THE STATE OF OUR NATION (Part 2)

Many parents, it seems, simply no longer have time to devote to really discerning who each child really is, how sensitive or overly sensitive they might be emotionally, what talents they might have which could – and should – be nurtured, what needs and/or challenges they have for closeness or intimacy which may not be being met on a given day. Our own careers, our want for recreation (drinking with friends – call it “a barbecue” or “visiting” or whatever you want, when alcohol is always involved, it’s really about medicating with friends), and our own self-centeredness robs us of important time and energy which might have been devoted to learning more about who our children actually are, and what their actual needs might be, so that that our children could grow into healthy adults and the multi-generational cycle of abuse and neglect might be broken.

I see the results of unhealthy upbringings every day where I work. Sweet and wonderful men who didn’t have the benefit of having had parents who truly took an interest in who their child was because they were too busy trying to get their own still unidentified needs met, who didn’t really care so much about what their child’s individual needs or sensitivities might be – who their child really is – but really just wanted their child not to be a pain in their behind and did their best to force their child to be obedient, to control their child, and to get their kids to submit to their (parents’) will. Children were perceived largely, if you will, as problems much of the time, not as sensitive little Human Beings who might be acting out because they had needs which weren’t being identified or met.

The reason I’m spending so much time on this before I get into the details of The Miracle is simple. As I’ve worked with others over the past 20 years, helping them to identify their own brokenness and find healing after lifetimes of unmet and even previously unidentified needs, God has shown me some surprising and startling – disturbing, even – things along the way. (a) That it isn’t just drug addicts, alcoholics, sex addicts or sex offenders who display obvious symptoms of childhood abuse and neglect. (b) I see evidence of the same symptoms in stores, on the roadway, in public schools and virtually everywhere I look.

I’m not saying everyone has suffered from generational abuse or neglect or hasn’t had their needs met growing up, but I am suggesting that this description describes, in my observation, the vast majority of us. Healthy child rearing is the exception in America. To one degree or another, virtually all of us have grown up without the benefit of healthy parents raised by healthy parents. Do you understand what I just said? Alcoholism, control issues, egos, inferiority complexes, drug addiction, anger issues, power struggles, superiority complexes, fear, general dysfunction which comes from generations of unhealthy childhoods and the struggle to keep up with the Jones’s at all costs – all were present in the homes we grew up in, collectively speaking, and our parents were as oblivious to it all as we’ve been. Sadly, it’s the children who pick up the tab for this dysfunction, who then grow into dysfunctional adults, who in turn raise more dysfunctional children. If you ever wondered why the divorce rate is so high in America, it’s because Americans don’t value principled living anymore…again, collectively speaking.

Whether adult or child, the demand for attention is evidence of self-centeredness and reveals an individual who didn’t get enough or the right kinds of attention early on. Look at the public school playgrounds, particularly middle schools and high schools. Children are collectively crying out for attention like never before, acting out in unhealthy ways like no generation before them. They are so hungry for real love, emotionally needy and so lacking for truth that they’ll believe practically anything that is told to them which appeals to their own self-centeredness. This generation in schools today is experiencing the results of ongoing generational abuse and neglect exacerbated by Mom being driven out of the home (forced into employment by perceived financial neediness) by political correctness 40 years ago. The desire to have a career and keep up with the Jones’ took priority over “Who is going to raise our children?”, leaving children (a) to be raised primarily by daycare workers who typically do not love them, and (b) with parents who were raised by their own parents who believed that fear was a good tool which was utilized liberally in order to try to control their own children.

Then look at the groups of adults who demand our attention most. Who comes to mind? The incessant demands for attention are caused by the same issues: lack of real and intimate connection with parent(s) growing up, needs not met, dictatorship parenting styles, abuse, neglect and abandonment (emotional or physical – i.e. dads not in the home) including emotional disconnect with parents who are still in the home, but who are emotionally unavailable to their spouses and children.

I’m sure no one wants to believe I’m referring to them. If you live in America, however, the odds are good that I am referring to you. The odds are great, in fact. The only reason Liberalism has been allowed to drive our nation toward Socialism is because Americans don’t value principled living anymore, collectively speaking. The worship of Self is due to the lack of healthy relationships in our homes. Read it and weep if you must, but it’s true. Dysfunctional adults are teaching our children in public schools, many of whom have abandoned God out of their love of Self. Our children are being taught to be codependent like the teachers, to revere sexual dysfunction and pretend it’s normal, to mock and ridicule or at least ignore God in favor of pretending Evolution is proven science, which it’s not. While all of this is going on, where are we, the parents? Having been raised on the same dysfunctional crap, many of us are home watching American Idol hoping our children will just leave us alone tonight.

Our posterity has been hijacked, and collectively speaking we, like Patty Hearst, have now joined the hijackers and aid and abet them in their sickness. America is only going to get worse until Americans decide that humility and self-control, rigorous honesty and love and acceptance and faith – all of the Spiritual principles we’ve abandoned – are valuable again.

