We're All in This Together
24/01/13 05:09
The sociologist Morris Massey coined the phrase, “What you are is where you were when . . .” The basic concept is that we are formed by life experiences and the timing of significant events affects their impact on our lives. Massey studies the development of values and uses three major life periods with different impacts on how we develop the core values of life:
Like other models of the socialization process, Massey’s view is overly simplified. Real people don’t have ridged turning points as they transition from one stage to another. There are all sorts of life experiences that can change development, including the failure to develop basic trust in early childhood. However, his ideas have some truth in them that has been useful as I work with the people I encounter in the church.
One of the things that I have noticed are variations in how someone grieves the loss of a parent is quite dependent upon their age.
I was 27 years old when my father died. It was not my first experience of death in my family. We had lost a sister when I was 16. My paternal grandfather died when I was 19. My maternal grandmother died before I was born. My maternal grandfather died when I was 2. My father’s death was not sudden. His cancer diagnosis gave him and us an opportunity to prepare. He was a practical man and spoke frankly of his illness and his death and helped us to make plans that served us well. My mother was able to live comfortably as a widow for more than 30 years after he died, due, in a large part to successful planning and management of resources.
But I have been with children and teens at the point of the death of a parent. I have been called upon to deliver the news of the death of a parent to those in their middle years. I remember clearly a funeral where the surviving daughters were well into their seventies.
I have been thinking of a young man that I have known for many years for whom the decade of his 40s has been a decade of grief. I don’t know all of the details of his life, so he may have experienced the loss of grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins earlier, but his paternal grandparents, two brothers who were his only siblings, and his father all have died in the past decade. He has no children of his own, so as his 50’s birthday looms, there aren’t that many people in his life left to lose. His mother is still living. Although he has never been formally married, he has a significant and long-term relationship with a partner. Going by the numbers, however, he doesn’t have enough people in his life for his 50s to have the amount of loss he has experienced in his 40s.
He was 14 when I met him and I still see him as a young man, but yesterday a casual observer might have said that he was much older than his real age. He was tired and worn not just be the realities of life and a long drive to take while managing his business from a distance. He was worn by the emotional stress of too much grief in too short of a time. Massey got that much right. What you are is where you were when. He was in the middle of the building years of his career struggling to earn a living and build up a business when he was struck by loss after loss after loss. Retirement is still many years away for him, but between now ant that time, he will need to invest significant energy in forming new relationships and filling his life with new people. He now embarks on psychological and social tasks that for some are relegated to their teens and twenties. But he does so with a load of grief and wariness about the pain of loss that is seldom known by younger people.
There are times when I can get to feeling that my course in life has been difficult. But it doesn’t take much observation to discover those whose lives have been much more challenging and whose losses have been much more painful.
I frequently tell people, “You don’t get over the loss of the people you love. You can survive loss. You can even thrive after a loss. But you don’t get over it. The loss stays with you forever.” Fortunately, I have been allowed to witness people of great strength and character who have not only survived loss, but have used the experiences of grief and loss to temper their character and become more compassionate, caring and loving. I never pray for people to forget their grief. I do, however, pray for them to come to peace with their loss and to grow through their pain.
The phrase, “We’re All in This Together” has been used in many different places in popular culture. It is a song and dance routine from the movie High School Musical. It is a phrase in a Hillsong United film. It is the title of a collection of short stories by Owen King and a catchphrase on the Red Green show. It is also the truth. We are all in this together. We haven’t all had the same experiences. Our live journeys are vastly different. But we are all in this together. My life is shaped not only by the prayers of the young people who gathered for youth group in our church last night, but also the prayers of the adults who were members of the youth group I served 35 years ago and all of the youth-become-adults with whom I have shared the journey in between. We are all in this together.
- Birth to roughly age 7 is the imprint period. We are like sponges, absorbing everything around us and accepting what happens to us a s true, especially when it comes from our parents. We assume that what happens to us is normative.
