“When… those in authority are prepared to ignore obvious distress and you are expected… to agree that it’s all for the best (when you don’t), simply use the phrase ‘sorry but I don’t agree with your fundamental assumptions’… All you need to concentrate on is that this is a difference in fundamental assumptions. Both of you… want what is best, are trying to be kind. You have decided that it is fundamentally unkind to coerce people. Apart from all the other equally sound reasons, that’s all there is to it.”
– Josephine Smith
From the archives: First published in Taking Children Seriously 31, 2000
I like fundamental assumptions: they intrigue me. I have been thinking about my fundamental assumption that Taking Children Seriously upsets people who consider self-sacrifice to be fundamentally worthwhile.
Self-sacrifice is the opposite of being selfish. If you allow your child to do what he wants and even help him to get his own way then most people would think that you, the parent, are being selfish, aren’t strong enough to deal with the child’s unbridled will. They would expect the result of all this to be that this child will suffer in the future because there always comes a time when we must ‘knuckle-down’ and do what we should.
It may upset people who love you and your child, when you say that as your 4-year-old isn’t enjoying nursery ‘we’ve decided not to go any more’. And, oh my! Just see their faces light up when you tell them that the same child has decided to try school.
You have done lots of thinking, lots of reading. You have explored your memories, replayed those lessons that you remember from school, are sure that school taught you lots of things and are absolutely sure that you could have learnt at least as much at home with parents who enjoyed aiding and abetting you in your search for knowledge … especially if it was an obscure topic. You cannot see any valid reason not to consider school as a useful resource.
And so your child goes to school, is willing to line up to wait for the bell, is happy to go into the class and meet the teacher—but doesn’t want to sit on the mat with all the other children. The teacher may well offer up her fundamental assumption that everything will be fine once you have gone. But you stay, because when you ask your child what he thinks about this, he asks you to stay. Now the teacher is sure that her theory is correct, and that it is foolish and harmful to ask a small child for his permission for you to leave him, but this isn’t the time and place to upset the mother … so you stay, and you and your child observe classroom life.
When I used to stay around at play-school it was fairly common for a child to be physically restrained by a play-leader whilst his mother left the building. This was considered normal: the child may or may not come to terms with his grief at being deserted, but it was a fundamental assumption that a child’s distress matters less than an adult’s convenience.
When it gets this bad, and those in authority are prepared to ignore obvious distress and you are expected (as a sane and rational person who wants the best for your child) to hand over all responsibility and to agree that it’s all for the best (when you don’t), simply use the phrase ‘sorry but I don’t agree with your fundamental assumptions’. This will give you time to think and a bit of space to get out of the horrible situation. Remember to look calm and that what you are saying is simply the truth. The person in authority may well be looking at you and thinking ‘permissive parent! Causing untold pain and suffering to her spoilt child!’ and you may well be thinking ‘Ignorant, blinkered person, who wants to beat my beautiful, clever child into submission!’
All you need to concentrate on is that this is a difference in fundamental assumptions. Both of you, even the dentist who has told you that it is essential that your child have a general anaesthetic if he will not co-operate, want what is best, are trying to be kind. You have decided that it is fundamentally unkind to coerce people. Apart from all the other equally sound reasons, that’s all there is to it.
When you know why Taking Children Seriously is at the very least, as good a theory as the teacher’s, dentist’s or mother-in-law’s theories, then those awful phrases such as ‘well, he will have to learn to do what he’s told sometime!’ will not feel so bad.
It is hard to become immune, especially if your parents did their very best to teach you to give in and sacrifice in order to conform; and the implication of those words, which is that you are a bad parent, may go round and round in your head for some time. But don’t take it too seriously. Do have a good look at what you are doing and why—but be pleased and proud, especially if ‘we all have to do things that we don’t want to do’ was the family motto, as the absurd notion that we all have to either be coerced or coerce to get any worthwhile thing done stops here and now with you!
Meanwhile complete strangers may feel compelled to comment upon your child’s ‘dangerous’ behavior. Dangerous behavior such as walking barefoot or not wearing ‘enough’ clothes for the time of year are very common activities in our family. People who genuinely are concerned about our welfare will point out what they see as the error of our ways. Remember again that this is only a conflict in assumptions. Smile and point out that you have got the shoes, the hat, the coat and gloves with you and that your child, though obviously cold, is happy.
It is hard, when they tell you blood-curdling tales of death and disaster that have allegedly happened to people that they knew (my gran was a firm believer in the theory that small worms would burrow into your feet should you walk barefoot on the grass—even though we live in England), to keep a straight face!
When people choose self-sacrifice, their fundamental assumption is still that a reward of some kind will follow their noble act. For example work at a job you hate until you are 60—and then you’ll be able to do what you want. Stay in a marriage with someone that you don’t honestly like because everyone else’s happiness depends upon you—and when the children have left home they will bring their grandchildren around to you (so that you can teach these children how to be self-sacrificial too). And as long as there are children around, mouths to feed, clothes to iron and dishes to do, you don’t have to think about all your own wasted opportunities or dare to take any new ones that may come your way. Such scenarios are horribly familiar. But the worst problem with people being self-sacrificial is that they spread their misery around for years and pass on the meme from generation to generation!
So far I have been defining the ‘self’ in self-sacrifice as one’s will. When one self-sacrifices, one does something other than what one wishes to do. But another meaning of self-sacrifice defines ‘self’ as one’s entrenched theories, one’s favorite fundamental assumptions. To sacrifice these, in other words to offer them up for criticism, seems to me to be the only way that self-sacrifice can be considered a noble act.
See also:
- Reluctant at drop-off yet later does not want to leave?
- The Keeping-One’s-Options-Open mentality
- How they feel about the coercion at the time
Josephine Smith, 2000, ‘Reflections on self-sacrifice and fundamental assumptions’, Taking Children Seriously 31, ISSN 1351-5381, pp. 18-19, https://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/reflections-on-self-sacrifice-and-fundamental-assumptions