A good father is a social scarcity

A good father is a social scarcity

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Curated: Prophet Bookstore

Text: Screen Camp Editor: The director of the Prophet Bookstore

Psychologist Freud once put forward a view: "The emergence of Western democracy stems from the son's rebellion against his father." ”

For example, one of the most common themes in Greek mythology is "father-killing." In Oedipus's story, a prince who was banished from childhood kills and replaces his father under the trick of fate.

Myths are often metaphors for reality. This "father-killing" culture eventually evolved into a unique gene that "dares to rebel against authority and can complete metabolism and self-renewal in intergenerational conflict."

On the contrary, looking at ancient Chinese mythology, we rarely see this kind of "great rebellion" plot, in the relationship between father and son, obedience is a virtue, and there are even many stories of "killing children" - such as "Twenty-four Filial Pieties", Shun does not resist his father who favors his brother and repeatedly harms himself, Yao thinks that Shun's morality is noble, and he wants To Zen to give way to him.

Two traditions, over thousands of years, have evolved into two different cultures. After the Opium War, with the influx of Western ideas, the rebellion against traditional patriarchy became a symbol of rebellion against backward ideas and systems. During the Period of the New Culture Movement, Lu Xun, in the "Diary of a Madman", borrowed the mouth of a father who was suppressed by the feudal Taoist system and issued a cry of "save the child".

The family is the cell of society. People's attitudes toward family authority often determine their attitude toward social authority when they grow up. Therefore, when we discuss what a "good father" is, we are actually thinking about what a good society is. A good father is not only a scarcity of the family, but also a scarcity of a society.

▍ "Humble" father: Suffering does not always lead to greatness, but also takes away human dignity

Mention of "good father", the first image that emerges is Luo Zhongzhong's famous painting "Father" - a farmer who has worked all his life but cannot change his fate, his face is carved out of the walnut-like texture by the carving knife of the years, and the suffering of life is also transformed into a look into his soul.

These "humble" fathers place all their hopes on their descendants and do their best to meet the needs of their children and families. As soon as he opened his eyes, he was surrounded by people who depended on him, but there were no people he could rely on. Therefore, you can only sacrifice yourself, support the whole family, and even change the fate of the entire family.

It's like a touching song, "Prose Poems Written by Fathers": an old father in a poor era records the bits and pieces of life in the form of a diary. He used simple language to record the departure of the child's mother, recorded the child's growth, did not give him the guilt of a better life, watched the child grow up day by day, and finally had to leave the bitterness one day.

It's an emotion that needless to say, can be understood at a glance—

"Tomorrow I'm going to the neighbor's house to borrow some more money, and the child has been crying all day, clamoring for cookies."

"Thinking about the future, I've grown into a pile of old paper money. At that time, the daughter will definitely be amazingly beautiful. ”

At the family level, these "humble" good fathers, with poor knowledge, no power and no power, have little spiritual communication with their children, just simple "offerings", but it does not prevent us from seeing the brilliance of human nature and feeling the fatherly love of the mountain - "He can't give me anything, but he gives me everything." ”

But at the societal level, this great fatherly love is often the product of years of suffering. For various reasons, people sometimes cannot avoid suffering, but suffering is suffering—creating great fatherly love while depriving the father of his dignity as a normal person's happiness.

Suffering, therefore, is neither worthy of praise nor worth pursuing. What should be pursued is to change the soil that causes suffering, so that great fathers are less, and ordinary and happy fathers are more.

▍ "Strong" father: Project yourself in the name of love

Unlike the "humble" father, there is the "strong" father. They are often successful people in the secular world, full of "kindness" to their children, but "strong" to arrange a life for their children, and the result is often tragic.

Their standard for being a good father is - "managing children is good for children": from learning to make friends to starting a family, not only caring about asking questions, but even choosing and deciding on behalf of them. As long as the child does what the father says, he is a "good son". For example, Napoleon's only son, Napoleon II, was born with the honorific title of "King of Rome".

Regrettably, the great hero of his life, for the sake of his great revolutionary ideals, in order to give the whole of Europe to his children, was so busy that he never accompanied the children, and did not even meet them a few times--the wife of the original political marriage was brought back to her mother's home in Austria shortly after the birth of her son, and Napoleon himself was soon exiled by defeat and permanently separated from his children under three years old.

