Episode 3.5 Power, Violence, and Parenting

The file I use for my blog drafts is totally a metaphor for my life – a hundred great beginnings that go strong for a paragraph or two and then fizzle out. Like my three degrees and my short-lived careers in engineering and public service and…well the Swiss project is ongoing, and there have been some hopeful flickers lately, but many days it seems positively quixotic. There’s always the voice in my head that says please. Stop. Move back to the States. Get a real job. Let your kids grow up with their kind.

But like the black socks song, something (else?) inside me keeps saying “not yet.” So, onwards.

The next class session was about power and violence, defined as follows:

• Power is the ability to make something happen. Power is like potential energy – neither inherently good nor inherently bad. It’s when power is transformed into action that good or harm results. 
• Violence, on the other hand, is an act of destruction - the use of power to cause harm. Violence can by physical, of course, but also spiritual, emotional, structural, symbolic, self-destructive... 

The connection between these definitions and theology goes something like this. God is the prime lover and creator; God’s love is creative, not destructive. Violence = destruction = an act against God = sin. Or something like that; that part went a little fast, but it was in a way peripheral – I think the point of the chapter was to describe a Christian ethical approach using secular words. The conclusion was that we should embrace (drum roll please…) a “preferential option for creative nonviolence.” Of course it sounds even fancier in German: die vorrangige Option für schöpferische Gewaltfreiheit.

What does this mean?

• “Nonviolence” is the whole idea that power and violence aren’t the same thing, that it is in fact possible to effect change without hurting or demeaning anyone.  
• And “creative” doesn’t just mean imaginative and original – it’s more active than that: creative means participating in the act of creating. This is about undertaking things that increase the amount of faith, hope, and love in the world.
• The “preferential option” thing comes from liberation theology and the “preferential option for the poor,” which, as I understand it, goes something like this: Jesus got more specific than “love your neighbor as yourself.” Feed the hungry, he said; welcome the stranger, care for the sick. Blessed are the poor. In the game of worldly power, the wealthy get to choose first; the poor get whatever remains. In the kingdom of God, the poor come first. Our job as Christians is to work towards the kingdom of God, therefore, we too should put the poor first. When I hear “option” I think of a set of choices you can make. And I think there's an element of that: stop. think. is there more than one way to react here? But in the end “option” really refers to the verb – to opt, to choose. “Preferential option” means making an active choice: to defend and support the least fortunate in society, in the case of liberation theology; in our ethical principle, to effect positive change without violence. 

So if "love your neighbor as yourself" has those pesky problems with love, the "preferential option for creative nonviolence," as buzzword-y as it sounds, is meant to encourage us to consider the different ways we could approach a situation, and choose the one that is the most create-ive and the least violent. Seems like a good plan.

When we talk about ethics, somehow we always have to dig into the Big Ethical Questions – assisted suicide, or abortion, or whatever. I don't want to go there. Anyway do we really live such pure, uncomplicated lives that we have to reach into the heart-wrenching problems of others to find ethical problems to discuss?

Here’s something that happens in my very house, oh, two to ten times daily.

Kid does something that annoys parent. Parent demands that kid stop. Kid doesn't stop. Parent tells kid that if they don't stop, there will be a punishment. Kid still doesn't stop. Parent punishes kid. Kid kicks/screams/mouths off during punishment. Parent gets angrier, and tells kid that if he doesn't stop screaming, there will be more punishment. Kid gets angrier and fights back. Kid is punished more severely. Negative spiral ensues.

I really struggle with this. On the one hand, I hate it. In both my family of origin and the family I have now, this effort to get the kids to "show some respect for your elders" seems to have had mostly the opposite effect. It’s about instilling fear, not respect. My children are people, not dogs. On the other hand, I’m dreadful at setting boundaries and it shows in how exhausted I am at the end of the day. My kids act spoiled and entitled. And how ARE they going to learn if there aren’t negative consequences for bad behavior?

Does my shiny new ethical motto have anything to contribute here? The classic view of parenting is that the power of a parent is to punish, and the duty of a parent is to apply that power to train their children to behave properly. It sounds so straightforward! Lots of people swear they were raised this way and came out fine! But that punishment is violence. Even if it isn't physically violent - that's out these days -  it's emotionally violent: the idea is make the consequences of an action so dreadful that the child will make a different choice in the future.

But what would parenting with "creative nonviolence" look like? When the kids start driving me crazy, I've been trying extra hard lately to make that conscious effort to stop and think things through before reacting. What other power do I have? I have the power to set a good example for them, to model the behavior I’d like to see. (Note to self: put that phone down. No really. Now.) I have the power of their trust – when I suggest other outlets for their energy, they’re likely to give them a try. I have the power of being able to see the bigger picture. Is the kid hungry? In need of some outside time? Trying to get attention? I can try help them name their own needs and get them met without resorting to bad behavior. I have the power to name my own needs, and find ways to get them met before I myself have a meltdown. And I have the power of time on my side. It sure FEELS like I'm going to have to deal with this crap for the rest of my days but the fact is, no matter what parenting decisions we make, the kids are going to grow up. Their frontotemporal lobes will mature. They may even eventually demonstrate some self-control.

…I hope. I’d love to say that these deep insights have turned me into the kinder, gentler poster parent and my kids are now perfectly behaved even though I don’t scream at them anymore. Ha! Nope. Some days I feel like I’m having some success, many days things spiral out of control anyway, and I can only pray that the kids will turn out fine despite my many mistakes. In the end I guess there’s always the power of forgiving ourselves, and trying again tomorrow.