Children of artists Part I:
“Dad, we’re not like other families, are we?”. My son has discovered the elusive concept of lifestyle … and the fact that ours is a little unusual.
My daughter still lives in the blissful illusion that everybody is like us, and is often outraged that anybody might do anything differently from us.
My experience of childhood was that I was expected to fit into my father’s every lifestyle decision – to the extent that when my father’s mind started to weaken I ended up enduring 6 years at military school to fit in with his delusions of having been a heroic soldier.
My partner’s experience was similar – daughter of a real career soldier, she and her siblings trailed half way across the planet and back, to and fro between home and British boarding school, to satisfy the demands of a life in the forces.
Our experiences weren’t unusual for our generation … and not that unusual for the new generation of kids … what is unusual is that we have both developed an interest in childrens’ democracy.
My partner taught at Summerhill school for 4 years: the school that regularly hits the headlines because lessons are optional. What doesn’t reach the front pages of the rags is that the school is utterly democratic – every person in the school has a vote on every rule, and anyone can propose changes to the rules. Given that adults are vastly outnumbered by children, this results in a fair childrens’ democracy.
But there is a flaw in the democracy – one important fact that indicates the school is a model of democracy for children, rather than a real childrens’ democracy: The constitution (the way rules are made and enforced, the way transgressions are heard and punishments decided) is fixed, and non-negotiable. Unlike the real adult world, there is no possibility of revolution. Also, whatever the children vote for, the basics of food provision and building maintenance continue unaffected.
Translating the idea of childrens’ democracy to the family is difficult. I have definite non-negotiable boundaries, as does my partner … the equivalent of the fixed constitution. However, the adults in a family do more than the teaching staff at Summerhill. We are not just educators and facilitators, we are also bread-winners – earners, shoppers, cooks – and cleaners, and nurses, and affection-givers, and protection. The constraints imposed by fulfilling these roles create a host of inflexible boundaries.
More difficult still – when two kids at Summerhill fight, the other kids intervene, help to negotiate, enforce discipline when necessary. But when two kids at our home fight, there’s only the adults left to sort it out.
Finally, at least when the kids are young, their limited life experience limits their choices. When we get a take-away they don’t know about the Lebanese, the Chinese, the Sri Lankan, the Greek, the Pizzeria, the Indian, the Jamaican and the Thai … they just go along with the adult choice of fish’n’chips.
