Unhiding the wounded child

The Dharma talk at yesterday’s sangha included some of Thay’s thoughts about the wounded child. As I understand the concept, we each carry a wounded child because of malfunctions in the systems by which we were parented and encultured. The wounded child is usually hidden from conscious attention but it has a powerful influence on our feelings and emotions.

We are hard wired in a general way to fit in with the particular social and cultural norms of our birth community. A good example is with language: we are hard wired to learn a language but the particular language that we learn depends on when and where we are brought up.

Our minds are primed to pick up behavioral clues about how to form relationships and to function in a particular culture and group. For millions of years we evolved to operate in hunting gathering groups of limited size. There were ways of dealing with ‘us’ (the in-group) that were different from how to deal with ‘them’ (the out-group).

But ‘culture’ has changed very rapidly since the evolution of settled agriculture. Our genes have not kept up. In many ways we live with a Stone Age brain in a computer age world. This is (a) why contemporary patterns of parenting and enculturation tend to malfunction and (b) why there are so many wounded children.

I can use that line of thinking to throw light on my hang ups and on my spiritual journey. In my early twenties I committed to ‘finding better ways to be human’ and to ‘zero population growth’. I can now see a back story to those commitments.

John Knox (1514 - 1572)

I sought better ways to be human because I was not satisfied with the existing ways – or at least those that I knew about.

I was born into a village level Scottish Presbyterian subculture and was aware of the hypocrisy that surrounded the ‘rules’ espoused by the elders and betters who were the good and great. The idols had feet of clay.

Parochialism and xenophobia were also rife – beware of Catholics and the English! The stern thinking patterns of John Calvin (1509 – 1564) and John Knox (1514 – 1572) were still live and active.

BUT the mass media told of the swinging sixties in other parts of the planet. At thirteen I experienced field archaeology; at eighteen I escaped the village and became a university student in Aberdeen, and at twenty two I became a school teacher in Edinburgh.

There were indeed different ways of being human. But better? The next thirty five years took me to various parts of the planet on the ongoing quest.

I eventually became a cosmopolitan, international, education advisor of the restless, reliable, workaholic variety. Was this because of a wounded child within? When I made time to notice what was going on it was apparent that the early ‘rules’ were still active. Such things as:

• a fair days work for a fair days pay
• a fool and his money are soon parted
• don’t just sit there, do something
• little children should be seen but not heard
• look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves
• neither a borrower nor a lender be
• no pain, no gain
• respect your elders and betters
• spare the rod and spoil the child
• the child is father to the man
• the devil finds work for idle hands to do
• the Lord helps those that help themselves

It might be argued that it is an error to think of a ‘wounded’ child. Those in authority might prefer to think of a ‘well-disciplined’ child. Selfishness must be expunged. The child must be obedient and respectful – the child is father to the man.

An Africa story. I was teaching science in a laboratory in Sesheke, Zambia. Many of the students were from the Lozi tribe. In Lozi culture if a child wishes to address an adult he must kneel at their feet and wait to be acknowledged. I was teaching a first year class where a girl wanted the toilet. I was facing the blackboard when she came and knelt in front of the bench where I could not see her and therefore did not address her. None of the other students felt that they could tell me about her. She peed herself.

My other early commitment was to ‘zero population growth’. At the time I thought that this was due to idealistic concern for the environment and the planet. I was the last male Clark in our family line - it could die with me. The working definition of celibacy reckoned that copulation was OK so long as there was no fertilization!

BUT it could also be seen as selfishness on two counts – (a) there would be no need to sacrifice time and expense to childrearing and (b) I would be free to promisciously sample a wider range of women.

BUT it could also be seen as fear on two counts - (a) no woman would be willing to share a lifetime with inconsequential little me and (b) I would mess up the childrearing process and thus spawn seriously wounded children.

SO I might have a group of wounded children buried in the unconscious and they might be susceptible to exploration and kind treatment. It is said that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. And this includes parents and the wider community of family and friends.

And beyond that there are:

• the blood and spiritual ancestors reaching back to at least the 16th century
• the hunting gathering forebears
• the pre-linguistic hominids.

My mind/brain has a long history and potentially a long future.

It bears thinking about!

When I became a grown up I put away childish things. Or did I?