Circles and Safety -- Process and Parenting #3 (Bruce Epperly)

The third installment of Bruce Epperly's take on parenting from the perspective of Process Theology takes us to a place all parents have been.  He speaks to the question of safety and risk.  How do we protect our children while allowing them freedom to explore and grow.  He mentions a book that I read many evenings to my own son; it's a book that serves to remind the child that no matter where he or she runs, the parent is there.  Runaway Bunny is a favorite of parents and small children for it speaks to the kind of relationship we all envision.  It is, of course, also a relationship that God envisions for us to have with God.  I invite you to reflect and comment on Bruce's essay about drawing circles of safety around our children.

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Circles and Safety

Bruce G. Epperly

In the Celtic tradition, travelers often begin their daily journey with a prayer and the encircling (or “caim”) in which the traveler rotates in a clockwise direction, inscribing a circle with her or his index finger. Whether we do this through movement or in our imagination, the encircling reminds us that wherever we are, we are in God’s circle of protection. In the spirit of Romans 8, we discover that nothing – none of our deepest fears for ourselves or our loved ones – can separate us from the love of God. With the author of Psalm 139, we discover that if we descend to the depths, God is there; if we ascend to the heights, God is also there. Like the story of the Runaway Bunny, even when we run away, or clothe ourselves in darkness, God is there to embrace us.

I have found the practice of encircling to be a spiritual aid, especially when I find myself struggling with stressful situations or caught up in fear and anxiety. When I experience myself in God’s circle of love, I know that despite my fears that all will be well.

Being a parent can be frightening. We fear for our children’s safety and place in the world. We are constantly bombarded by news alerts and commercials that remind us, often unrealistically, that we, and our children, are always at risk. There are no guarantees in life, even for spiritual persons.

While parents can practice many common sense safety practices, the issue of safety is spiritual as well as practical. Parenting is about expanding the circle of our children’s experiences and this always involves risk. At five months, my grandson’s parents have 24/7 awareness of where he is and what he’s up to. They stay in contact with him by: being in the same room and through baby monitors. As he grows older, his circle of experience will grow to closing the door of his own room for privacy to playing alone in the backyard and to going on walks and bike rides with friends or all by himself. Eventually, he will go away to college, making a life of his own.

Parents and children alike need sufficient “primordial” or “basic trust,” enabling us to face uncertainty with confidence in our own abilities and the basic benevolence of the universe. Process theology sees trust as growing out of the dynamic divine-human relationship. God is involved in each moment of experience, providing possibilities and the energy to achieve them. God does not and cannot determine everything or provide an absolute safety net, but in every situation, God is providing resources for our well-being and safety, both in our experiences and by inspiring others toward acts of care and protection. We are always in the circle of God’s love and our calling is to create circles of love that expand to embrace others and that promote others’ creativity and freedom. This applies to parenting as well as to mentoring, marriage and friendship.

Parents need to join order and novelty in their parenting. Order describes the safe circles of life, of responsibility to protect our children with all the resources we can muster in terms of presence, household safety and security, diet, and health promotion. Novelty relates to allowing surprising and serendipitous moments to occur. These always involve a degree of risk. For example, in teaching my son to ride a bicycle 25 years ago, I put him at a small degree of risk as I pushed him forward and then let go so that he could ride on his own. He fell several times and then – voila! – Off he went, having learned to ride on his own without training wheels. The move from crawling to toddling and walking involves pain and failure; and yet it is necessary for growth and maturity. New ideas are threatening – and at times, painful – and yet without new idea, we stagnate intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally.

As a parent and grandparent, I take the Celtic encircling seriously as essential to my intercessions on behalf of my son and grandson. I circle them in God’s care whether I am visiting them in Washington DC or taking a walk in my Lancaster, Pennsylvania neighborhood. The encircling reminds me that we are always connected and that my prayers make a difference. There are no guarantees in life – the sun shines and the rain falls on all of us. But, through the interplay of smart and safe parenting and a constant expanding of the circle of experience, we can balance safety and risk in ways that support our children’s well-being.