THE MIRACLE: Let’s get started with what we can do about this state of generational dysfunction. If you’ve been reading with me so far, the pump ought to be primed by now, so let’s start with Humility – next…

THE STATE OF OUR NATION

Life isn’t rocket science. It’s really not. People can be complicated, but when a person’s life, heart and mind are in good working order, people simply aren’t complicated at all. We all have the same needs, and when those needs aren’t met, we all respond in similar fashion. We get upside down, demanding, angry and unreasonable. We become complicated. Our minds, desperate to resolve our perceived needs, act erratically and irrationally, unreasonably, even. America today has collectively chosen to take the path of least resistance for the past 40 years, and as it virtually always does, the easy way has come with a horrible price. Right has become wrong. Good has become bad. Evil is wonderful and sick behavior is applauded, and people of faith, as well as all people of good moral and ethical character, have been made to feel like outcasts here in America.

This is, by the way, the beginning of my series on The Miracle, the process by which truth is revealed, broken lives are mended, hearts and minds set straight and restored to sanity, and relationships and families are restored. Let me first acknowledge that every generation prior to ours has fallen way short of perfect. Way short, even, of civilility, collectively speaking. We yelled at those whom we were entrusted to love and teach, we hit them, we made them afraid of us so that they might do what we told them. It’s generational, this abuse I just described. That’s right, I called it “abuse”. Without getting into major exhortations about just how abusive was the generation before us (“us” being Baby Boomers), let’s just say that our parents’ generation, collectively speaking, had it worse than we did. Truly, however, they didn’t learn how to really love on their children. Oh, they made sacrifices for us, and they loved us as best they could, many of them. But they didn’t have the benefit of being loved on themselves, many of them, as their parents had learned the “a child should be seen and not heard” philosophy of child rearing. That apple, I think you’ll agree, falls pretty darned far from the Love Tree. And our parents paid a price for that lack of loving upbringing, as have we. Being raised by people who were raised by abusive parents pretty much guarantees that the next generation will be experiencing abuse, too. And we did.

That said, the evidence is all around us. Whenever a child’s needs aren’t met or they’re subjected to abuse of any kind, they retreat into Self, becoming selfish, self-centered, oftentimes self-reliant and sometimes self-obsessed, frequently rejecting God because “Where was God when I needed Him?” Look around. One needn’t look far to see examples of what I’ve just described. Hollywood, Washington D.C., liberalism, addictions. All are mired in, and filled with, individuals who are collectively self-centered to the extreme. All, coincidentally, are victims having experienced Generational Abuse themselves. That’s why they take, take, take and want, want, want. They are needy in ways they don’t even realize. Sadly, nothing outside of themselves – not money, attention, fame, power – will fill or heal that needy place that has become what seems like ‘just the way I am”. Emotional neediness doesn’t go away. Drugs and alcohol might mask it for a season, and getting attention might distract us from the emptiness for a time, but the emotional damage caused by not getting our needs met as children does not go away by itself.

I know, I know. We all claim we weren’t abused. Did you know that virtually all victims of abuse think their experience is ‘normal’? It’s true. Another lie from Hell is this one: “That’s how my parents raised me and I didn’t turn out so bad”. And, sadly, that phenomenon is probably closer to typical than to being the exception. Even children of alcoholics, despite knowing their parents are alcoholic, don’t realize what a huge price comes with being raised in an alcoholic household, sometimes never seeking help to recover from the lack of real loving relationship in their home growing up and from not having adults who were interested in identifying and seeing to it that a child’s individual needs were met. Victims of sexual or physical abuse will oftentimes spend decades thinking “That was then and this is now”, not realizing how incredibly damaged a person’s psyche becomes after molestation, neglect, emotional abandonment or abuse. Oftentimes fearing confrontation with the perpetrators who may be named “Dad” or “Mom” or include other family members or friends who sometimes refuse to believe that their own family would do such things is the basis for reluctance to address such instances of physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

Abuse is generational. Children raised by abusers or alcoholics are not handed down healthy life coping skills because typically none exist in homes such as these. ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) as well as people who were raised in the “Children should be seen and not heard” method sometimes don’t realize that their own needs likely were not met during critical times of their lives, and also don’t realize that they really aren’t armed to do life in a healthy way. Passing down what they learned from their abusive and/or alcoholic parents, these ACOAs, for example, rule their children in the same way they were raised. Utilizing varying degrees of fear, intimidation, threats – even implied threats – and physical violence to try to control their children are not the ingredients for a child’s healthy upbringing. Quite the contrary, yet frankly, it appears to be the norm, not the exception in America today. When the people that a child loves most, who are supposed to be protecting and nurturing them, are yelling at them, using fear to intimidate them, threatening and hitting them because the child is acting out because they aren’t getting their actual needs met, a child’s psyche is deeply damaged, and exacerbates the cycle of “needs not met; force the child to comply; needs still not met; continue to try to force the child to comply”.

