FROM MATERIALISM TO INTEGRITY
By Dr. Daniel A. Bochner
Many articles are written about specific issues in child rearing, but rarely
do we find a way to discuss the basic building blocks that are necessary for
making children grow into great adults. There are a few essential components
that must be cultivated in our children if we are to fashion them into healthy,
thriving, connected beings. These components, when properly placed and
integrated during childhood, work in unison to help people function both as
individuals and within the larger community. Before it's possible to jump into
the specific problems any one population might have, it is necessary to have a
clear understanding of these basic components and how to ensure that they will
be installed properly. The question that is of most importance in child rearing,
therefore, is not a question about what is wrong with particular children, but
rather, how do we make sure to build integrity in all children?
In answering this general question, it appears that there is an associated
general problem area that seems to be a regular correlate to problems with
integrity in our society. That one problem area is materialism. Our society is
so fast, and materialism runs so rampant at every economic level, that almost
all children get most of the things they want with very little effort. Sometimes
it’s X-Boxes, sometimes it’s nice clothing or a new pair of Jordans, but most of
the time parents do whatever they can to obtain these things in our current
society, regardless of whether or not they’re affordable or whether it’s ill-
advised to give these things to their children. Sometimes, it seems, we run so
fast to attain the things we desire that we forget the more important parts of
life. Integrity of character involves ones relation to others in the world, and
thus materialism, to the extent that we pursue selfish pleasures, image, and ego,
becomes the primary symptom of a lack of integrity.
We need to ask how empty materialistic pursuit grabs a hold of us. What
happens, for example, when a person is given everything without appropriate
effort? On the other hand, what happens if a person sees that others need
make little effort and get everything anyway? Are matters made worse when a
person’s parents feel that their children should be given everything as a reward
for the parents’ hard work? Are matters made worse when a parent gives their
child everything merely due to guilt about what they perceive to be their own
failure to succeed? What if, to make matters worse, a child grows up believing
that the only worthwhile accomplishments in this world require huge success
since that's what they're parents have pursued? On the other hand, what if a
child grows up thinking there is no chance they’ll be able to earn the things
they want for themselves or their families in a legitimate job? All of these
pressures lead people to resentment, laziness, and/or unearned entitlement, and
away from integrity of character, as parents and children alike pursue many
desires, but not their connection with each other. The current state of
materialism pulls us away from one another even as we try to buy our way into
each others' hearts.
As has now been well-publicized, most notably quite recently in Madeline
Levine’s book, “The Price of Privilege” (2006), the current state of affluent
materialism has left many well-to-do children feeling empty, depressed and
angry, as they act out either through wild behavior and substance abuse, or
equally damaging self loathing and self abuse. Meanwhile, in far less affluent
homes, in spite of material possessions provided through great sacrifice,
desperation grows as children see their parents working endlessly, or falling
hopelessly into debt, while attempting to give their children those things the
media and advertisers seem to suggest that every child deserves. These
children also turn to wild behavior due to resentment, feelings of emptiness and
depression, which show up behaviorally in substance abuse and other forms of
self abuse, but also criminal behavior, which can seem to be a legitimate option
for getting ahead in a world where so many others can get things so much
easier than the underprivileged can.
The antidote to materialism, and the key to integrity, is thus connection
and relatedness within society in general, and especially between parents and
their children. But this too is a complicated issue. It can be difficult to find
time for connection and relatedness based on how we run our lives. Our
society has seemingly made material possessions and wealth paramount over
relationships. Many people work to achieve greater and greater success even if
it means there’s no time for ones family. This is true in spite of the fact that
individual or family happiness does not grow once the basic needs have been
confidently secured, no matter how much material success is attained. In
contrast, many less affluent families, trying to make an honest living, simply
don’t find time for family togetherness. Often the stresses they face make
their time at home nothing more than independently sought salve for the
hardships of the day.
To make matters worse, in many affluent families children must achieve,
either academically or in athletics, so that they will accomplish the proper
reflection on their parents, who are overly image conscious in their pursuit of
an image of success. That is, the pressure on these children exists too much
because of how things will look, and not enough because the child is
succeeding in pursuit of something he or she truly loves. This pressure leaves
children feeling especially disconnected and empty since their external success
itself becomes more important than who they truly are or how they really feel.
Even worse, however, is the feeling in less affluent families that there is
nothing a child can do to distinguish him or herself within the family or within
society, since having to struggle, in and of itself, seemingly means that you’re
no one important. Regardless of that bereft feeling about ones worth, parents
in these families are often too stressed to notice the specialness in any child
anyway.
