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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Raising Consciousness vs. Raising Children
#7810570 - 12/29/07 01:29 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Both of these goals can be accomplished together, but more often than not in my experience, 'family [wo]men' one-sidedly put more energy into the enrichment of their children's lives than they put into the quality of their own personal development. Frequently, what I see is undeveloped adults, often financially successful and therefore capable in the doings of the outer world, but dreadfully impoverished in their inner world. In addition, I see incredibly spoiled and demanding children who have introjected their parents' outer-world trip so that they constantly demand to 'keep up with the Joneses' with regard to clothes, cell phones, Ipods, computer games, and other forms of child or adolescent status.
I have a brother with teenage son and daughter. He is a well-paid lawyer, she was an executive who was 'retired' by a major pharmaceutical company and is now a housewife. I have seen my niece whine and repeatedly poke her mother in the face without my sister-in-law doing anything more than verbally protesting. My brother and his wife have never spanked their kids incidentally (not that I disapprove, but his son as a young child also would hit his father in the face). They are extremely sheltered and spoiled. My brother would not even tell his kids that my dog, with whom they had played on several occasions, had died, to shelter them from that unpleasant fact of life. A few years ago, my brother and I had an argument on the phone. It was like being thrust back in time because he hissed and accused me of things exactly like he did when he was back in junior high and high school!
It was uncanny and I was taken aback because under his 'well-respected man about town' persona, he had not developed emotionally since those years! When he was given a book entitled The Awareness Trap many years ago by an acquaintance, that person plus the book cut at the root of any interest in the cultivation of consciousness/spiritual development forever after. He has conveniently forgotten any of the pleasant acid trips we took together including 10th row center seats in Passaic, New Jersey's Capitol Theatre when we shared a fully acoustic Grateful Dead show on very mellow acid. I have been ordered never to tell his wife (or kids, I imagine) that he ever took acid, but as soon as I moved to Miami years ago, who was inquiring about a 'quantity' of blow?! I see, that stuff is OK because it inflates the ego to pathological dimensions, but diminution of the ego in the interest of transcendence? Forgetaboutit! Since this is one example close to home, I mention it.
Second example is a couple whom we've know for years. They are cultural Jews. She was made to convert before marrying him and their children are being put through Bar/Bat Mitzvahs. When we do not attempt to get together with them for 2 or 3 weeks, the lady gets all pissy because she finally has a break from the kids (whom they practically worship as gods, and hence spoil) and we are into a weekend of enjoying retreat from the world of banal conversation. We wish only to 'Be' or to read for many hours or talk (yes, my Lady and I converse at great length even 12 years into the relationship). Our friends cannot imagine why we cannot accomodate them as diversions from their ostensibly wonderful family life, since, after all, we don't have any kids and we couldn't possibly be doing anything important since we are not busy raising kids! I should have mentioned that my brother doesn't think that my life-style is as important at his is because I am not busy raising kids. It is not a religious post-Holocaust obligatory notion either, to raise up more Jewish children.
I have been told with disdain by parents: "I can't imagine coming home to an empty house day after day!" I am floored because after working in a middle school for 7.5 hours a day, I am blissed out to listen to little more than our grandfather clock ticking and its quarterly Westminster chiming. This morning, my Lady's almost 25 year old daughter left after an 8 day visit. My Lady herself was relieved, if only because her daughter has a voice that could cut glass! She looks like a high school girl and sounds even younger, even though she has a Master's degree and works in human resources in a multi-billion dollar company. Hey, all of us are INTPs.
The point here is that many child-raising adults do not grok that a life-style of cultivating personal development which involves physical exercise as well as intellectual pursuits and continual spiritual discipline (like living in the Present or being aware of Rigpa mind, however one wants to phrase it) is as important to those people as raising children is to them. Moreover, raising consciousness is also for the benefit of everyone one meets in this life. These friends are more interested in how their children make them look than what good they can impart to their world. Their children are mere extensions of their egoic identities ("Don't embarrass your parents!"). Such parents are ready to kill anyone who might slight their little darlings in the least, which goes beyond the mere biological imperative to protect them because the children serve as appendages to their self-esteem - something else to brag about and contribute to their own ego-inflation, but I am selfish for not raising children up into my own idealized 'image and likeness!' WTF?