Even so, Napoleon planned his life for his children early on—he said to him in his last words: "My son, he should be a man loyal to the victorious causeSaund I have won everywhere." ”

However, Napoleon II's weak body was not enough to support his father's great sustenance, in order to replicate his father's success - the arduous career of joining the army destroyed his health, the little Napoleon lived forever in his father's shadow, he was more like a footnote to his father's legendary history, insignificant, as he himself said: "I was born and died, this is my story." ”

The reason why the "strong" father "in the name of love" projects his career and will onto the child is not because he is born a "tyrant" and wants to make the child unhappy. Many times, it is precisely because he loves his children too much - he does not want his children to repeat the losses he has suffered, the sufferings he has suffered, and the detours he has taken, nor does he want to let himself fight for a lifetime of career and fall into the hands of others.

This mentality also often appears at the social level, and even forms an algorithm or idea called "paternalism" - like a strong father, he pushes what he thinks is good and right to others.

But human maturity is by no means merely physical, but above all spiritually independent; man's success must also be based on the premise of free choice. Similarly, a mature society never gives freedom to everyone in a coercive way— because coercion and anything good are logically inconclusive.

▍ The best parent-child relationship: Father grows up with children

If a good society is a contractual relationship based on autonomy and equality, then the relationship between a good father and a child can never be one-dimensional—not the one-way material provision of the father to the child, nor the father's coercion in the name of love, but a two-way relationship that requires the father and the child to operate together.

In this two-way parent-child relationship, growth is the child's business, and what the father needs to do is not a one-way offering, not to design a good life for the child, nor to teach the child to prepare for an upcoming life. On the contrary, the father's education is life itself. As Zhao Hongyun, the author of "Fathers and Children", wrote in the book:

"Exploring the world with children, every exchange of thoughts and spirits is a growth, this is the childhood of children, but also the childhood of fathers, the growth of children is not the end, not even the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning." 」

There is a section in the book where the father takes the child to fly a kite—

The child asked, why can't this kite fly?

Dad said it was the kite line that broke. The force of the wind is too great, and the pull generated by the line also increases. The line couldn't stand it, so it broke.

The child asked, is it the reason the wind is too strong, right?

Dad said, it seems, it's not. This is because the kite does not have the ability to fly independently. Because of the dependence on the line, it is impossible to fly higher; because it depends on the wind, it will be blown down from the sky by the wind. ”

There is also a story in the book, when the father and the child climbed the mountain, the child found that there was a sharp needle on the tower at the top of the mountain, so he asked the father what it was.

Dad said it was called a lightning rod. One end of the lightning rod is exposed high in the air, and the other end is connected to a wire, which is connected to the ground. Lightning can be introduced into the ground to protect the tower from lightning strikes.

The child asks, is it also like a fuse, sacrificing yourself and protecting others?

Dad said that the fuse is to use its own weaknesses to protect others. Therefore, it can only be protected once, and its own life is over. Lightning rods are also active in taking risks, sacrificing themselves, and protecting others, but in different ways. Because the lightning rod is to use its own good conduction advantages to protect others. Therefore, lightning rods can protect others for a long time.

Such a scene, many parents have experienced, such a question, every child has asked when they are young. But this is the first time I have seen such an answer from this set of books.

If the father's vocation is to transform society, then good family education is undoubtedly the first step in transforming society. Today, there are fewer and fewer humble but great fathers, fewer and fewer excellent but strong fathers, and the two-way parent-child relationship has basically become the norm. But more scenarios are:

Some parents want to share their knowledge, experience, and thinking with their children, but every time they open their mouths, they are intimidated by the child's sentence "I have been indoctrinated by the teacher at school for a day, and I have to irrigate it when I get home";

Some parents agree very much that "the greatest education is to grow together with children", but the reality is that "children are growing, parents are stagnating, and soon become the ceiling of children's growth";

Some parents want to be friends with their children, but in the end they find that this requires not only a change of concept, but also enough patience, but also ability. And this ability not only needs to be learned, but also needs to be continuously cultivated in the process of communicating with children.