A little over four years ago, I wrote a post–Shadow Lands and Cyber Worlds–in which I reflected, among a few other things, on the books and stories of my childhood, and the life lessons I took from them:
Through my childhood and over time, I came to find lessons and truth in these tales of life, fellowship, courage, faith, loyalty, love, and betrayal. To understand that I could do my own part, even in small ways, to emulate the good in them and that I, and others, would, as part of our fallen natures, act out our fair share of the bad. I came to recognize the bad from the good, and I came to understand that redemption, salvation, and a second chance came with the territory if I could embrace, understand, and follow the necessary steps to accommodate them, for this world and for the next.
Those were the lessons I took from my escape into the faith-based, historical and fantastical worlds of my childhood. Good lessons. Healthy lessons. An understanding that what I was reading, reciting, or singing wasn’t always “real,” but that some of it might be true. That, perhaps after I thought about it, digested it, picked out the bits of wisdom in it, and then turned around and looked at my life, I could apply those lessons, and be a better and more whole, person as a result. As long as I can remember, that’s been my experience of the thousands of years that Western Civilization’s stories and legends have to offer–that they exist, and that they’ve lasted, because embracing them and assimilating their lessons enriches us, improves our lives, and makes us kinder, more courageous, and better people.
So I make no apology for, am not in the least embarrassed by, and have no fear of, acknowledging, the fact that some of the best and most long-lasting character lessons of my (64-years and counting) life, have come, and still come, from works of faith, fantasy, and fiction. Did my family model good and moral behavior when I was growing up? I think it did. Did I take lessons from, and learn something from those behaviors I observed in my family? I think I did. Was my family the only thing that formed my character as I was growing up? Absolutely not. My friends, real, fictional, and even imaginary, helped too. But always in the context of my real life.
My gratitude–to the adults in my life, be they family, friends, teachers or casual acquaintances–is boundless, and only grows with time. They let me be me. They let me read. They let me play. They let me pretend, act out some of the stories, dress up, role-play with my playmates in characters ranging from knights and ladies to cowboys to princesses to pirates to doctors, to–yes–even Mrs. Rabbit and Winnie-the Pooh. And as long as my little pals and I weren’t doing something terribly dangerous, everything was done with good humor and a light touch, sometimes with an adult’s help, and always with an understanding that, yes, this was make-believe and I could have as much fun as I liked, and be whomever I liked for a time, but when the day ended and I went to bed, I knew who, and what, I was and that I was still the same me I’d been born as. I knew I could look back on my day and know that part of it, at least, had been fun, even if wildly implausible.
In short, and during times of play, my parents let me imagine. One of the great privileges and joys of being a kid–a time of life which, while not always completely carefree, didn’t encompass most of the stresses and strains of adulthood, and which most especially did not lock us–perhaps forever–into a particular identity, just because–one day–we announced that we’d like to be someone, or something, different from ourselves. (Whether this propensity to imagine–and even to dream–might have important ramifications in my adult life, where perhaps it could elevate me to achieve goals I otherwise might find inhibiting, is probably an (important) conversation for another time.)
When I wasn’t at play, when I attended stiff (and rather formal) family gatherings at which more than a few of my elderly relations had been born in the latter decades of the nineteenth–and early decades of the twentieth–centuries, I was expected to present myself quietly and respectfully, and to behave. Ditto, when my parents sent me off to represent myself (and them) at school.
Children identifying as cats are wearing ‘tails and ears’ in class, warns Britain’s toughest headteacher as she cautions that teachers’ authority over their pupils is ‘long gone’ amid rise of the ‘furries.’
The conversation that’s taking place in the UK was spurred by a viral recording in which a “teacher” rants at a 13-year-old who refuses to bend the knee to a fellow pupil who identifies as a cat. You’re “really despicable,” and “very sad” says the teacher, while suggesting that the girl should perhaps find another school to attend.
Katherine Birbalsingh, known as “Britain’s toughest headteacher” and perhaps the country’s most influential educator, says that schools–and parents–are failing their children by refusing to take difficult decisions and set boundaries.
She also suggests that the issue of children identifying as cats, horses, dinosaurs and other animals or objects in schools was more widespread than people realised, as teachers “are not allowed to tell you what’s going on”.
This is in reference to the widespread practice in the UK of schools not notifying parents of their child’s ‘identity preference.’
And so we have children who identify as horses being taken–by adults in whose care they are–for canters around school grounds. Children who identify as cats being allowed to wear ears and tails at school, and perambulate on all fours, and lie down and stretch on the floor while they lick themselves. (Please, Lord, never let me read that they poop and pee in litterboxes at the back of the room.) Children who identify as moons wearing capes and casting spells in class. Children who identify as dinosaurs (prolly not so smart, given how things turned out). All–if you believe it–in the interests of expressing their true selves, and often in violation of school uniform rules to which the rest of the cis-children–who are happy with the way they were born–must adhere.
To quote Katherine Birbalsingh again:
As a society we have lost our way. Teachers and parents have allowed children to lead the way and adult authority has completely dissolved.
In schools we have allowed children to lead the way. We are scared of our children, we are scared of our responsibility of leading, and we are shying away from our duty of looking after our children.
You go, girl!
It’s increasingly difficult to tell exactly who has lost the plot here.
Has the line between fantasy and reality become so blurred that the children can’t see it anymore?
Or has the line between fantasy and reality become so blurred that the adults won’t enforce it anymore?
Or–worst of all–are these lost and desperate children knowingly trolling a bunch of foolish, susceptible, agenda-driven adults, pushing boundaries and–in reality–pleading for some structure and discipline in their lives? The structure and discipline parents who once recognized the distinction between imagination and reality were not afraid to provide, but the structure and discipline the adults in the UK school system have been bullied and threatened into burying?
In any and all of these cases–in the current environment–it’s the children who lose, and it’s the adults who are at fault.
Because, adults.
It is time they started acting as such. And it’s time for them to give back to future generations the childhood, and the imaginations, they deserve.
1 thought on “The Death of Imagination”