Permanence and Dependability
Reflecting on why you should stay in your hometown.
Permanence
I grew up in the part of California in which my mother grew up and to which my father’s family moved when he was in high school. We lived close enough to several generations on both sides of the family that a visit was a matter of a day, or an afternoon, or a drop by on the way home from an errand. I attended high school with two families of cousins, and college with the same. This is actually unusual in California. Most are first generation imports from “Back East” or passing through on their way to becoming rich. Or weather refugees.
But I made the unusual, at the time, decision to leave sunny California for various locations in the Midwest. I got married and my husband’s family had a similar story, though his parents left their extended family in Michigan and began to move about the country. His siblings were already spread far and wide. Then, he and I made decisions to move to various locations around the world and eventually back to California. After two years we left again.
On the whole, it would appear to be for the best that the great majority of human beings should go on living in the place in which they were born.
While I hate the term “forever home” (No such thing folks! Unless you mean heaven!), we have finally settled here in Texas, almost against our will. The anchor is our Catholic parish. We have a piece of land and a home built for our needs.
But what we don’t have is family nearby. Our kids don’t quite feel like Texans. We aren’t totally enamored of the weather, or even the terrain. The favorite foods of the locals don’t necessarily appeal to us. But here we are, wondering what will happen to the next generation.
We can see in retrospect the results of our willingness to be nomads. The bonds of extended family are weakened by lack of presence. Even the strongest families grow apart without the regular gatherings of the folks to eat, laugh, argue, pray, and weep.
This article I recently found put into words the thoughts that have been boiling up in us for years, and more insistently the past two as we contemplated early retirement. Where would we live? Where would our kids find spouses and have our grandchildren? Should we have ever left California?
The last question might be answered “no”, but, to overuse overused sayings, hindsight is twenty twenty and that ship has sailed. We can only do our best to hang on to the extended family relationships and look to the future of our own little family.
The first benefit of permanence is the preservation of the family.
—From Why You Should Stay in Your Hometown by Justin Hannegan
A home, a community, a parish gives us a place in which to grow a family for generations. If you read enough English and Scottish literature from the 19th and early 20th century you get the sense of the English attachment to the land and family house, and Scottish attachment to the clan and its name and honor. Though these attachments can become disordered and lead to inordinate attention to social class, and even to war, they also form the foundation for multi generational security, even among the poorer classes with the young and elderly cared for under one roof.
Americans have never learned to cherish permanence. Alexis de Tocqueville once said that an American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before the roof is on; he will plant a garden and abandon it just as the trees are bearing fruit; and he will clear a field and leave others to reap the harvest
The American pioneer spirit, though it began with that movement away from permanent homes led to families rooting themselves in a piece of land and building a community from scratch. The sod house was built, and the fields plowed. Life happened swiftly and often the first community space was a cemetery, further rooting the family in the soil that they built upon. The church and the school house and the necessary stores followed.
However, unlike the typical British family of a generation ago, who stayed within a small radius of land for generations, the American land mass was, and is, still so big that movement is common and the distance great enough to disrupt family connections.
In order to enjoy the benefits of permanence here in this country we have to consciously choose it. We have to root ourselves in the land and community and just stay. We have to be intentional about family life and plan for future generations.
Family bonds are indispensable because, unlike friendships, they are not chosen. They are given by nature. These natural bonds are what Edmund Burke calls, “the germ of public affections.” They teach affection and loyalty for others regardless of whether we stand to benefit, and they teach obligation to others regardless of our consent.
The health and future of the family in any culture lies in the indispensable bond created by God through marriage and the begetting of children. These natural bonds need to be protected and nurtured. Mankind is born hardwired for bonding to others. Babies cannot help but bond with whomever provides them with care and comfort. If the parental bond is weak or broken, another bond will take its place—as in the case of youths that are attached to peers over parents. If our families are going to extend into future generations, and not devolve into atomistic, un-related, silos of uniformity that we see in the cliques that form in a high school population, then we need to maintain the family bond into adulthood.
