The reactions Trading Spouses evokes is fascinating, especially how intensely it pushes some people’s buttons. There is something awfully threatening about bare feet and a close knit family. I think I know why.
First, look at this CBS video clip of an American family (after a moment of advertising). Take note of the final comments, i.e., “Giving your kids what they need is always harder than giving them what they want. Only when your older can you appreciate those fences”. Decide whether this story shows the American family way ‘evolved’, or just the opposite. If you approve of this approach to family and child rearing, I predict you will have difficulty understanding, let alone appreciating, our family way. Even so, I’ll make the case.
I was raised in a normal American family way. Not surprisingly, in the 1950’s it was common knowledge that American ways, one and all, were the ultimate in human evolution. I, nor most folks I knew, had any reason to doubt that. In fact, when I expressed my plans to travel abroad, older colleges at work warned me that scores of women abroad would want to marry me in order to live the American dream.
Working and traveling (15+ years) among the peoples of the ‘impoverished and backward’ cultures of the second and third world soon opened my eyes to the cultural myths to which I was conditioned. I could finally see the forest for the trees, especially some of the dysfunctional aspects of American culture, with its obsession with independence and the effect that has on basic family life in America.
Alas, the American family way is out of sync with basic human social instincts which have seen us safe and sane for countless millennia. Of course American’s didn’t ‘chose’ to opt out of what has always been the natural way of family life. No one decided to take the natural out of the American family ‘norm’.
The American family ‘norm’ likely began with the rapid settlement of the country by Europeans. They left their ancestral home with its extensive family ties and landed in an open and ‘every man for himself’ situation(1). Little wonder that this became the seeds of the American ethical belief that ‘independence was best’. With little ancestral ties to lean on in hard times, ‘independence’ was the only way. Nevertheless, ‘independence’ is not socially nature. We are happiest and most emotionally secure when closely connected with others. The tribal family has provided that for our species from the beginning. Not only our species but all the other primates (except perhaps the more independent orangutans of Borneo.)
Thus I imagine that our family way of life, while wholly normal and natural all over the world and throughout time are felt to be ‘abnormal’ in this culture. Sure, the ‘abnormal’ can be very threatening indeed! Another example of this is when I traveled the back woods of Asia and young children would cry when they saw my bearded face. Facial hair was ‘abnormal’ in their eyes, in their experience.
Vickie now has second thoughts on her initial views of us. Frankly she was flown away from her American norm into a norm typical of the rest of the world and she didn’t know what to think. She was blown away. All she could think at the time was that I had ‘brainwashed’ the kids into this weird life ‘abnormal’ life style. She now understands. My mother came to realize the positive difference as well, and had she known in her day, would have done things differently raising my brother and I.
Finally, I’ve learned that my observations have no affect on folks confident in the righteousness of the American cultural paradigm. I’ve found that it usually takes personal experience to realize what is outside our box. My reason for writing this post is to encourage anyone seeking an alternative to the empirically obvious dysfunctional aspects of American family life. There is another time tested, saner way to approach family life!
(1) I think this situation also accounts for the high draw churches have; they filled a need for ‘extended’ family ties.
that's a nice post