Tag: individuality

Raising a Child Into Becoming a Remarkable Partner of Opposite Sex: Undo, Undo, Undo!

I grew up in a community where being heterosexual (attracted to opposite sex) and monogamous (being with one person at a time) was not up for debate.

Even if this created tensions through relationships outside marriage or same sex relationships, people felt entitled to another person’s life.

The culprit was clearly the person acting unusual, unacceptable, outside of the norm.

In those times of crisis, the person committing the ‘crime’ would not evaluate their own needs. They would so desperately try to fit in, make other people happy, that they would attempt to go against their instincts. And failed every single time, harming themselves and others in the process.

This entire circus thought me to base my happiness on other people’s behavior, to put myself at the centre of other people’s lives and allowed others a central role in mine. It’s easy to see how things can get off-balance with all the forces at play.

The heteronormative thinking (where ‘1 she + 1 he = The relationship’ is the norm) got us this far: heterosexualised aggression from an early stage between young people (Ringrose, 2008), bullying & harassment towards non-conforming students (Miller & Gilligan, 2014), marginalised lesbian mothers accessing heteronormaitve health services (Halcomb, 2013). Now with more children than we can feed, defend and care for, we still find the time to perpetuate these negative behaviors.

‘School environments may well breed, enable, perpetuate, or even encourage bullying behaviors targeted at queer students, due to the fact that they are historically and institutionally designed to socialize and normalize children for life in what is assumed to be a universal society in which all citizens share common identities, goals, beliefs, values, and so on.’

Miller & Gillian, 2014

Cultivating meaningful relationships where our child, partner, close one is our friend, ally and, most importantly, is their own person while we remain our own person also is a must.

Without a PhD in ‘Why We Need to Upgrade Their Belief System in Order to Evolve’ I can firmly say that raising children for the past reality is not the way forward.

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Why Herds Are Overrated. Time to Think is Now.

Human herds helped us get so far. We did things together: hunting, raising our children and educating them, creating values and standards, laws and boundaries.

Boundaries. A territorial expression that marks someone’s possessions – mine. We then started to grow as individuals, put up fences, shut down people, ghost our dates and feel compressed by the walls of our own limitations, whilst the herd is thriving, travelling and expanding.

But we stopped living through the herd. We want to grow individually. Let’s have a look around at the people who happen to be in our proximity. How much do we identify with them and how much space should we allow them to take in our lives?

AndreeaLeave a comment