With all that said, if connection and relatedness are indeed the antidote to
materialism and the key to integrity, the primary question remains, what
exactly must happen within the parent/child relationship in order for the child to
grow up to be a healthy, independent, confident, related and caring individual?
Healthy development requires that one’s parents strike a healthy balance
between protecting their children and allowing for their childrens' independent
action. As part of that balance, parents are, of course, always trying to impart
certain values for children to live by. But balancing protection of one’s
children with allowing for autonomy, especially while simultaneously trying to
make sure your children learn to be good people, is a complicated task.
In the few paragraphs to come, I will delineate the six most important
factors in balancing protection of our children with the necessary independence
they must develop. These six factors are the most important for all children
whether they be affluent or impoverished, but are more or less difficult to
accomplish based on a variety of family variables that include economic
standing, but also, just as importantly, other variables such as the character in
the parents and their ability to work together as a team. These six factors of
emotional health, if well-balanced within the parents’ approach to child rearing,
lead to integrity and confidence within a child, who will then become a
responsible and caring individual within his own relationships, and a well-
functioning member of society. When these six factors are truly cultivated in a
person, the connection to others and confidence within oneself that they imply,
makes rampant materialism a virtual impossibility. These six factors are
specialness, humility, hard work, responsibility, gratitude, and a desire for
growth.
Being Special
Although these six factors coexist, with none greater than another,
perhaps because balance is so important in life, it would be best to make our
first factor the one that is at the center of everything when it comes to our
children developing integrity. Making sure our children know what it is that
makes them a special and important individual is at the fulcrum in balancing all
the other factors. Our children learn about their own special attributes through
seeing and feeling us listen to them with intent concern for how they feel. I am
not implying, however, that we should make children feel like everything they
do is special and wonderful. Making children truly aware of their own
specialness is much more related to them understanding their very special
connection with us than it is to pumping them up without reason.
It is almost as if our reactions to our children are a mirror in which they
see themselves. Of course, when we are pleased with them, or when we just
feel loving toward them because we do, we can look fondly upon them and
demonstrate how much we care by responding intently to their concerns or
special attributes. It is equally important, though, to respond with our true
feelings even when those feelings are negative. Otherwise, children never
attain an accurate understanding of their special connection to us. If our
children do something that makes us angry, they must see themselves as the
cause of that anger. If they have done something to intentionally harm us or
someone else, or if they have been acting selfishly in a way about which they’
re unaware, then our irritation is exactly what they should see. That irritation
is a true reflection of the impact their behavior has had.
On the other hand, if our irritation occurs in response to them having a
legitimate need when we are tired, or because they have asked a legitimate
question that for some reason embarrasses us, then the feeling that develops
from that interaction is that they are not worth our time or that their legitimate
needs and feelings make us irritated. These interactions based on our own
selfish nature are unhealthy and diminish the child's true sense of legitimacy or
specialness.
A child learns to know him or herself in a healthy way based on healthy
reactions from the environment in which he or she lives. The extent to which
the environment accurately reflects back to the child his or her importance,
impact, and specialness will determine the level to which the child really feels
that he is legitimate and has legitimate needs that are equally important to the
needs of everyone else. The attributes that make him or her a true individual,
a unique person with his or her own great ways of doing things, as well as
personal foibles, must be reflected back to the child through the parents’
reactions if the child is to gain a solid understanding of him or herself. When a
child's parents are generally successful in responding with spontaneous concern
for their child, and yet have adequate concern for themselves in relation to
their child as well, the child develops a healthy sense of self, specialness and
legitimacy. The child will then, in turn, react within the world with true
compassion for others as well as healthy concern for themselves.
Humility
As a second factor, the child understanding that he or she is no better or
worse than anyone else, or humility, helps to temper the feeling of specialness
as stated in the last paragraph. Every child must know that birth into any
particular family, within any particular country, within any particular period in
history, is merely a matter of luck. No matter what any particular person
might believe about the importance of intelligence, athletic prowess, street
smarts, ability in mathematics, artistry, social ability, color of skin, quickness of
wit, or the multitude of other possible human attributes, it is absolutely
essential that every child be brought up believing that they are equal, no better
or worse, to everyone else. They must know they have a right to be treated
well, and they should expect to be treated well. They also should never expect
to be treated better than others or to be given special treatment over others.
