Categories: uncategorized
Date: 15 August 2011 09:32:02
Third Party has gotten herself a part time job which is a bit more exciting that shelf stacking at Tesco - it's a part-time, paid, student internship. She'll be doing this alongside finishing her A2's next year - assuming that next Thursday goes as hoped and she gets the grades to progress. I was reflecting on the values she has which have made her suited to doing her new job, whilst listening to Ian Duncan-Smith talk on the radio this morning. When challenged about single parent families he repeatedly referred to "dysfunctional families" in a way which appeared to be inter-changeable with single parent. He also talked though about the values instilled into children and young people. It has all made me stop and think about the values instilled into Third Party and how I have (i) managed to produce a teenager who is actually willingly still engaged with church and (ii) the values she has which makes her want to work in the role she is taking up.
I don't have the answers but I do have a few thoughts:
Firstly, I never forced Third Party into going to church if she didn't want. She knew it was a choice she had and a choice that I expected her to make for herself.
Secondly, I encouraged her to think about what she believed and why. I sometimes gave her, perhaps too much, a hard time to ensure that she thought about what she believed and what her faith meant to try and ensure that acts such as baptism were not done out of social expectation. I challenged her to question what she was being taught at church and to work out for herself what she thought a relationship with God meant and how the bible should be read and applied.
Thirdly, when people were trying to keep their kids away from the "problem" youth and asking the "are they nice?" question I encouraged her friendships with some people who teachers and others warned against. I tried to teach her you don't give up on people - if somebody is being marginalised by the system you try to support them, whilst protecting yourself and having the confidence to put in place your own boundaries. I taught her to be able to be friends with people without taking on their behaviours.
Forthly, I taught her to stand up for what she believed in. From silly young she was taken out protesting and engaging in activism. She was taught to go onto the streets and actively stand up for what you believe in. Within that she was taught that faith and activism went hand in hand and that if you took action it had to have a purpose in it.
Fifthly, I taught her that just because you might be skint you are not poor. There are truly poor people here and abroad, but people like her weren't amongst them. She had support networks and access to educational opportunity - therefore in many ways she was very rich.
Sixthly, I took her out experiencing life in a range of settings. She learnt to love the festival culture and also to love the arts. I tried to ensure that she was exposed to stuff which she may or maynot find interesting but which would ensure she had experiences.
Seventhly, I didn't try to shield her too much, but I did try to ensure I watched stuff and read stuff with her and so I knew what she was having access to and could help her think through the issues. This meant from about 10years old she was watching chick flicks with me which contained strong language and sometimes a bit of sex. I knew she heard worse language on the school bus and elsewhere and that hearing the f word would not kill the child. But I also tried to ensure it was used, if used, appropriately and not in places or ways which were likely to offend people. I would tell her off for using it sometimes, but accept at other times it might be a justifiable reaction to something.
Within this I realise that Third Party's upbringing may be described as dysfunctional by some. However, I think it has been highly functional in a Simpsons kind of way. She has been allowed to make mistakes and to go through tough times acknowledging them for what they are and learning from them. She has been taught that life is not fair but you fight against the unfairness, partly through things like how you shop. But she has also been taught that sometimes the reality of life is that you have to shop where you can afford.
I haven't taught her these things alone though. She has learnt from friends, relations, leaders and many others. She has learnt from "the community" and in a large part through journeying alongside people who have had serious stuff to deal with from a young age. I think what I am trying to say is Third Party is not a saint and she has not always handelled stuff well; I certainly have made loads of mistakes as a mum but she has turned out alright. A big part of that is because she has been taught a set of values which work - values which Cameron and co would probably mock as being the idealistic values of the liberal, anti-capitalist left and which they may indeed blame for much of the current moral vacume.
The thing is though, these values which may be questioned by some have been taught as Christian values. She has been taught to question, to stand up for the rights of the marginalised and oppressed, to join in solidarity and community with others and to serve others because people not profit matter. She has been taught that it is not the result which matters - it is that she can say she did her best, (although that is a hard one for her to grasp).