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Veritas


Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
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Re: Raising Consciousness vs. Raising Children [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#7810592 - 12/29/07 01:40 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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You may be erroneously associating the fact that these people are raising children (poorly) with the state of their personal growth.
Here's my thinking on the matter:
1. It is unusual for adults to actively pursue personal growth.
2. It is not at all unusual for adults to have children.
By percentages, then, MANY people who are raising children will also be people who do not actively pursue personal growth. There are also plenty of childless adults who do not value personal growth. 
My guess is that the folks you've mentioned would be the same whether they had children or not--it's just the way they've decided to 'do' their life. The unexamined life is a popular choice.
It is my preference to raise children AND examine my life. This puts me outside the circle of normalcy, and I often feel that I am just visiting this planet. My sons are fantastic people, and I'm glad to have them in my life. I would want to be around them even if I hadn't given birth to them. Still, they are not #1 in my life--I am.
Edited by Veritas (12/29/07 01:46 PM)
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: Raising Consciousness vs. Raising Children [Re: Veritas]
#7810608 - 12/29/07 01:50 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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AH yes...the final words with my brother in the argument were about his not caring a wit about "self-knowledge." I've long reflected on something theologian Paul Tillich once wrote: "Religion is what a [wo]man does with solitude." I have, wrongly perhaps, assumed that with lots of solitude, one would naturally be faced with oneself and having lots of selfhood in one's face, so-to-speak, one would eventually DO something with it - attempt to fathom it, unravel it, understand it, since that is the abundant given. However, you are probably right, and most people would simply fill their lives with diversions, distractions, amusements...
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Veritas


Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
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Re: Raising Consciousness vs. Raising Children [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#7810631 - 12/29/07 02:00 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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The popular opinion of solitude seems to be that it is a fate worse than death. I've always sought time alone--even if it meant locking myself in the bathroom.
Raising kids does reduce the amount of time and energy one has for other pursuits. However, I have found parenting to be extremely enlightening and educational. My kids can push my buttons like no one else can (or would ), yet they remain loving and forgiving when I have shown them my worst. I emulate their enthusiasm for life, their emotional resilience, their generosity & their sensual appreciation of the material world, just as they have emulated those qualities in me.
The demands of raising two boys alone has sometimes pushed me beyond what I thought were my limits, leading me to discover unknown strength in myself. I don't think that I would be motivated to push myself that hard if I were not engaged in parenting.
Someone else might use parenting as an excuse to neglect their intellectual and emotional development, but I think that they would do so if they were childless, too.
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MushroomTrip
Dr. Teasy Thighs



Registered: 12/02/05
Posts: 14,794
Loc: red panda village
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Re: Raising Consciousness vs. Raising Children [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#7810653 - 12/29/07 02:10 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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My parents are exactly like that. I was grown in exactly the manner you described and because of that, after I grew up I had more than a lot issues to deal with. Practically everything that I've been taught to be true turned out to be fake and sick.  It took me a couple of years until I was able to make some sense of my life and continue from there, based on the things I learned. I had some very difficult moments because of that, but looking back I would rather have it ten times worse than being the person I was educated to be.
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   All this time I've loved you And never known your face All this time I've missed you And searched this human race Here is true peace Here my heart knows calm Safe in your soul Bathed in your sighs
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Silversoul
Rhizome


Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Re: Raising Consciousness vs. Raising Children [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#7810673 - 12/29/07 02:22 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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I've seen a lot of single "career women" who are equally if not more materialistic than mothers. My mom has said to me before how spiritually enlightening it was raising me and my brother. I know more married women who seem to be on a spiritual path than single women. I can't say from personal experience, but I imagine that raising children could be a great exercise in overcoming the ego(if you do it right, that is). Anyway, I've said it before, but I think your problem is that you live in Florida.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: Raising Consciousness vs. Raising Children [Re: Veritas]
#7810683 - 12/29/07 02:27 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Veritas said:
Someone else might use parenting as an excuse to neglect their intellectual and emotional development, but I think that they would do so if they were childless, too.
