SURVIVOR GRATITUDE

  Survivor Guilt to Survivor Gratitude

         I didn’t dodge a bullet in a shooting. I wasn’t one of the lone people who lived after a plane or car crash. But I do have a sort of survivor guilt. That’s because I see the rest of the world better than ever before. I see that compared to so many, I am a survivor in this travel through life.

Unlike many of the circumstances media allows us to see, I have been given the resources to survive. I grew up with enough food, shelter, love, education and health care. 

I know I’m not alone in the emotion that comes from increasing awareness of the great disparities and inequities in the world. Our parents reminded us of our bounty by telling us about the poor starving children in China. That was the group in the fifties simply because we weren’t aware of the many other places where children were starving. Sadly, they still are.

The dilemma is, how do we live with this awareness and teach our children to approach this world in a balanced way. I want mine to be joyful, contributing, compassionate and aware. I don’t want them so paralyzed by the troubles in the world that they wallow in the face of impossible challenges.  I want them to enjoy life and to make the enjoyment of life possible for more people in this world.

Gratitude has two faces, I think. As I step into my warm bed I say a prayer of gratitude for how special that is. I can’t help but think about the lack of this in so many lives. That awareness doesn't need to be a cloud that hangs over every pleasure and benefit in life. Instead it can be a reminder of the need to live a life of balance. To have a good life that includes the practice of bringing good into the lives of others.

         I am bothered when I read of people who buy their dogs designer outfits, when so many children don’t even have basic clothing. I enjoy the home renovation shows, but I sort of want to punch the entitled little twits who walk into a beautiful home and complain that there are not two sinks on the bathroom vanity.

How do we enjoy what we have and live out the responsibility to acknowledge the needs of other humans? I can’t say that I have found the perfect balance. It’s a work in progress. To let ourselves be joyful, can perhaps helps us have the spirit and energy to go forward and contribute. There are some who need handbags that cost 1,000 dollars or 50 pairs of shoes before they think they are in a position or with the energy to give. I don’t like them!

Yes, it’s their money, they can do what they want with it. But I honestly believe that there is more joy in buying that 51^st pair of shoes for a homeless kid than for one’s own closet.

Among my own efforts at balance, is the habit of small donations. There are two charities who deal with the most desperate in the world and have excellent ratings. When my family is facing a challenge where I feel powerless, I go on line and make a small donation. When something wonderful happens that enriches my life, I go on line and make a small donation.

One year my son had a “difficult” teacher. All my efforts at cooperation and communication did not help, so one charity and the people they helped benefitted significantly. At the end of the year the charity sent a statement for tax purposes. When I saw all the donations of that year, I just sat down and cried over how hard the year had been. But I was comforted that someone else did benefit.

My friend calls it, “Let’s make a deal” with God. Yes, I must admit, I have hoped there might be some Karmic exchange for my efforts. Perhaps what I have received is a sense of peace in being able to do something in the face of difficulty and to feel less powerless. It’s all part of the emerging process -- to feel joy and gratitude and to express that through what I can do to make a small difference in lives where mere survival is a struggle. I don’t see my survivor guilt as a kind of burden. I think instead survivor gratitude, not a burden but a consistent and powerful motivator in the face of so many challenges.  

PRECISION PARENTING

This is the first chapter in my book. I just realized that I hadn't posted it on the blog. Please share with new parents and new grandparents.

 Precision Parenting: There’s not an app for that!

Many baby boomers are becoming grandparents and are gathering stories about the “new rules” of raising children. They are taught these rules by their own offspring. As a psychologist working in schools and conducting parent workshops I too see the pressure new parents experience to abide by these rules. It’s given me an appreciation for what an intense “occupation” being a parent has become.

            There is an unfortunate belief that there’s a perfect way to do the job. Most people in my generation were just raised when parent was a noun! There was sometimes a bit of input from Dr. Spock, but we weren’t “parented”  -- so we meet this new trend with a mixture of humor and resignation.

            One illustration was a recent email from a friend after she was “allowed” to take care of her baby grandson for the first time.

“After a week of rigorous training from both parents on how to change diapers-- (they go on their bottoms) and how to feed the baby with a bottle (the bottle goes into the baby's mouth) I am “ready”. They have all kinds of baby monitoring devises--I feel like I am in the Pentagon-- Oh--and don't let me get started on proper swaddling--I have to admit I never did that since we all kept our babies on their tummies so they didn't thrash about--but now, since babies are kept on their backs they have to be wrapped up like a Cuban cigar.“

            The perfection assumption has either been spawned by or has led to a whole slew of books on the “proper“ way to perform every aspect of childcare. Some new parents also come from career paths that include specific management strategies and performance reviews. This might impact their perspective. Others have had challenging fertility issues that increase the anxiety about the perfect way to raise the baby.

 The pressure is evident at each age. The prenatal group often gives way to a parent group where the precise how to's are shared with fervor. Parents can feel pressure about breastfeeding, sleeping, swaddling, etc., with all elements presented as doctrine.

