My first foray into the world of social services led me to become involved with what I thought was an under-appreciated aspect of parenting: the role of a father and the problems caused by an absent father.
I drew from my own experience growing up. My parents first separated when I was about four-and-a-half years old. There were four children in our family. The youngest was only about six months old when the separation happened. My parents reconciled long enough for a fifth child to be conceived. Then they divorced.
From age 7 to 16, I had no contact with my father. I eventually sought him out and reconnected. I was the only one of his five children to have any enduring relationship with him. In my mind, the issues my family faced could be explained because of the absence of my father from our family. I spent a lot of time and effort learning about absent fatherhood and met some great people starting in 2001, shortly after my father passed away.
The National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) was an early source of information and inspiration. Dr. Charles Stuart at NFI became a mentor of mine and helped me understand what an engaged and involved father could do for a family to be successful. Al Pooley later did the same for me in the Native American fatherhood context. I recall listening to a presentation by Mr. Pooley as I was sitting with his wife. He told how his program with incarcerated Native American fathers produced amazing results, so much so that some of their ex-wives actually asked if their ex was still available (not remarried or with another woman). Mrs. Pooley told me that it was true. I smiled "really big" after hearing that.
In 2008, the CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study expanded my world view. After considerable research, I adopted the ACE Study as the root cause of many problems in the family. Early development by children that included traumatizing behaviors by parents led to the adoption of many attitudes and negative behaviors in children that could contribute to a lack of success. The fact that the ACE Study demonstrated a link between childhood trauma and later health issues in life gave me hope that we could use the health system as a portal for addressing the issues caused by childhood trauma. Some health systems have made that link and are pioneering a trauma informed approach to health care. I visited the Cherokee Health System in Knoxville, TN with members of my staff to learn about their pioneering efforts to integrate behavioral health into health care delivery.
The work of Dr. Darcia Narvaez published in her 2014 book, Neurobiology and the development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom, is an example of another person who is on the path of exploring parenting and culture in addressing childhood based issues and problems. This podcast featuring Dr. Narvaez talking about her book, which won the 2015 American Psychological Associations William James Award, has somewhat cryptic notes, but the takeaways are instructive. We need great parenting to produce moral and confident adults. And there is no lack of parenting advice, good and bad, that we receive as parents. This blog by Dr. Narvaez discusses one such perspective, letting a baby cry itself out to help parents achieve some return to normalcy in their lives. Letting a baby cry itself out is totally debunked in the blog. While discussing the parenting practices of hunter-gathering societies, Dr. Narvaez points out that babies were fully integrated into the life of the family, and their every need was anticipated and provided if possible. Elders lived with the family and passed on the child rearing knowledge necessary to raise productive adults. The needs of the community focused on what was required to live, and not the acquisition of property.
Dr. Heather Larkin introduced me to a cultural model of healing called the Restorative Integral Support Model. By discussing our brain development and behavioral adoption, with a link to our communities and systems of human relationship models, she presents a holistic and integrated model of healing. Dr. Larkin discusses healing models as “Communities of Care.” When I developed my hypothesis for Restoration to Health, it included a structured community substitute for healing, a cohort of approximately eight people who could go through the healing model together, learning and practicing the steps as a group supporting each other.
I come from an American Indian tribe that had its cultural models of child rearing broken by a long history of historical and intergenerational trauma. Children were raised by multiple generations and by aunties and uncles as well. Needs were met for children in what would be considered a very permissive environment. My tribe indulged their children until approaching puberty. Children were a part of life, not something to be focused on and provided for. They were our life traditionally. As we gathered our food, made what we needed and travelled, children were always there. If mother or father were gone for a while, the children spent time with their aunts, uncles and cousins (where they were raised as brothers and sisters - not cousins). I like that model.
Dr. Narvaez states the obvious so much more eloquently than I do. Our healing will return when we are parented and parenting well. What that is will have to be defined by our modern, ever changing, cultural model. And as Dr. Larkin makes her point, that healing culture must be local. That means we have to introduce a more caring, less acquisitive, model of community.
Extended family can start the healing. They can involve the community. And from the community, it can spread elsewhere. That is what I envisioned years ago, and I am grateful to the many who have helped me by sharing their research and knowledge with me.
I hope by sharing this information some of my mentors and guides, you may find your way to full engagement in your journey to healing our damaged culture.
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