Change has to be the most extensive subject to grace the mind. To thoroughly examine the subject of change requires great diligence. The amount of material devoted to the subject is so enormous as to be just about inexhaustible. It has been the subject of philosophers and thinkers for thousands of years.
Many people resist change in spite of its inevitability. Some changes are hard to accept. Others are welcome. Still others are accepted grudgingly. When facing change, people must look for ways to physically and mentally live with change. Failure to do so makes a person unhappy and miserable.
It is often stated that nothing is certain but death and taxes. We must include change as a third certainty. Surely government is responsible for taxes. We cannot change that. And we cannot change the fact that we die. The challenge is to accept these without undue stress. The well known Serenity Prayer of Reinhold Niebuhr is a great piece of wisdom: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change those I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
We all have personal convictions. Learning to live with change that prevails against those convictions is stressful and difficult. Nevertheless, accepting and living with change we do not like is a necessity no matter how much we wish otherwise. Ability to do so is essential to maintaining good mental health.
The first relationship that we encounter upon birth is family. With a few people that is impacted by hired help. Primarily, however, with most of us family influences are the initial impact on us as human beings. A newborn infant is totally dependent on parents or surrogate parents who raise it. Other than the basic needs of bathing, feeding and providing shelter, the time soon comes for a search for independence.
After a short period of time, a newborn starts to explore its yearnings to move and to become cognizant of its surroundings and of its own physical makeup. Parents or others who may be responsible for raising the child, and have prepared themselves, will have served themselves well as well as the child during these first few weeks and months and the years to come.
Parenting is a huge change for a couple expecting their first child. Acceptance and welcoming the responsibility of parenthood will have great impact on the newborn. Lack of those attributes will adversely affect the child's development. When parents resent the responsibility of parenting because of their own personal needs and desires, the child will sense it and will be negatively affected. If the child is overindulged and becomes very demanding, and the parents constantly give in to this, they are running the risk of the child being self-centered. It is difficult but necessary to balance these opposing forces.
How is one to be sure? There is no easy answer. Parents will make mistakes regardless of the best of intentions. Decisions must be made on the basis of love and trust. It is vitally important to well meaning parents to avoid self incrimination. The needs and desires of parents must be balanced against the need to provide a healthy physical and emotional makeup for the child. Can anyone provide clear and precise answers to these challenges? Of course not. The best advice is noted above. Parents must make informed decisions guided by love and trust.
The passing of time may bring siblings and a whole new set of relationships, resulting in change of behavior. The necessity for preparing for siblings must begin as soon as a new pregnancy is confirmed. The goal is to have the older child desire to have and love a new brother or sister.
As children grow there is a natural tendency for siblings to exhibit a mixture of loving relationships and rivalries. Now parents become judge and jury. Often parents are in conflict regarding sibling relationships. Not only do they have to balance the needs or desires of one child against another, they are also challenged by the specific child and often their own differences of opinion.
The passing of time continues to require change. Changes of responding appropriately to individual needs and desires continues as children mature and take on more responsibility. Young parents often have a natural tendency to be strict. It becomes a necessity to make a decision as to when to ease up and when to let go.
In early childhood, children relate almost exclusively to neighborhood children and children of their parents' friends. Often included are friendships developed through a religious affiliation. When they start to attend school they will be exposed to new relationships with their schoolmates. The relationships bring new experiences into their lives and they begin to see that there are people with points of view other than those they have held. These new experiences usually change the views that they have about the world. Prior to attending school that view has been very limited, particularly so if parents exert a lot of influence on the choices of what they learn through television and social media, as well as the religious institutions to which they are exposed. In today's social media environment, parents need to be very aware of the choices with which children are faced; and they are charged with directing efforts in dealing with the effects of those influences.
The schools they attend will find them relating to others with generally similar family values if they attend a private school. Attendance at a public school will find them encountering a much wider range of lifestyles that thus far have impinged upon them. All of these new relationships can and probably will cause them to change many of their views. If they are home schooled they are more likely to be accepting of their family values, though parents cannot feel assured that this will be so. Peer pressure looms ever larger as children age and inevitably will exert the strongest influences on their choices. The changes in their outlooks and beliefs are frequently painful to both children and parents. One thing is certain. Those changes will occur. Children and their parents must deal with those changes.
While serious conflicts do occur between the generations, it is incumbent upon both to confront those changes with love and acceptance, no matter how difficult that may be. In most cases, if a child has been raised with love and trust the inevitable changes can be accepted but not curtailed.
Newer challenges face students as they enter post secondary education, the world of work or military service. Strong sexual motivations and experiences occur at a much earlier age than a generation or two ago. By the time students are in high school, a very large percentage of them have engaged in sexual intercourse. As a result, we have seen a large increase in the number of single family households. We are challenged in our society today to exert as much influence as possible to change this.
Part of the changes required of parents is to accept the necessity of sex education. In today's society, we must live with this whether we like it or not. The introduction of contraceptives has necessitated this. The pressure to avoid pregnancy has been nearly totally removed. We cannot simply be horrified and say, "It's not like it used to be when I was growing up." No. It is not and never will be again. This is change that we can and must live with, or spend our lives in denial, regret, anger and misery.
The Inevitability of Change Part II will be published at a later date.
Thomas Ramsey is a Northsider.