The first step toward healing is admitting that one is sick. Collectively speaking, America is very sick, and has been for a very long time. We raise our children as second class citizens, as we were raised in the same dysfunctional way. Despite any appearance that this series might be negative in nature, The Miracle is quite the contrary. First, we establish the truth. We look long and hard at what’s going on in our nation, and we investigate, discover and admit the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. I’ll continue this national self-evaluation in my next column, in which I’ll finish establishing the uncomfortable truth so that we can get this party started, personally, and collectively…

Don Cobb © 2010

Black Caucus? Is There a White Caucus?

Charlie Rangel’s recent conviction on 11 ethics violations brought to my attention the fact that Rangel was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. I hadn’t realized that there were racist groups allowed in the U.S. Congress, but sure enough, there it is. In all fairness, the fact that Congress allowed the “Black Caucus” in the first place most certainly has to do with different times, times in which black people were fighting for equal civil rights. It’s understandable in this American’s eyes how the Black Caucus came to be, considering it was created in 1969. The question in my mind is why it still exists today.

Current laws make racial discrimination illegal. Many of these laws were not in place in 1969 when the Congressional Black Caucus was created, but over the years laws were put into place which leveled the playing field between blacks, whites, Asians, Hispanics and Native Americans. Racism is now against the law. Hallelujah for that, right? Then why do Americans continue to allow it? Guilt? Shame? A lack of collective self-esteem, perhaps? There are many reasons why a person would turn a blind eye to racism, although none of those reasons have anything to do with practicing principles. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Most assuredly this issue points to a complete lack of principles on the part of all Congresspersons, white, black and whatever color they might be. A lack of courage is the most obvious. None of our Congressional representatives have the courage to point out that racism is racism. In fact, none in our Judicial system has that kind of courage either, as Black Chambers of Commerce, Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People are all still in existence today, while no one, white, black, brown or red has the courage to point out that these are all racist organizations. And do we even have to say one word about “La Raza”, the most blatantly racist organization of all? Yet, no one says a word.

There is no Congressional White Caucus. Nor is there a White Chamber of Commerce or a National Association for the Advancement of White People. Why not, you might ask? Because those would be considered “racist” organizations, would they not? If white people, rather than Hispanics, created a national organization or non-profit called “The Race”, would everyone be okay with that? Yet Hispanics have done it and mum’s the word on acismray (pssst: I believe that is Piglatin for “racism” ).

White people are not allowed to create organizations designed to support themselves in America. I have to wonder, aside from the obvious (that liberalism is another word for raging codependence that has been mislabled “Political Correctness”), why white, black, Asian or Hispanic Americans allow this racism to continue. After momentary consideration, I guess I can see why black, Asian and Hispanic folks don’t complain about this racism. They are the beneficiaries of this kind of blatant racism.

That, of course, points to a plethora of principles being ignored and even trampled on, such as honesty, courage, integrity, truth, love, self-discipline, honor, acceptance, humility, confession – the list of principles being ignored and not practiced is long when it comes to those who quietly allow and support racism in America.

This, of course, is just another example of why America is experiencing such difficulty right now, collectively speaking. Without the courage to be honest and forthcoming, to talk about the truth, to humble ourselves one to another and admit when we are wrong (any organization which defines itself by race is “racist”), to support each other when our rights are trampled (whites, for example, don’t have the same rights as blacks, Asians and Hispanics when it comes to public or private organizations – whites cannot create a Congressional White Caucus or a White Chamber of Commerce, yet blacks can – fair? No.).

It might not seem like a problem to blacks, Asians and Hispanics yet, at least, even if they can personally  admit they see the racism going on, they are clearly as unwilling as white people are to bring it up and point it out. No, it may not seem like a problem yet, but, as Pastor Martin Niemöller pointed out in his poem <em><strong>”In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”</em></strong>

The U.S. government and apparently we, the people have said nothing about white people’s rights being taken away, rights all other races have, enjoy and exercise openly in identifying themselves and promoting their own race’s causes. If we allow racism to continue in America – and we do today – we can expect racism to get worse. It’s that simple.

If we aren’t willing to stand up for one another and level the playing field when it comes to racial discrimination, then let’s stop pretending that all of that fighting over civil rights did anything but turn the victims into the oppressors and the oppressors into victims.

Ask yourself: Would you support a Congressional White Caucus? Probably not. I wouldn’t. Then why have you said nothing about the Congressional Black Caucus or the Congressional Hispanic Caucus? Racists support racism. Think about that, perhaps…and then think about what a principled individual might say or do about this. And then say it and do it.

By the way, as if it matters (it doesn’t), half of my family is Hispanic, my daughters are all part Hispanic and Native American, my mother in law is black, and my wife is half white/half Hispanic and her sisters are either half white/half Hispanic or half white/half black. I have no problem with people of any races, as my family is a cornucopia of mixed races. I love them all and I am not concerned with their race, but rather with their character, which defines them as individuals.

I have a problem with racism. I think you should, too. We should all have a problem with racism and racist organizations by now.

Reposted from columnist/vlogger Don Cobb’s Principled Living website.