bunch of times for the fact that his finger hurt when I took it out.   I really, really hoped I could do it without hurting him - but removing the splinter did hurt.  

I think I said that in part because I remember adults telling me all the time when I was a kid that things didn't hurt as much as I thought they did.   That drove me nuts - and made me much more afraid of medical procedures.  After all, adults of all stripes didn't think splinters or scraped knees hurt when I found them very painful - so how can I trust their opinion of if a shot hurt?  

I also praised him for being a brave boy.  I told him it's completely ok to cry when something hurts - but the fact he didn't try to push me away or clench his hand shut let me get the splinter out fast.  That made him smile spontaneously - and he declared "I'm brave like Bail-Bail" which is a reference to his favorite character on "Word Party" - a quiet, gentle elephant named Bailey who another character calls Bail-Bail.   Spawn often reminds me of Bailey - and I'll sing Bailey's song about happily sitting under a tree daydreaming when we sit together on a curb watching traffic in our small town.

Walking with my son after school.   Sitting on a curb watching cars go by.   Singing silly songs.  Catching up with my husband about our days.   Nursing minor injuries and illnesses.  To my way of thinking,  that's the nuts and bolts of family life.  

Marina Sears in her memoir/parenting book "The Battle of Peer Dependency" completely disagrees with me.   After struggling to recognize the point of chapter five - titled "The Family" - I finally recognized that the point of chapter five is to entreat families to retreat into a tight huddle containing the nuclear family only.    Grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins are completely ignored in this description of family with one exception I'll discuss in a future post.   Families consists of two parents and their biological children - and everyone had better enjoy a close, happy relationships, damn it!  

Here's a pretty standard example of how American families are screwed per Mrs. Sears:

It seems as though the modern-day definition of the traditional American family unit has evolved into people living in the same house, eating one or two meals a week together, and sometimes enjoying a family night or yearly vacation with each other. With hectic busy schedules, many families do not see each other together as a unit except for these times. Sadly, we have replaced the intimacy and fellowship of parents and siblings with our peers. Students are spending more time away from their families and more time with her own age groups. Essential quality time has been delegated to teachers, friends, youth leaders, and other parents. (pg. 66)

Mrs. Sears waxes nostalgic for a way of life that never existed. 

The idea of a family unit that only consisted of two parents and their offspring would have seemed absurd to Americans within the last 150 years.   Family units for European settlers generally contained multiple generations, extended family and servants.  Young people were sent out of their homes to work on farms, in businesses or as domestic servants prior to marriage.   This means that married families had servants who were either living in the household or at least sharing one or more meal a day.   A much higher death rate for working aged adults meant that many marriages were ended by death of one spouse while dependent children were still young.   This lead to many households containing a mixture of step-children and the children of close relatives who were either orphaned or whose family needed temporary alternate care arrangements.    

The only thing that made American life different from life in European countries is that there was not a permanent servant class.  Men and women started as dependent children, lived as servants or apprentices in other families, and eventually became the managers of their own dependent workforce of children and servants.  

More broadly, Mrs. Sears tends to idealize the nuclear family while ignoring the importance of larger community connections.   Why are pre-teens and young teenagers especially so obsessed with their peer groups?  Because they are at an age where they are learning the cultural attributes that will mark them as a member of an age class that will be working together as romantic partners, parents and business associates for the next few decades.    Is that phase a bit obnoxious?  Oh, yes.  It was obnoxious when Mrs. Sears did it, it was obnoxious when I did it and it will be obnoxious when my son does it - but humans are often rather obnoxious during certain developmental phases and we all survive it.   What happens when parents opt their children out of being around peers?   The family runs the risk of having their children bypassed for business and romantic partners.   

In that respect, having the majority of sons who work in a family business is as problematic a sign as having multiple daughters are unmarried by their late twenties; both are a sign that the family is so isolated that the adult offspring are struggling to separate from their family of origin.

This next quote is delightful in its own way:

Recognizing that Satan has perverted the intent and function of the family, parents will be able to accurately define from Scripture what God has designed for their family.  While attending a family camp in Michigan as the ladies' speaker, God gave me a clear, visible definition of a Godly family. This family was comprised of a dad, mom, and three sons. The interaction among family members was incredible.. Brothers delighted in the company of each other, and parents delighted in their children. At the center of the family was the inward and outward evidence that, as a whole, they all delighted in the Lord. (pg.  70)

I have a few impertinent questions. 

Why is Marina Sears a speaker for women at a conference if the Divine Plan for families is to be utterly self-contained at all times?   This speaking gig by her own standards is Satanic because it is drawing her away from her sons and daughter and all of the intimate quality time the five of them are supposed to spend locked away together.

If age-segregation is an evil above all others, why is she the speaker for the adult women instead of having the entire family listen to her?   She might proffer something about how women are not supposed to teach men - but if that is the case - shouldn't the Divine Plan of family togetherness mean that all speakers are male?   Yes, obeying the Divine Plan will greatly impinge on showing off how much better her family is at being SuperChristians than the rest of us - but isn't that the price a person pays to follow the Lord?

Since when does the Bible state that outward evidence of delight in the Lord is adequate evidence of the internal state of a person's soul?  I remember a whole lot of quotes in the Gospels about white-washed graves and pits of vipers - but nothing explaining that looking good in the eyes of the community was what Jesus really wanted from followers.

In a disturbingly relevant example, the Duggar family appeared to most people to consist of siblings who delighted in each other and parents who delighted in their family.   Sure, a lot of us thought their were cracks in the system - how can two parents support and spend real time with 19 kids while enmeshed in a cult? - but the extent of Joshua Duggar's abuse of his siblings and continuing abuse of his wife through having affairs and other minor children through consumption of images of child sexual abuse didn't make the family seem less functional on the surface.

On the flip side, my family unit of my husband, me and our son is fairly functional - but we often look like frazzled, slightly overwhelmed people.   I am the person who had to drag a screeching toddler into playscapes since he was frightened of being around other children. (He'd laugh happily when it was time to leave.)  I wear shirts inside out and backwards about twice a month.  I've ended up at the grocery store three times in one day because I forgot to buy the same item during two previous trips.  I'm always a bit bleary-eyed when I pick my son up from school on Mondays and Tuesdays since I take naps while he's at school to try and catch up on the sleep I miss while working late on Sunday and Monday nights.  Spawn gets really excited when "Daddy and Mama and Spawn all play together!" because my husband and I work opposite shifts to manage working while caring for a small child.

We might be frazzled - but neither my husband nor I have abused children so I'm good with my life choices.   

By Mrs. Sears' rules, my family is Satanic.  By every else's rules, we're thriving during a challenging time - so be aware that her book is toxic as all get out.