Generational Amnesia

Generational Amnesia: A theory of how our society evolves in real time.

As I described in the Aspirations Become Abuses post, that social expectations about child rearing best practices are constantly changing and that this results in our society constantly reframing very ordinary things into dangerous or irresponsible behaviors with the potential to harm children, another process of change also affects how parents themselves define their parenting priorities. Each generation of parents is usually motivated to do better job with their kids, or to produce more successful kids than their parents were able to do for them.

The gap of communication this creates between generations is masterfully illustrated in the show Master of None with Aziz Ansari in the episode entitled Parents.

In my observations of friends, family and clients, I've noticed people seem to be able to focus on in improving one or two things for their kids, and that these selections are very specific to the problems and limitations for a particular family. For example, my clients who separated from their fundamentalist religious family focused on literacy, education and very much foster the expectation that their children should aim to get well paying jobs. People in their family had dyslexia, and some were stuck in a very dysfunctional harmful community environment because they could not read, go to school and thus could not financially support themselves.

Another family I know focuses on providing the best primary school environment for their children, and wants them to deeply feel like they are part of a supportive group of students and friends and teachers who understand their unique gifts. I happen to know their mother very much felt invisible and that no one in her family was in a position to place her needs at the forefront, and she deals with the health consequences and wellness challenges in her own life as a result.

Another family I know keeps their children close, with just a couple of friends, and does not allow them to go to birthday parties or social events, and most of their social life is centered around the family. In their family, their father's job in law enforcement is a constant mirror of the dangers we live with and a reminder of what people are capable of when they are at their worst. Their mother struggles daily with feeling safe,  and trusting people, so she is wanting to give her children safety and the best chance to be protected until they're out on their own.

In my own case, as a young person I (wrongly) decided the conflict in my family could be traced to not enough money, and that if my mother had financial self-sufficiency, she could've emancipated herself from an abusive situation. I also (wrongly) concluded that no one loved me, and I literally was in my mid-40s before I recognized this was incorrect. So, it's accurate to say our family did not express kindness or affection. I also took a lot of responsibility and assumed many things were my fault, because I was some sort of bad influence (also wrong).

So, when I approached my parenting priorities, and my priorities for my daycare kids, it was and still is the utmost importance that I constantly empower all children to feel capable and work toward independence. I work hard to listen and be present and empathize with their emotions. I work hard to teach them to negotiate with one another instead of fighting, and I demand they show respect and kindness to eachother at all times as well. And, we do a lot of things that can be described as Attachment Parenting. It's really important to me that our children do the activities they choose and become adults that follow their own lead and internal drive, so that they will never be influenced by people who do not have their best interests at heart. I want them to have fulfillment in each area of their lives, so they must be the one to choose their careers and hobbies.

The other part of Generational Amnesia is that for everything parents do actively and consciously to fix the past on behalf of their children's future, they also hide their personal trauma and much of the adult content of the real history of their relatives.

For example, my friends who fleed their fundamentalist community. They do not tell their girls about the harsh discipline, indoctrination, and isolation they suffered personally. They do not talk about the sexual, physical and emotional abuse that goes on which is covered up by the church. They do not talk about the desperation of their cousins, aunts and uncles who feel trapped in an impossible situation. And, if they go home to visit family, they try to keep all conversations on the surface to avoid an unpleasant scene. And they only talk about how conflicted they feel-- angry but willing to help--when the kids are asleep.

So, the kids only get the urgent message to read, with a very strong 'or else' feeling. And they get a 'you must work and earn a lot of money' message with an emotional 'or else' intensity to go along with it. But they don't know why. Maybe they grow up feeling sorry for their extended family, and don't understand why their parents left. Maybe they will grow up to think their parents are selfish.

They will have no idea why their parents truly left, or just exactly how difficult that was and what a huge accomplishment that was until they are much older, if ever. This is very intentionally done by my friends on their kids behalf. They are at risk of struggling with a ton of residual emotion that they don't understand---shame, anger, sadness at being cut-off, or whatever, purely because they don't know their real family history.

And they are exactly like millions of other descendants of similar stories of horror and hardship. Generally our parents and elders do not share the stories of brutality, abuse, danger, atrocity. And yet we know life is full of those things even today.

We are coming to know that healing and resolutions happens when we work to resolve our trauma with someone to witness our injuries. Generally we think of this process as being contained to one individual for events that take place in that person's lifetime and personal experience. Science is showing us that trauma can change our DNA, and our descendants can be affected by things that happen in our lives. I think we are close to discovering we can work toward healing our family's collective trauma, through knowing more about the history and extrapolating about what those experiences must've been like for the individuals who lived through them.

I will write many examples of this using experiences of individuals in my own family.