A Spiritual Practice for Parents: Regularly inscribe the Celtic circle (or “caim”) around your children and teach them to practice it as well. In your imagination, visualize yourself drawing a circle around your child as you pray for their safety, well-being, and creativity. Invite them to simply draw a circle around themselves by movement or in their imagination.

Bruce Epperly is a theologian, spiritual guide, healing companion, retreat leader and lecturer, and author of nineteen books, including Holy Adventure: 41 Days of Audacious Living; God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus; and Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry. He has taught at Georgetown University, Wesley Theological Seminary, Claremont School of Theology, and Lancaster Theological Seminary. He is currently theologian in residence at St. Peter’s United Church of Christ in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He can be reached at bruceepperly@gmail.com

An Interview with Dr. Yvonne Thornton

Dr. Yvonne Thornton - one of the real-life subjects of "The Ditchdiggers Daughters" - talks about her road to success with NPR's Michel Martin. I still remember that movie (loved it)...one of my favorite films. She also discusses her new memoir "Something to Prove: A Daughter's Journey to Fulfill a Father's Legacy". Listen Here.

The story of Dr. Thornton, in a way, reinforces the point I was making in the post about Amy Chua. The general approach of Amy Chua is not too far removed from the Black American legacy and tradition in this Country when it comes to raising children. So why is it treated as foreign?

Amy Chua: Right on Substance, Wrong on Style

Could Black Parents Learn From Amy Chua?

I have been keeping up with the Amy Chua controversy over the past few weeks and honestly I think the criticism is overblown.

Chua, a Professor & author of 'Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother', caused an uproar with her recent Wall Street Journal article entitled 'Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior'. In the article, Chua explains how the Asian approach of aggressive, strict parenting is superior to modern Western parenting, specifically found in traditional American families. Chua argues that her more regimented, structured approach - which is almost boot camp-like - produces better outcomes. It is important for parents to override the natural preferences of children in order to instill values of hard work and discipline.

I am torn on where I come down on this, but I tend to side with Chua. Although her style is probably not the correct approach, the overall basis for her argument is strong. It is a fact that children with more engaged, strict, and attentive parents usually end up in a better position later on. Of course this is not the case in every situation, but there is a definite advantage to growing up in a household where you are pushed more and where expectations are high. Chua's style though provided excuse makers & critics with a reason to pounce. I particularly thought of the section in the article where Chua forced one of her daughters to sit at the piano for hours until she learned a particular song, despite the child struggling and having a nervous breakdown.

But the numbers don't lie. Strong parenting, more often than not, pays off. You can whine about Chua's style til your heart's content... but the kids of Tiger Mothers are kicking the behinds of those raised in more laissez-faire households. Critics have taken things out of context. In the article, and in an NPR interview that followed, Chua makes clear that she was not being literal in all of her comparisons. Yes, it's true that some of her comments could be seen as stereotyping... but she admits that some of her comments were tongue-in-cheek. She stated that the term "Chinese Mother" (or Tiger Mother) could be applied to immigrant parents of a variety of ethnic groups. It symbolically represented a general view about parenting, as opposed to strictly one race of people. But she was mainly referring to Chinese parenting. Her explanation made sense to me, because I have seen a little bit of the Tiger Mother in Vietnamese, Nigerian, European, and Arab immigrants. She was using images and terms to represent mothers more collectively than her critics would have you to believe.

While her methods were a little questionable... her general view of parenting is a good one. This is generally the kind of parenting that we need more of in this Country. This is especially the case in the so-called Black Community. I found it ironic that Black bloggers would come out so strongly against Chua. Strange almost, considering the condition that Black urban communities are in. The Black Community is creating monsters in record numbers who are terrorizing their own neighborhoods as I type this commentary. Black males are 5 times more likely to be arrested and sent to prison than their white counterparts. Additionally, Black males are 3 times more likely than whites and 5 times more likely than Asians to be suspended from School. And I won't even mention the deplorable dropout rate. See two of my previous posts on Education for Black males, here, and here.