They must learn to treat everyone else just as they want to be treated (we all
know that one, right?). In fact, it really helps if the child is able to see him or
herself, in addition to knowing they have certain rights within this context, as
just an infinitesimally small part of a huge universe. That is, although they
must see themselves as very special, and must treat themselves like they
deserve just as much as anyone else, they must also see themselves, just like
all of us, as extremely unimportant within the larger scheme of humanity itself.
Hard Work
Every child must also know, as a third factor, that hard work is the key
to all success as a human being. If a child is asked to observe all the people for
whom they have great respect, it is very unlikely that any of these respected
individuals will have become famous for winning the lottery. You may not
appreciate the same people that your children appreciate, but if you ask them,
you will soon see that the people they do respect are people who have worked
extremely hard to get where they are. Rock musicians, athletes, movie stars,
rich guys, or even that kid at school who seems to have it altogether, are
generally all people who work really hard. You might worry that they’d use
some “screw up” at school that they think is really funny as an example of
someone they respect, but they won’t be able to name anything the person
does that they really think is worthy of respect unless the kid is really working
hard at something (even if they’re working really hard at being funny). When
you think about it, relationships themselves require hard work. So, if you’re
concerned your child won’t respect you because you don’t have a job outside
the house, my guess is that your lack of an outside job makes you a person
who works especially hard at relationships. You are likely spending your life
making sure that the others in your life are properly supported.
Once your child sees that hard working people are the ones he or she
respects, it becomes necessary for them to see that hard work very rarely fails
to lead to success. Even in the most impoverished families, if a child knows
hard work is the key to success, the fact that he is always working so hard will
make him a sought after employee everywhere he works. He will not be able
to prevent himself from succeeding, even if he is prevented from succeeding at
the same levels possible for those raised by more affluent parents who can
afford to give him or her a fine education. Believing in hard work, in fact, is
an antidote to the learned helplessness that so often accompanies poverty. It
was largely the undeniable belief in hard work that brought so many people out
of the Great Depression, and success seemingly materialized then almost as
though from nothing but the strength of will in hardworking people.
On the other hand, a child from an affluent family may be pushed
through the finest schools and be given every advantage, but if she does not
desire to work hard due to a belief that it should not be necessary, she will
never achieve anything from her own efforts, and will never experience the
esteem that such hard work earns. He or she may be handed a position of
authority with adequate pay, but that position, if hard work was never
necessary in securing it, will have no meaning. That child, now adult, will get
no satisfaction from work. It is only through hard work that a healthy adult
achieves a sense of satisfaction. It is only through hard work that anyone
develops anything meaningful.
Responsibility
Hard work is really not possible without the fourth factor being
simultaneously present (which may be true of all these factors). Being
responsible is an absolute necessity for integrity to develop. Responsibility
largely grows from the very connectedness that parents have with their children
in that, if we care about others, we do our best not to hurt or disappoint them.
In a healthy family the children do not want to disappoint or harm the adults
and the adults definitely don't want to harm the children, even if they must
disappoint them at times.
When things get complicated within daily interactions, however, with
children struggling for increasing autonomy as they should, children must know
that parents can give them only as much freedom or autonomy as they earn by
being responsible (please see article “Freedom and Responsibility”). Of course
we seemingly control our children at times due to our desire to protect them.
We have no real desire to stop them from doing things except that they might
get or be hurt. When we know that they will handle things in a way that will
make them safe, we generally don’t have a problem with giving them
freedom.
Likewise, in relationships we allow people to get closer to us when we
know they won’t hurt us. On the job we give our workers more authority as it
becomes clear that they will handle tasks adequately. When our children take
responsibility for their actions in how they treat us and others, they are allowed
more leeway in their relationships with us and others. With few exceptions,
freedom and responsibility always balance each other in life.
Kids may think us parents get to make all the rules and get to do, within
reason, anything we want to do, but what they don’t see is how our freedom is
limited because our responsibilities in the family make it impossible for us to do
many of the things we want to do every single day. We have to work and
make money to pay the bills. We have to be punctual in transporting ourselves
and them. We need to make sure everything is organized so that the family
will keep moving in a healthy direction. We need to get meals to the table. All
our many responsibilities make doing what we want to do a relatively low
priority for us, and thus we actually often don't have much freedom at all.
