Shame

While driving through Idaho Mr. Fob slipped a CD by The Supremes into the player. One of my favorite songs came on and I started singing along:

This love we're contemplating
Is worth the pain of waiting
We'll only end up hating
The child we maybe creating

Love child, never meant to be
Love child, scorned by society
Love child, always second best
Love child, different from the rest

When I was younger I totally loved this song. The lyrics and the music go together so well, and as a righteous young woman I thought it would be the perfect sort of thing to bust out on any young man who tried to take advantage of me (none ever did, but I had delusions of grandeur). As I was singing along this time, I realized that during the forty years since that song was written, the concept of a "love child" has completely disappeared.

On the one hand, I think this is a good thing. No child should have to feel different or ashamed because of the choices made by her parents. I think our current cultural climate of acceptance is a very positive thing. I also always feel a little weird when commentators lament the "horrible state of the world these days", as if evils like fornication or murder were invented sometime around 1959. I've read enough pornographic seventeenth-century literature to know they're wrong. People have always been imperfect, so it's good to acknowledge and make room for those who don't fall into the conventions of society.

On the other hand, I do find it interesting that public shame has largely disappeared from our culture. I imagine that part of it is due to the fact that most of us don't live in a close-knit community anymore. A few weeks ago the New York Times magazine had an article about group therapy for marriages. One of the benefits pointed out by those who lead couples' groups was the "Puritan village effect", wherein social pressure helps mold behavior. I immediately thought of Mormon culture, where both wards and close-knit families put pressure on couples (and others) to behave. Like I said earlier, I'm not sure that reviving shame or guilt is a good thing, but I'm not sure that it's a bad thing either.

I'm not really sure this post has much of a point. It's sort of a combination of a bunch of things rolling around in my head, including the lesson we had today based on the recent talk on divorce. We live in a world that is fallen and imperfect. We don't always make good choices. Should we condemn ourselves for our imperfections or shun those who are imperfect? Should we decide the better thing to do is celebrate every choice, no matter our convictions? Do I have an answer? No. I am, as always, painfully aware of both sides of the issue and continually stuck on the fence. But I will teach my children to sing this to all their dates:

Don't think that I don't need you
Don't think I don't wanna please you
No child of mine 'll be bearing
The name of shame I've been wearing

Just in case.

Comments

Th. said…
.

I think groups are a good thing. I'll go that far. And without church, I probably would not have a group.
Mrs. Hass-Bark said…
I agree with th.

Also, I think reality television might have to do with the lack of public shame...
I had many similar thoughts when I re-read Jane Eyre recently. Why didn't Rochester just divorce his first wife? And if the guilt was that great then he could have paid for her support; he had enough money. Then he would have been free to marry Jane. But at the same time, I love the drama created from Jane's heightened sense of guilt over Rochester's proposed love-match. It is almost impossible for our society to understand that now. If the novel was ever discussed it would be to contrast her Victorian modesty and propriety with social norms now; indicating that such modesty and propriety was out of step with modern life.

The sixties brought us much good in way of progressing women's rights, and erasing some of the ridiculous and unhelpful attitudes about sex, but the cultural revolution also created a society that is permissive to the point it has begun to erode some of our liberties in other ways.
Mary said…
I just started a new job as a school nurse. The high school I'm at 2 days a week has a teen pregnancy/parenting program (TPPP). The nurse who runs it told me she had 140 kids in the program last year and expects to have 30 to 40 new pregnancies this year. This is a grade 9-12 school with an enrollment of 1673 last year. Even assuming that there were a few males in the parenting part of the program, those are really high numbers. Today was the first day of school and I saw quite a few pregnant bellies walking down the halls in their school uniforms.

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