Another irony is that many of the traditional black families of the past (1960/1950 and earlier) actually had parents who bore a closer resemblance to the so-called Chinese Tiger Mother, than the current less rigid American parent. That was the case in rural and urban Black families. Education was cherished, because it was seen as a way out of post-reconstruction poverty. Structure, discipline and respect for elders were key in many Black households. One other reason that Black children had to adhere to discipline at that time goes beyond the fact that it was economically important. How well children embraced discipline, structure, and listened to parents was literally a matter of life and death. They had to listen to the warnings about how to properly interact in a white world that was often hostile. Black children had to understand the importance of heeding the constant instructions from parents about societal rules on how to deal with whites in order to keep themselves alive. How many of those stories have we heard? These are the actual roots of Black existence in America, not just a bunch of outlandish, off the wall ideas. Unfortunately much of that tradition has been lost. The lack of fathers in the home obviously contributed to the problem. So I just find it interesting that Blacks (some Blacks) see Amy Chua's approach to parenting as something that is somehow foreign. It's as if Blacks are looking in the mirror after 130, 140 years and can't recognize themselves. But in a way, it explains quite a bit.

If the so-called "Black Community" had more Amy Chua's of their own- perhaps without so much of the bootcamp aspect - and homes with more attentive, present, concerned, engaged, demanding, responsible parents.. who instilled certain values...and if Black men and women (esp. Women) made better choices, I can guarantee that there would not be nearly as many problems as there are today. In fact, the same could be said for American culture in general. Outcomes in education would certainly be much better.

Instead of condemning Chua, more traditional American mothers (black, white, purple) should take notes from her. How a child is pushed, loved, nurtured, educated, etc is subject to style preference. But to suggest that stronger parenting is somehow bad for a child, citing tough methods as an excuse to trash a parent in  Chua's case, is just dishonest. Are Chinese mothers superior? I don't know if I would have framed the title in those terms to begin with. But it is clear that Chinese, Vietnamese, and immigrant parents in general tend to have a better grasp on parenting.

Even the Obama's have banned Sasha and Malia from watching TV during the week. No TV period. Only a little on the weekends. They expect only the best grades and are not pleased with a B or C, especially when they know that the girls could have done better. The President and First Lady also make sure that they keep the girls involved in other meaningful activities... such as music and dance lessons...which they have to attend, in addition to schoolwork... and btw...schoolwork gets done before the girls are allowed to do anything else. They are made to do a whole list of things that they probably don't want to do (I am sure many of their natural preferences are being overridden by Mrs. Obama), yet someone is riding their tails everyday to make sure those things get done and that responsibilities are met. The Obama's have a stricter, more regimented parenting style...not because they are the first family, but because they understand the benefits of discipline and hard work and they know what it took to get to where they are. They want their daughters to understand and enjoy those same benefits. This is not quite as strict as the Tiger Mother approach, but it bares a much closer resemblance to the Chinese Tiger Mother way (if such a style really exists) than the modern American approach. So again, it leaves me scratching my head when people, especially Blacks, see Amy Chua's experience as something completely foreign. Chua's approach is basically about keeping close tabs on children, providing plenty of structure, pushing hard work, maintaining a strong expectation of excellence, instilling the right values, stressing discipline, responsibility & accountability, embracing education, and always being a very engaged parent. Could she have produced children of the same caliber using softer methods? Probably. Her approach is a little on the harsh side, I must admit. But her overall approach worked. I think an approach of a less engaged parent, who doesn't care, who is neglectful, etc... creates a much more abusive situation and creates outcomes that are much worse...both for the child and for society.