The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

Credit: Maggie Osterberg http://www.flickr.com/photos/mediawench/ CC BY-SA 2.0

I know that the act of disciplining my daughter makes me a better father than otherwise. It makes me a better person--someone willing to act when things need action. In the broad scheme of things, the small theatre of my life may not have the impact of people like Caesar Chavez or Rosa Parks, but action is no less important simply because the response is small or is a longterm commitment, as is parenting. Both the Queen Bee and myself are shaped into better people through our experience of being family together, and not just through my parental duties of disciplining her when she is disobedient. I don't think anything moves me into happiness the way my daughter's laugh does. Her laugh is so contagious that it makes me laugh, even when something isn't funny, and it feels so good that I never want to stop laughing. I never want her to stop laughing.

I prefer the laughing. It makes us both better. Who wouldn't prefer the laughing? But, the disciplining, the hard-nosed parenting, is really important. I don't enjoy it, but I know it makes me a better father and person to be the type of parent who enforces the boundaries and encourages good behavior. As much as don't like it, the Queen Bee dislikes it all the more. It's easy to understand. None of us appreciates being told we're out-of-line, inaccurate, or flat-out wrong. We all like to believe that we're beyond reproach. The difference between kids and adults is that, with someone there to guide and correct them, kids will learn the lesson. It's a marathon, but kids figure it out. Not so much adults.

Adults, yeah. We hate criticism. We construct a world around ourselves where the possibility of being incorrect is so farfetched that anyone who would critique our actions or tells us that we are wrong must be mentally incapacitated in some way. It's not me who has the problem, it's the person crazy enough to think I might have a problem that has the problem.

Like Randy Pausch shares in the video to the right, when people stop caring, they stop trying to make you better. What we telegraph to others, though, is the opposite: if you criticize me, then you don't care. Still, I've found Randy Pausch's statement true for me. When I lose interest or stop caring, I stop giving feedback or critique, but it's usually because Pausch's statement contradicts the social contract.

When criticized or critiqued, my immediate response is to be defensive because such feedback violates the social contract of "don't criticize me and I won't criticize you" and "if you criticize me, then you don't care." I don't think, Wow, this person really loves me. I think, Who are you to question whether or not I am a genius! We don't like being sharpened or shaped. We want to believe that we've reached perfection and now it is our job to sharpen and shape others.

I don't know that I've ever really been mature enough to handle critique other than defensively. I don't know that I've ever seen it as an act of love. And, honestly, I don't know that anyone else is all that different than myself. Sad, I suppose.