I was back home for a visit in the holidays to the very small town (or large village – I’m not sure which) where I grew up and it did make me think about the effect of community on individuals depending on their age and perspective and whether communities could be seen generally as sources of support or sources of control.
It was a different era when I grew up there – although not quite pre-historic(!) there was no internet or mobile phones and the highest tech equipment in our house was a recently acquired tv!
Looking back I had a very free early childhood, able to walk to school without my parents from the earliest age, going home for lunch at lunch time, able to play outside with friends and ride our bikes pretty much where and when we wanted. If anything went wrong there you knew where everyone lived and there was always someone’s door you could knock on for help – no need for mobile phones! I felt only support at that time.
However, as a teenager the village had very little to offer and seemed like the most constraining, claustrophobic place in the world! Your parents knew what you had done before you had done it and as you were walking down the road you could see the curtains twitching! There was a huge pressure to conform to the unspoken norms of the community and to live within its boundaries.
The village at that time had 7 churches (of varying denominations) and 1 pub and that reflected the collective culture of the area. Anyone seen coming out of the pub was considered to be on the road to alcoholism! The man that delivered the coal in the village was one of these, although I’m sure he was just doing what we now consider to be normal behaviour, that is going out for a few drinks on a Friday night after a hard week’s work and maybe having one too many!
Then there was the case of the girl who was a talented ballet dancer but became pregnant outside marriage - shock, horror – and who’s career was then finished. She bravely chose to keep her baby (unlike many other young single mums in those days) and bring her up as a single mum by living at her parents house in our village. She was always labelled and treated as a kind of outcast by my parents generation and only managed to live her now restricted life with the then broadminded support of her own parents.
Any teenagers with any get up and go, got up and went!
I did leave as soon as I could and loved the relative anonymity that Edinburgh offered along with the variety of people, the range of things to do and sheer bustle of it compared with the sleepiness of the village. I suppose I kept that view over years – enjoying going home for weekends and occasional holidays for a bit of rest and recuperation – but always almost relieved to get away again!
The village is still considered to be ideal – still relatively safe – for bringing up young children and for retirement and does still have a disproportionate amount of young families and older people living there.
It was only once I had children myself that I saw the attraction again of this kind of community. Suddenly the value of family and supportive community where everyone knows everyone became much more appealing. Safety and security suddenly seemed much more important than facilities and bustle. Same place – different perspective! I didn’t succumb, however, and looking thought by now teeanage daughter’s eyes am glad to be living somewhere with relative freedom.
However, even now, going back the feeling of claustrophobia does come back to me and although my experience was relatively affluent with no real material deprivation and no terrible experiences I can still recognise the power of the collective culture on my feelings and behaviour at that time.
I can only imagine how that must feel in areas of much greater material deprivation with far fewer means of escape…
I suppose after those ramblings I’m saying that communities – depending on their prevailing culture – can be both good and bad things. They can offer both support and control and can affect, particularly teenagers’ views of the world and the possibilities that are open to them. Awareness of these pressures can only be a good thing for career advisers.
I really agree with the comments you make and can see both sides of what you are saying. As Karen points out I too agree that I feel sorry for the kids that don’t seem to have the get up and go to experience new things. The only thing is that we must appriciate the fact that some people are happy living their lifes and don’t have the same willingness to try new things. I don’t agree with this although respect the fact that some of us want adventure and others like the safety of an environment we are used to. I guess it all comes down to the experiences we have which allow for us to take the leap into the unkown. I think it will be very tricky not to try and encourge young people in this direction when carrying out guidance. I guess it comes down to what we were talking about in class in that do we really know best??? Not really as it’s all relative to the person we are talking to and we have to respect this.
By: casper on April 28, 2009
at 9:10 am
I recognise that feeling of claustropobia you mention. When I was a teenager I often felt trapped, and hated having to dance to other people’s tunes… I felt smothered by parents, and grown-ups. I would go on walks on my own very late at night just to be away from all of it. I wanted to live life and try things for myself and find out who I was. I took on part-time jobs, and went around Europe with a group of school friends using my hard-earned cash. I learned a few things about myself from that experience. My parents, strangely enough, had no objections to my wandering and they were quite strict. One of my children lives away at University and is always phoning to talk, but he just does not need to come home. The experience of doing things for himself has given him so much self-awareness, and of what the world is really like that I know he is happier than he would have been if he had stayed and studied from home. I feel so sorry for the lack-lustre young people who drift into the job centre without having had much of a chance to try anything or to find something in life that they have achieved off their own bat.
By: karen gozim on April 23, 2009
at 10:52 am