My Daughters Make Me Re-Think a Life of Meaning

Chapter 8

My Daughters Make Me Re-Think a Life of Meaning

 

I tell my students my “meaning” in life, if I have any at all, is for my daughters to never have to work at Walmart because, rightly or wrongly, Walmart has in my mind become a symbol of evil and a future dystopian America, some horrid chapter out of The Hunger Games. I am discouraged to hear that Walmart is a popular business model for other enterprises to impose substandard working wages on their employees, wages so low that a report recently came out that shows many full-time Walmart employees must supplement their incomes with food stamps.

Walmart should be ashamed of these revelations, but I’m sure it is not since Walmart is a Giant Industrial Sociopath. I’m sure its minions are concerned about how the food stamps story tinges its image while not giving a damn about its employees’ state of hunger.

If I did not save enough money for my daughters to attend college and instill in them a love for learning that would make them aspire for a life beyond the prison bars of a Walmart existence, I tell my students, I would consider myself a failure as a father and as a human being.

So for me, “meaning,” if it exists, is in seeing my daughters flourish, blossom, and bloom into an existence of their own choice and making, and that would be an existence in which there is a huge chasm between them and Walmart.

Indeed, that would give me some meaning, but I’d have even more meaning if I saw a strong moral core in my daughters. If my life was so shabby and loathsome that it influenced them to be vain, selfish, entitled, whining victims, similar to the pissy little brats who are expelled from Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, I tell my students, then that would be resounding evidence that I am a failure as a father and as a human being.

I am not a moralist for morals’ sake alone. I see a connection between morality and happiness. In the same Critical Thinking class in which I teach Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, I also teach Eric Weiner’s Geography of Bliss, a travel memoir that examines those countries that are high and low on the Happiness Index and the causes for those countries’ abundance or lack of happiness, and the more I study Weiner’s book, the more clear it becomes that happiness and morality are inextricably linked. The happiest countries such as Iceland, Switzerland, and Thailand teach social reciprocity, discourage envy, and encourage humor, all strong moral agents. The least happy country Weiner visits, Moldova, is painted as a place mired in selfishness, narcissism, envy, and learned helplessness.

So while I struggle to find the heroic meaning as defined by Viktor Frankl, I am comforted to know that I am no nihilist, someone who rejects the idea of right and wrong. I shudder at the moral repugnance of Walmart metastasizing across America. And I recoil equally at the thought of my life being so morally bankrupt that my children turn into the childish malcontents who incur the contempt and loathing of the beloved Willy Wonka.  

My meaning may fall short of Viktor Frankl’s noble ideal, but at least I have relative meaning. Absolute definitions elude me for now.   

 

 

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Comments

[jonnybardo]

I don't feel like I really landed on earth until my first daughter was born. Before that, Real Life was always in the future, but as soon as she screamed her way into the world, my life mattered. Or to put it another way, "The shit got real."

That said, I've come to feel strongly that the best way for me to serve my daughters and their unfolding is through serving my own. Not in a self-serving manner, but that by actualizing myself, my own dreams, and creating my own meaning, that I can provide an example for my daughters. The last thing I'd want is for them to grow up and see that their father hasn't done what he has tried to help them do: discover and follow their bliss (ala Joseph Campbell).

I agree with you regarding Walmart. That company exemplifies the repugnance of our way of life, with skewed priorities.

[herculodge]

That is a scary thought, to live a parenting life of priestly self-sacrifice to the service of children that one has forgotten to be a self and as a result has failed to be a somebody for the children to look up to. Your point is well taken.

[herculodge]

The more I think about it, the point you raise may require its own post.

[jonnybardo]

I think the good news is that what we most deeply want for ourselves is not opposed to what is best for our children. Really engaging solves the (false) dilemma of "my needs" vs. "my children's needs." I'd even go so far as to say that our children, on some deep level, want us to be deeply happy and fulfilled, partially--but not only--because when we are we are more loving, better parents.

[Ed S.]

Ourchildren are only visitors. While parents have an enormous effect on shaping them, they do come out of the white partially hardwired, so you can't take all the blame if one should turn out to be a Walmart shopper/worker, which frankly is not the worst outcome I can think of in other words, you don't really have as much control over how a child turns out as you may think. Its nature and nurture, guys.

[herculodge]

Ed, "Walmart is not the worst outcome." Agreed. But for me Walmart is a symbol for a failed life and a failed country, a return to feudal society.

[jonnybardo]

Ed, I agree with you. James Hillman calls this the "parental fallacy" and has led to all kinds of (mainly self-imposed) guilt trips. To put it another way, our kids are going to be screwed up as adults no matter what we do.

That said, there are things we CAN do. My point is that we there is a fallacy that a good parent is completely self-sacrificing, when that is merely a better parent than a completely narcissistic one. An even better approach (in my opinion) is to actualize oneself, live true to oneself, and be a model for an authentic, creative life.

[Angelo]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-misner-phd/to-the-ticket-agent-at-the-delta-counter_b_4733642.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

Actually, I don't agree with the Walmart bashing. I think every person who is employed with Walmart (in the U.S. at least) has the freedom to resign from their position if their skill-set is more valuable to another employer. I also think Walmart sells a lot of goods and services economically challenged people want and need----including medicines----for less money than anyone else. Anyway, I guess that's an argument for another time? But my link above has nothing to do with Walmart and everything to do with setting examples for your kids that will last a lifetime. One regret I have is from a few years ago, when my son was about six years old. We had a long power outage and I misplaced my glasses. I was looking everywhere for them---it was dark---I was afraid of sitting on them or stepping on them and instead of helping me, he was absorbed in something else. In other words, he was being a six year old. When he saw me overreacting and in panic---and I yelled at him for not understanding how serious losing power and now me not seeing was----I saw his expression go from six year old joy to his own panic. Instead of showing him how to handle a crisis, I showed him what failing to handle a crisis looked like. His Dad couldn't handle a relatively minor issue. Funny----after reading the article I linked to, I talked to him and asked him if he remembered that day from over 3 years ago. He did. I did apologize to him at the time----but this time, I didn't apologize again, but talked to him about how I screwed up and how being poised and calm in a crisis is how you get through a problem----not freaking out. I think he got it.