Plunder

I like the word 'plunder'. It's sort of a rich plum cake of a word - evoking all sorts of visual tableaux of historical acts of nastiness carried out by humanity. Plundering, pillaging and otherwise robbing, destroying, looting and raping - all in a day's work for our menfolk through the ages.

But I was thinking today about the plundering of childhood. I had this image in my mind of an Egyptian tomb - dark, enclosed and safe, buried deep below the pyramids or beneath a hidden unexcavated stone entryway. Until the looters discover a way in. The sarcophagus of the departed is surrounded by the objects he needs to find his way in the afterlife and by goods of significance from his earthly life. By the time the grave robbers have left, the tomb is exposed to the elements and to continuous violation. Sand and gravel sweeps in to every crevice, precious objects lie smashed on the ground, the valuables are ripped from their resting place and one can only hope the poor guy has already gone on to the afterlife and won't be needing this stuff anymore.

Not so with children. It amazes me how much plunder takes place in what should be the safe place of the family. And I wonder how many tools a child might have needed to navigate the life ahead, are robbed in the acts of plunder upon their tiny selves. I assume most of us are born with a toolkit and an instruction manual - sample chapters: Life for Beginners, Childhood 101, How To Read Your Mother's Moods, Starter Kit For Puberty, and 50 Ways To Look Really Sick And Get Off School. I also assume that most of us will be desperately leafing through the book by age 4 thinking 'why can I never find the situation I'm in right now?' and 'who is Jack Daniels?' or 'why is my grandad in bed with me?'

I think that parents and others who are meant to be shepherding us through our early years are just digging through our toolboxes and taking what they need themselves - a bit of caretaking, some self assurance, a slice of esteem, and a pound or two of flesh for good measure. I'm cynical about almost everybody's capacity to raise kids. Yet clearly, many do it relatively well, and you just can't blame the whole kaboodle of chaos on your upbringing.

But I've begun to look at kids differently lately - with more empathy, with more concern and definitely with a certain identification that was lacking in me before. As if thinking of myself as someone who was never a child. And therein lies the key. A tomb plundered is rendered useless to its' occupant. A child plundered is pretty much the same way. And so she grows up instantaneously, with defenses so fortified it defies imagination. Amazing really, So stupidly simple.

Comments

[T.]

So true JP ...
I love your ..... stuff ....
where are you?
xxx
T

[belledame222]

>in what should be the safe place of the family.

"sanctuary trauma."

Do you know Alice Miller, p.s.?