Poverty of Childhood II

Another observation about the real the poverty of childhood. This time the poverty of childhood came from a strange unhappy family. She was the youngest girl and became a shadow. She was her father's sexual partner and her mother's long term carer. After the early death of her father, Her mother lived a very reclusive life and became the eccentric "cat lady" of her neighbourhood. The two of them lived together for years wit very little contact with the out side world. What contact they had was hostile and untrusting. While alive her mother poisoned her with an attitude that the world @outside@ was not to be trusted. They were out to get you, they would get you if they could.

I met a sixty year old lady who waited impatiently for her mother to die. When she was finally free she expected to have friends, go to party's, have boyfriends. Sadly no one every taught her to have a conversation, to meet people or to be a friend. She has no understanding of how to sound happy, let alone be happy. When approached by a person for conversation she sees it as an opportunity to speak about how bad it all is. Funny thing, no-one persists past a few minutes.

My job has been to help her learn the skills she is missing. to help her hear what a conversation should be - giving and taking, asking and listening. It has been a complete revelation that she needs to ask about other people and actually be interested in their answer. It has been wonderfully enlightening for me to bring down to absolute basics how friendship begins and how people communicate, also how again how childhood needs to teach.