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Situationally Disadvantaged
August 17, 2011
If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise you'll just be rearranging furniture in rooms you've already been in.
-Anne Lamott
-Anne Lamott
"I sat around the breakfast table of this sturdy farm family where I would spend the next few days. We talked of fences to be mended, calves to birth, carburetors to rebuild. I, the urban consultant, post-modern man, was polite and charming and absolutely useless. What I knew and knew how to do was of little value here. My daily rhythms had no correspondence with this sun-up to sundown physical life. My cheery cynical wit brought on no smiles. I generally felt incompetent, bored amidst the hard work others were doing, and increasingly reclusive. Inwardly I was getting a little surly, my smile growing a little frozen. This was not a situation I was quick to treasure. Over time, I became more comfortable as I adapted to the situation. But the me they saw was not the me I felt the best about.
"Many children in child care are situationally disadvantaged in analogous situations. Just like me on the farm, the situation they find themselves in puts a heavy burden on them to use all their personal resources to adapt. They are situationally challenged — their energy, patience, flexibility, and reservoirs of good will are put to the test. Certainly new situations that require stretching may be necessary, and actually good for us, in that they broaden our experience. Growing is learning how to handle an increasingly widening world. But the immediate result is that we are not at our best."
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Comments (2)
Displaying All 2 CommentsOklahoma Department of Human Services
Oklahoma City, OK, United States
I'm a highly educated urban progessional and government bureaucrat in the state licensing division, but I grew up on a remote ranch. The ranch is still operated by my brother and has been in continuous operation by our family for over 100 years. I go back as often as I can for a refresher course in that other world. This summer with the drought plaguing the plains of western Oklahoma has been particularly brutal. Assuring the cattle have water is a daily absolute. A broken windmill can leave a herd of cattle without water in a matter of hours. The lack of rain means the grass doesn't grow, and my brother often comments, "I'm not in the cattle business, I'm in the grass business." Without grass he has had to wean calves early, sell the older cows, and continue winter feeding throughout the summer at great expense. Day after day of searing temperatures between 100 and 110 degrees takes its toll on the land and the animals.
Meanwhile I go to work every day in an air conditioned office. We have spent the spring and summer massaging budgets and deciding where to cut. It's painful reducing services in a system we've spent a decade creating, but at the end of the day I think of my brother and our challenges don't seem so great. There are a lot of competing interests in the world, but we will still go to work every day trying to create a better world for our children.
United States
So appreciate Jim Greenman's wisdom.
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