2 Between the ages of 8 and 13, we copy others. Massey calls this the modeling period. We not only copy our parents, but also copy other significant adults in our lives. Rather than blind acceptance, we try on ideas and values to see if they fit. Some ideas and values are rejected and others are kept.
3 Massey calls the time between ages 13 and 21 the socialization period. In those years we are deeply influenced by our peers. We develop our own individual values and differentiate between own values and the influences of earlier life. We turn to people who seem most like us in search of models.
Like other models of the socialization process, Massey’s view is overly simplified. Real people don’t have ridged turning points as they transition from one stage to another. There are all sorts of life experiences that can change development, including the failure to develop basic trust in early childhood. However, his ideas have some truth in them that has been useful as I work with the people I encounter in the church.
One of the things that I have noticed are variations in how someone grieves the loss of a parent is quite dependent upon their age.
I was 27 years old when my father died. It was not my first experience of death in my family. We had lost a sister when I was 16. My paternal grandfather died when I was 19. My maternal grandmother died before I was born. My maternal grandfather died when I was 2. My father’s death was not sudden. His cancer diagnosis gave him and us an opportunity to prepare. He was a practical man and spoke frankly of his illness and his death and helped us to make plans that served us well. My mother was able to live comfortably as a widow for more than 30 years after he died, due, in a large part to successful planning and management of resources.
But I have been with children and teens at the point of the death of a parent. I have been called upon to deliver the news of the death of a parent to those in their middle years. I remember clearly a funeral where the surviving daughters were well into their seventies.
I have been thinking of a young man that I have known for many years for whom the decade of his 40s has been a decade of grief. I don’t know all of the details of his life, so he may have experienced the loss of grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins earlier, but his paternal grandparents, two brothers who were his only siblings, and his father all have died in the past decade. He has no children of his own, so as his 50’s birthday looms, there aren’t that many people in his life left to lose. His mother is still living. Although he has never been formally married, he has a significant and long-term relationship with a partner. Going by the numbers, however, he doesn’t have enough people in his life for his 50s to have the amount of loss he has experienced in his 40s.
He was 14 when I met him and I still see him as a young man, but yesterday a casual observer might have said that he was much older than his real age. He was tired and worn not just be the realities of life and a long drive to take while managing his business from a distance. He was worn by the emotional stress of too much grief in too short of a time. Massey got that much right. What you are is where you were when. He was in the middle of the building years of his career struggling to earn a living and build up a business when he was struck by loss after loss after loss. Retirement is still many years away for him, but between now ant that time, he will need to invest significant energy in forming new relationships and filling his life with new people. He now embarks on psychological and social tasks that for some are relegated to their teens and twenties. But he does so with a load of grief and wariness about the pain of loss that is seldom known by younger people.
There are times when I can get to feeling that my course in life has been difficult. But it doesn’t take much observation to discover those whose lives have been much more challenging and whose losses have been much more painful.
I frequently tell people, “You don’t get over the loss of the people you love. You can survive loss. You can even thrive after a loss. But you don’t get over it. The loss stays with you forever.” Fortunately, I have been allowed to witness people of great strength and character who have not only survived loss, but have used the experiences of grief and loss to temper their character and become more compassionate, caring and loving. I never pray for people to forget their grief. I do, however, pray for them to come to peace with their loss and to grow through their pain.
The phrase, “We’re All in This Together” has been used in many different places in popular culture. It is a song and dance routine from the movie High School Musical. It is a phrase in a Hillsong United film. It is the title of a collection of short stories by Owen King and a catchphrase on the Red Green show. It is also the truth. We are all in this together. We haven’t all had the same experiences. Our live journeys are vastly different. But we are all in this together. My life is shaped not only by the prayers of the young people who gathered for youth group in our church last night, but also the prayers of the adults who were members of the youth group I served 35 years ago and all of the youth-become-adults with whom I have shared the journey in between. We are all in this together.