Children too will get as much freedom as they deserve based on how
much responsibility they take. If they take so little social responsibility that
they become criminals, they will end up in jail with no freedom at all. If they
don’t break laws, but take no responsibility within their relationships to others,
they will find they have no real freedom within relationships (at least not
relationships that last in any kind of healthy or meaningful way). When they
take adequate responsibility for themselves, for their work, and for their
relationships with others, kids should be given the freedom they deserve.
When they grow up, our childrens' ability to be responsible will give them the
freedom and desire to take on the many responsibilities which will make them
fully functional and successful adults.
Gratitude
Gratitude or thankfulness is also a huge factor. It goes without saying
that in more affluent families there is much for which to be thankful.
Especially if ones parents are recognizing their child's specialness, and
attempting to inculcate the mores of equality, hard work, and responsibility, the
child certainly should be thankful. On the other hand, when a child has been
given everything and nothing has been expected in return, or when a child’s
true self has been largely ignored while the parents’ needs for a grand image is
pursued, the child will fail to develop an understanding of gratitude.
With respect to less affluent, or impoverished families, it might be far
more difficult to be grateful. Nevertheless, without gratitude integrity cannot
develop. Gratitude must be found simply for ones relationships, having enough
to eat, or having a roof over ones head, or it is impossible to have enough
esteem to work hard, or to see the need for responsibility. Why work hard or
take responsibility if you’ve always been cheated and you have never been
blessed in any way. Further, accepting ones smallness in the universe, or
humility, is an insult to ones self if you feel like you've been cheated or like
you have nothing, unless you can be grateful for something that you do know
you have. It’s strange but true that it’s impossible to feel a sense of humility
unless you also feel like you’re lucky in some way. Simply put, thankfulness
must be found in anyone who aims to be mentally healthy. Without gratitude a
person merely thinks selfishly and feels entitled, or on the other hand, responds
to the world with anger and entitlement, regardless of the circumstances within
which they’ve been reared.
Growth
Finally, growth must be understood as a constant in the healthy life.
Growth is at the center of everything in the universe (Please see article
“Growth”). The universe is growing and expanding, life is a process of
growth, we are typically always pursuing some kind of growth. Healthy
growth involves expanding our abilities, our intellect, or our integrity itself.
Every child must embrace the fact that he is trying to grow so that such growth
can be healthy.
Many people try to grow by stockpiling material possessions or a more
fabulous image. The pursuit of some types of growth is a compensation for
areas where people feel inadequate. Sometimes the pursuit of material
possessions is an attempt to grow where one feels nothing but emptiness inside
and there is really no feeling of growth at all. In such circumstances, it's as if
growth must come from soil, and must receive the nutrients from that soil as
well as energy from the sun, but there is no soil and there's insufficient
nutrition. When materialistic pursuits reign over integrity, even when the sun
does shine, darkness always looms, as every new possession brings only
ephemeral pleasure. Similarly, people who attempt to grow in their power over
others are merely compensating for deep-seated feelings of weakness and
vulnerability.
Readily apparent is the upheaval or disintegration (or entropy) that occurs
when people are not getting any sense of growth. For example, while people
might turn to materialism or a pursuit of power to get a sense of growth, when
those pursuits are recognized as futile, desperation in the form of anxiety,
depression, or anger often take command.
It is absolutely essential that the healthy person pursue growth. The only
sufficient growth involves goals that are meaningful and consistent with the
individual's unique personality characteristics. Growth within a person implies
the pursuit of goals that expand a person's abilities and stretch a person where
they could do their best. We all like to grow in different ways, but growth is
certainly at the center of things, right along side specialness.
The Six Factors and Us
With these six factors, balanced by parenting that aims to protect our
children while simultaneously encouraging autonomy in them, integrity is
developed and becomes the antidote to the troubles found within our
materialistic world. Connection and relatedness with our children helps to
develop all six factors. Through positive interaction with us, our children come
to understand their special place within our hearts, while they also understand
that they are no better than anyone else in this world. They learn to work hard
and earn the respect of others as they learn to earn our respect. They take
responsibility for their work, as well as their safety, while they pay attention to
the affect they have on our emotions and the feelings of others, and they also
make sure they themselves are treated as well as they deserve. They learn to
appreciate our efforts and what they are given. They also learn to appreciate
simple pleasures. In addition to gratitude for food, shelter and safety, they
learn to appreciate the world itself in all its wonders. Through their
relationships with us, our children learn to appreciate beauty and understand
horror. Through their relationship with us, they learn about the love they will
know for themselves and the love they will share and spread.