Next, the perfect preschool is essential and then they hit school age and there are a whole lot of perfect enrichment activities. The poor parent who sits next to the perfect parent at soccer practice and finds that this person’s child is taking violin, chess and French lessons. Many well-adjusted, successful adults were not Renaissance children. But when you’re just taking your child home after school to hang out and play with the dog in the backyard you can feel a twinge, as your child’s classmate is escorted to multiple activities.

            With “parenting” almost morphing into a competitive sport the process becomes more intense as the children approach junior high and other children are already building their resumes for college admission. Yikes! And who is all this for? It is for our kids, but also for or us to be viewed as good parents and even better -- the parents of successful children.

            In workshops I often share my own experience of being a new parent and seeing all those neat little stickers in the back windows of cars – the ones that say “Harvard”, “Yale”, “Stanford” and the like. Back then I thought, “Hmmm, I’d like to have one of those some day.” As it turned out I did not have a child in one of those schools and that’s been fine. People say that God laughs when man makes plans, but I believe God really cracks up when we make plans for our children. So I advise parents with this aspiration to do the following,

“While your child is very little, go get one of those stickers of your choice. Put it in the back window of your car. Get it out of your system now, so that when your children inevitably take a different route you’ve already gotten the sticker and you can be more comfortable with their choices.”

            To new grandparents, I suggest they continue with the resignation and humor approach. They can even be supportive or at least appear to be.

 Children have survived very well with cloth diapers and disposable diapers. Children have thrived on breast milk, commercial food and home made food. They have developed by playing in the back yard and by taking classes.

Perhaps the greatest risk in this precision parenting trend is that in trying to be perfect parents we might also be trying to create perfect children. In spite of my occasional efforts at perfect parenting my children often adopted a “good enough” approach to many things -- so much so that “good enough” became equal to a four-letter word in our house. After so many years as a psychologist and parent I’ve come to understand that the value of being a good enough parent is that we can then appreciate our children as “good enough.”

There’s a lot of pressure on everyone involved. Reasonable expectations of our children and ourselves are central in this child rearing process.  I’ve come to believe that good intentions, good sense and good humor count for more than anything. These are good enough.

THANKSGIVING FOR GRATITUDE

Gratitude training
At certain times to focus upon gratitude is very important -- this is one.

By Susan DeMersseman / November 24, 2004

BERKELEY, CALIF.

            It's a little ironic that the season in which we give thanks and the one in which our children are making their holiday wish lists come so close together.

            We try to give our children so much, but sometimes forget to give them the greatest gift, the capacity to appreciate and to feel grateful. Without that we can never give them enough. We may want to give them many things, but how do we do this and not give them a sense of entitlement? This, like most aspects of parenting, is a fine balance.

            Many of our own parents tried to make us feel grateful by pointing out the starving children in some far-off land. This strategy often resulted in us offering to send those children the horrible casserole or ugly tennis shoes. In spite of those responses, many of us grew up with far less than our children have, but with a greater sense of enjoyment and appreciation. Just a glance at the sea of media in which our children swim gives us a big hint as to how this happened. All around are material things that they (and we) are led to believe we must have - that we have a right to have.

            But there are little ways to swim against this tide. The most important is simply being an example of appreciation for the things in our own lives. It can rub off. The source of gratitude can be anything - the sight of glowing cumulus clouds, our warm home, or a nice meal. They may respond with eye rolling and an, "Oh, Mom/Oh, Dad" (as if we're so sappy). But someday when we say, "Come here a minute, look at that sunset," a big cool teenager might look and say, "Oh, yeah, and I like the way the sun streams from under the edges of the clouds." When that happened to me, I was grateful that I had put up with all the eye rolling.

            In my work as a school psychologist, a mother with a rather crabby 9-year-old came to see me for help. We worked out a way to instill a bit more gratitude - but not with reminders of how fortunate he was as a response to his complaints. Instead, we focused on bedtime. She started by spending a few minutes talking about what had gone on in her day that she was grateful for: a friend who complimented her work, the polite clerk at the store, or the quiet evening with not too much laundry. Then she asked him if anything good happened in his day. He got the idea, shared a few things, and it soon became a ritual. Like the Bing Crosby song:

"When I'm worried and I can't sleep I count my blessings instead of sheep and I fall asleep counting my blessings."

What she most appreciated is that this outlook started seeping into his day.

            I recently worked with a second-grade class at the teacher's request. She was concerned that she seemed to have a lot of complainers in the group and so we started gratitude training with them. One day I began a lesson by reviewing and asked what they remembered from our previous discussions. One little boy said, "Well, gratitude is like a skill that you practice and get better at." I'd never really taught those words, but he had put our lessons together into that sublime understanding, one that takes some of us many years to reach.

            Part of what I do in working with youngsters is to help them be aware of what is good in their lives. With the right perspective, there's so much to appreciate. Without it, there will never be enough. And only the things they don't have will seem important.

            So along with all the "stuff" on the wish lists this year, we can add our own item: appreciation. It might even help to start by letting our kids know that, regardless of their appearance, their SAT scores, or their athletic ability, they are a source of gratitude in our lives.

• Susan DeMersseman is a psychologist and parent educator.