Invented Identities
When my children were born they planted in me seeds of hope that sprouted into full-blown dreams. I dreamed of intimate family moments, of a family legacy, of future mature father/son relationships, of grandchildren to bring joy to our home, and more. Those unspoken dreams embedded themselves into my relationships with my children. They affected how I raised them, what I said, of what I approved and disapproved. My children are old enough now to follow their own dreams and create their own identity. Perhaps their dreams coincide with my dreams at times, but not necessarily. When their dreams differ from my dreams, my children are forced to rebel against me or cower to an existence that rejects their hopes. Neither is healthy. Neither produces positive results.
Thomas Merton writes in an essay called “Ishi Means Man” about the plight of the Native American. He says, “In defining and limiting the Indian as we have, we are also expressing a definition and limitation within ourselves. In putting the Indian under tutelage to our own supposedely superior generosity and intelligence, we are in fact defining our inhumanity, our own insensitivity, our own blindness to human values.” He argues that white America has tried to force the Native American to be like us, to value what we value, and to relate the way we relate. Merton goes on to say, “As far as we are concerned the Indian is permitted to have a human identity only insofar as he conforms to ourselves and takes upon himself our identity.” He says we impose on them “invented identities.”
This struck me as in important truth that could be applied to my children and me. Today I am struggling with my willingness to cast aside my dreams in order that my children may live their own dreams and fully live their own identity. My boys are not Native American, but they are different enough from me that I do not have the right to invent identities for them, to make them live my dreams, to force them to take on my persona. I’m in the process of changing my dreams for my children. I want to cast aside my attempts to make them fit some mold I might have for them. Instead, I want to dream that they might find their own identity separate from me and in tune with their own true character. I want to dream that I will rejoice in their successful departure from me.
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