How? What can we do, when raising our children to form and maintain the bonds necessary to safeguard the next generations.
Dependability
When you are raising children you hear a lot of advice about making them independent. The advice is especially loud when you have a child that has special needs. If you envision this independence you probably see a young adult living alone or with roommates, doing his own laundry, cooking his own food, paying his own rent and utilities, shopping for groceries and food on his own. These all seem like great accomplishments.
But then, think—this independent young adult is doing everything for himself. Is this not the definition of selfishness? Sure, he can do these things and not be selfish. He may need to take turns taking out the trash if he has roommates, but even that is a 50-50 contract, all about making sure you don’t do more than your own share of the work.
If our goal for our children is this scenario, how can we be sure to raise men and women who are able to make the sacrifices necessary for the self-gift required for a happy healthy marriage, for fruitful family life, for serving God first, for loving their country enough to sacrifice for future generations? Where does the “germ of public affection” grow into loyalty to others and responsibility for the weak, or the unlovable. Independence doesn’t get us there.
I propose we change our words. Let’s strive for DEPENDABILITY in our kids, rather than independence. This may only be a change in language and emphasis. Afterall, the practical skills necessary are the same, but the spirit is changed. Now they learn to cook so the family can depend on them to provide meals when needed. They learn to do laundry for the same reason.
The value of this switch in thinking is more obvious when you consider the life of an adult with special needs. They will likely always be dependent to at least some degree on others to be safe and well in the world. Even if they live on their own, they will need neighbors and family (or the government) to make this a reality. A solitary life of dependence is a very lonely life. Dependence within a family allows for dependability—or more accurately mutual interdependence. A solitary life of independence can be just as lonely. Everyone benefits from interdependence.
A life in which one’s contribution to the day-to-day needs of the household is depended upon is a life of meaning and purpose. Again, if you read enough literature written before 1940 you see the value of the maiden or widowed aunt who helps with the new baby, or the bachelor uncle who helps on the farm— they are depended upon for the necessary work of a family. Grandparents often lived with the children and grandchildren and were there for advice, care, friendly interference, and love—or added hardship and sacrifice. The help of the extended family may have come with some things to endure on both sides, but it was help all the same and often made the difference in the survival of the family. The extended family unit with it’s “obligation to others regardless of our consent” was also the safety net for those unable or unwilling to care for themselves, relieving the government of that responsibility (or perhaps keeping the government at bay). This interdependence of the extended family and the local neighborhood is crucial to society.
However, these scenarios require extended family that live nearby. Sadly, this is not as common today as it used to be. Perhaps we can begin to remedy this by not giving our young people the impression that we expect them to leave home at such a young age—or even anytime before marriage or religious vocation. If they are dependable members of a household and their work is needed, they can continue to mature at home without having to have their own apartment. For many generations in many cultures the movement from childhood to adulthood has occurred within the originating household. This often included the first years of marriage.
Of course, we are going to have to rethink sending kids away for college, where the chances of them beginning a career are a marriage in any place other than their hometown is now increased exponentially. In the article linked above, the author mentions the value of choosing careers based on what are the local industries. Or exploring careers that can be done anywhere. The question for the young adult looking at college should be “What does my community need?” And “How can I fulfill that need?”
If we are going to rebuild a society firmly based in strong family structure we need to refrain from pushing our young adults into the world to fend for themselves, lest they continue to live a life to please themselves first and never become dependable men and women on which a future can be built. The practice of getting an apartment and living away from your parents is one that fragments families and pushes young people into a selfish mindset.
Even those of us who are already parents often follow the path of seeking independence—we grew to independence so we could live for ourselves, then we give up the fun temporarily so that we can have children, whom we raise to independence so we can retire and relax and live for ourselves again.
As a society we have been fed the value of mobility over permanence, of independence over dependability and what we have gotten is failing families, many lost individuals with no permanent bonds in their lives, generations of government dependency, and a nanny state that must constantly flex its power over the individual in order to maintain it’s authority over us.
Let’s instead strive for permanence and lay down roots, and strive for dependability and maintain those bonds with our children into the next generations.