But the reality is by and large extremely different than the idyllic imagery we play out in our minds or in the media publicity. Most kids in desperate situations show physical signs of their need. They are not just dirty and in torn clothes. They may have physical deformities or unusual physical traits associated with their particular plight. They may have scars or other visually uncomfortable distinguishing features. And most of all, just like in the population as a whole, the vast majority of real kids do not have idyllic, runway-model looks; they are by and large average looking with exceptions at either end of the spectrum from angelic to homely. In short, the reality of how these desperate children look is directly contrary to the pretty picture we paint or that the media paints for us to trigger our sympathies.
But it goes so much farther than that. When the average person performs a charitable deed, whether small like dropping coins in the Salvation Army's Christmas pail or extensive like volunteering significant time and resources to provide aid to a cause, we hold certain expectations of the results it will bring. Specifically, we firmly expect the recipient to be both grateful and humble. We often go so far as to expect praise of our moral character for performing the deed. The idyllic transaction might play out like this: (this is the meaning, not a specific example of dialog)
Child: Please help me! I need warm winter clothing and healthy food to eat. I can't get these things without your wonderful assistance. If you give me what I am needing, I can be normal and healthy and happy and I will love you for changing my life!
Charitable Person: Why of course I will help you! You remind me how lucky I am to not have to suffer like you do. I can give you what you ask without causing undue hardship to myself and I will be making the world a better place. I will rescue you from your pain. I will show myself and the world that I am a good person of significant moral worth! Here, have my scraps...
Child: Oh thank you so very much! You are so good and kind and praiseworthy! I appreciate your aid from the bottom of my heart and I will remember you with gratitude forevermore! You are the hero that rescued me from this hell that is not of my own making into a better place where I can grow up to be like you: healthy, wealthy and wise. I give you this token of my appreciation; I spent a huge amount of personal effort on it because you made such an impact on me and I am eternally grateful...
Charitable Person: You are so very welcome! I feel better about myself knowing that I have changed your life for the better and am now a hero in the mind of at least one person. I am going to bask in this praise and use it to justify to myself how I deserve all these comforts because I gave you my scraps to rescue you...
Okay so that isn't what either of them would explicitly say but all of the interactions thereabout can be boiled down to these messages. They are exaggerated for effect here, but this is the idyllic image we tend to envision.
Reality doesn't quite work that way. Not only are the children usually not the perfect little cherubim we have envisioned, but their attitudes and demeanor has been affected by their circumstances. They had no one to teach them humility and manners. All of their life experiences have taught them to distrust others, to look out for themselves, to depend only on themselves, to take what they require - by whatever means necessary - because no one will give it to them otherwise. They are fighters; they are strong but they are hardened from repeated circumstantial battering.
By and far, the more common emotional reactions to charitable deeds would be distrust of motives, anger at the tangible proof of how things are unfair and cruel, hostility born from resentment both at not having what the giver has and at the reasons why they don't have those things, pride and a sense of accepting the deed grudgingly because, while they need it, they don't want to admit that they cannot sustain themselves without the aid of people they perceive to have absolutely no understanding of their world.
A couple takes in a foster child and their (sometimes unstated and/or unconscious) expectation is that the child will be so grateful to them for being so magnanimous, as in the case of Pete from Pete's Dragon. But in reality these kids tend to be angry. They don't believe that the couple will be there for them, love them, and treat them right. The circumstances that necessitated the need for a foster home have taught these kids that parentals cannot be trusted or relied upon. They act out to test their assumptions and sometimes create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if repeated transgretions don't yield the negative results they expect, they may never fully come to trust the adults, believing that eventually they will turn on them or let them down or sometimes that they don't deserve the love and respect and safety being offered to them. Often this lack of (what they perceive to be) warranted gratitude and reciprocated faith creates tension and even ill-will and the cycle is perpetuated.
It's a shame the majority of people don't have more realistic expectations. Perhaps then there would be a greater disposition to give and receive aid. If people understood that the behavior is a learned response, a product of the hardships they have experienced, they would be less likely to mentally (or verbally) attribute it to moral failings. Really, in such situations, who is actually demonstrating the greater degree of moral shortcomings - the kid behaving in accordance with their experiences or the adults who hold unreasonable expectations for them?
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