/karen/

The parent trap

Wednesday, 23 August, 2006

You know, George really deserves a medal. Now only has she survived sexual abuse, incest, her parents' divorce (which she described as “very violent and painful”), three years of living with an alcoholic stepmother, and life with a control-freak mother (who often behaves like a spoiled child, consistently prioritising her own interests and possessions before her children), she has emerged as a down-to-earth, kind, generous, intelligent, talented, well-adjusted, mature woman of God who doesn't suffer from substance abuse, who doesn't self-mutilate and isn't constantly contemplating suicide.

Okay, I concede that George had a whole lot of help from the man upstairs. But you get the picture.

Seriously, though, what do you do when things happen with your parents that really push your buttons and you start to hear the voices of ghosts of childhood past whispering things like, “You're not good enough,” or “Nobody loves you—that's why they all left”?

You could do as others in the world have done—cut ties with relations they find too difficult to deal with, hitchhike to the far end of whoop whoop and start a new life. In our society, it's easy to ditch our families in favour of urban families à lá Bridget Jones's Diary.

But somehow that doesn't sound right because the good Lord modelled us in his image: we were created for relationship and it's why we hurt when relationships go sour. So we grin and bear it, and try to love our flawed bloodkin as best we can, given the circumstances.

Or ...?

There is a middle ground—a compromise—and that's where you take control and maintain relations with your relations but limit the window of opportunity they have to hurt you. You take measures to protect yourself. You formulate backup plans. In George's case, she bought herself nice things (fun things!), she went and did something she normally enjoys (swimming!), she spent time with friends who lent her sympathetic ears and, most importantly, she didn't let her mum walk all over her. It didn't stop the pain from her mum's awful words but it helped.

Contrary to Jack Jordan's extremely dodgy kitchen table theology in 21 Grams, turning the other cheek is not about lying down and letting yourself to be a doormat. Matthew 5 begins the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus' point is that he has come to fulfill the law, and that the law is all-embracing. Repeatedly he says, “You have heard that it was said ...”—about murder (v. 21), about adultery (v. 27), about lying (v. 33), about loving your neighbour (v. 43) and about revenge (v. 38). Turning the other cheek is about not taking revenge against those who hurt you. It's about going that extra mile—handing over your cloak when the one suing you would have your tunic, going two miles when the one who is pushing you wants you to go one, giving to those who beg from you and lending to those who wish to borrow from you. I think it's about maintaining relationship instead of breaking relationship with those who would do you harm. But it's not about submitting to abuse.

But, says Elsie, how does that square with 1 Peter 2-3? There we're told to submit to those in government over us. Servants are to be subject to their masters, even when they are unjust. Wives are to obey and respeect their husbands, even if they're not Christian or if they act like bad old Abraham who didn't trust God with his security and passed his wife off as his sister so that he wouldn't suffer harm at the hands of Pharaoh or Abimelech.

I may be splitting hairs here but I wonder whether there is a distinction to be made between submitting to those who have the right of authority over us (the government, the police, our bosses, our parents) and submitting to the persecution they dish out on us. Can one submit to an unjust government but not to its crimes against humanity? Or are they just one and the same?

Surely they aren't the same: the early Christians recognised Caesar as Caesar but they did not bow to his image and they did not regard him as god the way the other citizens of the Roman Empire did. And though they may have been thrown to the lions, somehow I do not think they were rushing towards the Colosseum, ready to embrace this fate.

But maybe I ought to do some more thinking on this topic. The Bible has much to say on the subject of the relationship between children and parents but it's probably best suited to a whole other blog post. However, I do think that it's right to call a spade a spade and acknowledge when our parents, who are just as sinful as the rest of us, overstep the line; it always helps to hear someone say, “That's not on. She shouldn't have said that—that was mean, petty and completely uncalled-for.” And hopefully one day George's mum will deal with her issues, and wake up and realise this too.

Anyway, it's time for bed. Tomorrow we're off to see the circus, thanks to my lovely mum! I'm so excited—I've always wanted to see them live.

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