I believe you are correct. Parenting then becomes more of the same one-sided existence extended to the offspring.
We seem to be pretty much avoided by most people, parents and non-parents alike, and I think that you probably nailed it with the examined vs. the unexamined life. I am a late bloomer and I married a sick woman my first time, so the possibility for raising children passed me by. I probably could've done an OK job on my end, but I still do not register any regrets. I wanted, as a young man, to be 'free to die' if that became my choice (I think the expression came from a Jefferson Starship song and the notion stuck in my stupid romantic late adolescent mind), so I never pushed for children. Actually, I can't really blame my ex-wife since I never had a desire of my own for fatherhood and left it to her. Of course a non-nurturing woman was my choice in the first place, I finally realized all too late. I DO require warmth in my partner .
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: Raising Consciousness vs. Raising Children [Re: Silversoul]
#7810765 - 12/29/07 03:05 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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We kick this Florida thing around frequently. It's been so long since either of us lived elsewhere, that it is just as much a matter of the times than of the place. In the 60s and early 70s there was still a hippy consciousness for lack of a better expression. I was maried from 1983-92 and went into some kind of arrested development. When it was over, and I had to date again, it was the first time in a situation outside of a university setting. Between age 18 and 29 I had lived and dated exclusively in university settings. I gave up virginity in a dorm room! Then, in a huge multicultural and primarily impoverished and anti-intellectual city like Miami, I was lost. I met my Lady, Rose, through an act of Grace! By the time I was 39 and divorced, I remained where I had a career position, licensure, my folks had followed me here. Now, I have 8 years to retirement with full pension. Hey, I gotta make lemonaide with lemons. Geographically/climatically, I can't complain:
I mean, it's pretty here, but socially for us, it's a wasteland. Now that we're 'old' and set in our ways (like taking the trash to the street in one's shorts in February) we wouldn't know where to go even after I retire. The Lady likes hot and green whereas, I wouldn't mind hot and brown of the desert states. Today I was telling her about the late occultist-psychotherapist Israel Regardie living in Sedona, AZ. Maybe I should extend invitations to certain Shroomerites for week-long escape-the-cold vacations with us. Price: Good conversation. 
Rose taught at Miami-Dade College for a while with a woman who was divorced and dating. She was a stereotypical Jewish-American Princess, who fell for an interesting Latin college prof. Her 9 year old son complained: "But Mommy...what can a teacher DO for us?" She dumped the hip prof and met a paunchy lawyer on a blind date who looked her up and down (she's pretty foxy) and said something to the effect: 'I've seen better.' She didn't flip him off and leave right then and there because her quest for lifestyle and the almighty dollar gave her the humility (not to mention humiliation) to actually have dinner with this slug! Of course, after visiting our modest 1979 home and looking IT up and down, she really wasn't interested in befriending people who live in our neighborhood. Not complaining really, she also is not into self-examination or transcendence, and the word God probably only comes out when she's coming. Ya now what? It is probably like ancient hermits who took to the desert...living in a social wasteland that is. Maybe I should look at this as an integral part of our own spiritual development.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: Raising Consciousness vs. Raising Children [Re: MushroomTrip]
#7810772 - 12/29/07 03:08 PM (16 years, 1 month ago) |
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Yes, throwing off a lot of cultural programming seems to be prerequisite for building a new person. William James spoke about the "once born" and "twice born" individual which is a more universal thing than the usual association with being 'born again,' but the process does amount to the same tearing down to foundation and building up again with a NEW foundation.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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