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| Sarah Standing, whose illness revealed the riches of her life |
Salve for these wounds inflicted on the social body comes in the form of the evidence around us of parents boldly meeting the challenges of raising children, and of family members responding with devotion to the needs of each other.
A British writer who was diagnosed with cancer has written a book detailing her treatment, but going to some length to highlight how her family — husband, children, grandchildren, and mother — played important roles in her recovery. The writer, Sarah Standing, was 61 when she was found to have cancer. Her book is Dancing With The Red Devil: A Memoir Of Love, Hope, Family And Cancer.
The medical care was one thing, but her experience of living through a time of desperate need has opened her eyes to what the loners by choice will never be able to enjoy.
But I have learned things — big things. I always slightly mocked the trend for being grateful for everything, from a cup of coffee to a sunrise, but now I get it. I’m grateful. When I first got ill, I harboured such grand ideas about what I’d do if — no, scratch that, when — I recovered. But how quickly I’ve become indifferent to all the things I thought I wanted.
I fantasised about fancy family holidays in the Maldives, and big adventures. I projected myself forward into an imagined new lifestyle, one that bore no resemblance to the life I’d put on hold, only to realise I already had everything I ever wanted. The only thing that mattered was to release my children and husband from the tyranny of having to worry about me.
Now I have it back — that old, wonderful life — I see more clearly than ever that family is everything. More curative, more potent, than any drug they hit you with.
Standing elaborates on how each member of her family contributed to her recovery through their attention to her and their willingness to engage in her battle against cancer. Then she declares:
The truth is, it’s my family who carry the burden of my illness. For 14 months of treatment, I do exist in a sort of survival trance of denial, while they deal every day with the severity of my situation. And when the PET scan comes back clear at the end of that time, at last I can see just how they’ve held me up, kept me going, understood how much danger I was in, when I didn’t.
The antagonism toward the family more frequently expressed is disturbing to those who have the welfare of a future-focused society at heart. An example is a skit, here, by Chelsea Handler, an American comedian and TV celebrity.
A BBC feature highlights the social stigma related to childlessness. Clearly, society's disapproval of those who desire to be "free" to live their life without the restraints that child-rearing demands is a form of self-protection for the fundamental unit of society. Secondly, the projected disgrace is to de-incentivise anyone from withdrawing from the linkages of mutual support that produce a healthy community.
From this second BBC feature we see the new set of values influencing those of the child-bearing generation to limit family size to the minimum.
We know from experience past and present that a weakening of family bonds causes confusion in the young and delinquency.
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Child Well-Being in Single-Parent Families
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