Andrew Sullivan finds this passage from Clarence Thomas's autobiography to be troubling (he lifts it from a favorable Bill Kristol review of the Thomas book):
It really was as simple as that. Daddy had to raise us, but he only had to enjoy Jamal, so he kissed and hugged him." And Thomas goes on to wonder "how hard it had been for him to hide his affection from us. How often had he looked in on my brother and me as we slept, gazing at us with the same sweetness I saw each time he looked at Jamal? How often had he longed to hold us, hug us, grant our every wish, but held himself back for fear of letting us see his vulnerability, believing as he did that real love demanded not affection but discipline?
Comments Andrew:
So, according to Thomas, real paternal love doesn't mean affection for your kids. It means you cannot hug or hold them. I understand not granting them every wish - but discipline and affection as mutually exclusive? What a glimpse into the tortured soul of Thomas ... and Kristol.
Nope, sorry. "Tortured"? Hardly. It's an extremely poignant moment, actually, and a very human one. Thomas in no way says that affection and discipline are mutually exclusive. He had assumed all his life that his grandfather, who raised him, was nothing more than a hard man and a harsh disciplinarian. Seeing how tender the old man was with his own (Clarence Thomas's) child perplexed Thomas. Why did the old man, Myers Anderson, show love to the little boy that he'd withheld from the boy's father?
Thomas discovered that Myers had been so afraid that if he didn't instill ramrod-straight discipline into Clarence and his brother, that the boys would fail, like so many of the impoverished blacks among whom they lived. Myers knew that the only way out of poverty for those boys was hard work and education, and he dedicated his life to giving Clarence and his brother the self-discipline to save themselves. Thomas goes on to reflect with great pity on his grandfather for perhaps feeling that he had to suppress his affection for the sake of saving the boys. Thomas's respect and love for his grandfather is boundless -- and this passage Andrew cites as a glimpse into the "tortured" soul of Clarence Thomas is actually the point at which the adult Thomas was reconciled to old Myers -- when he, Thomas, understood why old Myers (who was no sophisticate, but rather an illiterate) had been such a strict taskmaster.
I hope Andrew will pick up a copy of Thomas's book and read it for himself. I wasn't all that engaged by the Clarence vs. Washington material, but the account of his youth, which takes up the first half of the book, was truly remarkable.
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Brian:
Is it just possible BOTH extremes are wrong?
Or maybe it is just that this whole conversation on such a prudential aspect of life is completely ridiculous?
Note that Sullivan only writes critical reviews of books he hasn't bothered to read.
A generation of alcoholics, child abusers, and wife beaters would suggest that maybe that strict discipline wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Generalize much? The data indicates that alcoholics are more likely to raise alcoholics, child abusers more likely to raise child abusers and wife beaters more likely to raise wife beaters. I'd like to see the data on task masters.
Oh, and Anderson was Thomas' maternal grandfather. Thus, it's a leap to lay Thomas' dad's behavior at Anderson's feet.
More to the point at hand (and ignoring Sullivan's derivations): familial relationships are more complex than any of us want to credit. In my experience, my parents and mother in law are much more likely to indulge our kids' behavior than they were to indulge us. "Spoiling" the grandkids is a pretty common phenomenon. My mother-in-law (no disciplinarian herself) is far more demonstrative with her grandchildren than she was with her children. For whatever reason, the hugs, kisses and "I love yous" flow more easily to the grandkids than to their parents. It understandably bothers my wife and in-laws, but they've learned to react to it as reflected love. Our minds are forests at night, and we don't have a good grip on our own motivations and reactions, let alone those of others. Even beloved family members.
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