Michelle Obama’s bestselling memoir, BECOMING, tells the story of her own life and offers inspirational advice to young people, especially to girls and young women. She, and her husband Barack, have been engaged in supporting the young before, during and, now, after their period of residence in The White House, where American Presidents and their families traditionally live. They are the parents of two daughters.
Among Michelle Obama’s quotable quotes is the line that it’s best for a young person to work out who you want to become rather than what you want to become. This takes us back to the foundation years of child-centred rearing and person-centred psychology codified and pioneered by Carl Rogers in the 1950s. Much of the wisdom and learning in Rogerian approaches to counselling, therapy and human behaviour pre-date modernity and emerged as part of human development across the globe. It is Carl Roger’s work in codifying this wisdom at a peak time of American cultural power that has led to these humanistic ideas entering cultural life in a thorough-going way, in America and further afield, and connected them with campaigns for justice and equality that formed the platform from which the young Michelle and Barack launched their lives into education, upward mobility and powerful public office.
Were they praised as children? Do they praise their children, as part of their parenting practice? It seems from BECOMINGthat they were and that they do.
So how do you ‘mol an óige/praise the young’? Does the much-used phase ‘good girl/good boy’ work? Does the child know what’s ‘good’?
When toddlers, at a Christmas drama session, are asked to help tidy up the cotton wool snow balls they have been throwing around, most do so with gusto. Others wander about and some sit and watch. Each time a toddler puts a snow ball in the leader’s bag, they are rewarded with a ‘good girl’ or a ‘good boy’.
Are the ones who wander about or sit and watch not ‘good’?
When, in Spring-time, the cat brings a dead bird to the back step, do we say ‘bad girl/boy’? Or do we recognise this as animal behaviour and we simply tidy up afterwards? Does the cat expect a reward and, if so, what?
Is the cat propitiating the gods of food, protection and warmth?
Is saying ‘good girl/good boy’ the kind of phrase that the old Irish folk adage in the title above advises? Would the following formulation be better? ‘Good girl/boy, for helping to clear up the snow balls.’
Is it necessary? Does the child simply get the message from the tone of appreciation and the warmth of the adult’s response? Instead of ‘good girl/boy’, would the same effect be achieved if we said ‘golublub’, with a warm tone of appreciation?
Separation of the person and the act (or role and behaviour) is at the heart of Rogerian psychology and is one of Roger’s formulations that has entered a wide range of social practices, including toddler-rearing, youth work and social work. The assertion is that while the behaviour may be designated ‘good or ‘bad’, the person just ‘is’.
At what point – maybe at this point? - does the Rogerian ethic coincide with behaviourist theory and practice, with all the inherent perils in such an approach, using threat, reward and punishment to mould behaviour?
If the toddler drama session took place in an anarcho-bohemian society, in a laissez-faire set-up, would the tidying up be rewarded with warm-toned ‘good girl/boy’ affirmations? Would the leader affirm those who continued tossing snowballs and disregarded tidiness?
For an engaging cross-cultural take on child-rearing, see the comedian Sindhu Vee, below. She notes that parents draw on what they learned from their own parents. They echo the tones andphrases of the previous generation.
I heard echoes from my own parents’ child-rearing practice, when I was rearing my children, including the adage that: if you don’t rear your children, the television will. One influencer among many. Add social media to the mix now. And casino capitalism driving hyper-consumerism. More influencers.
Michelle Obama is an international celebrity. She can be seen and heard on You Tube, web-sites, radio stations, multiple tv channels, numerous print journals and newspapers. And now in a best-selling book. She is a high-powered influencer. As is her husband.
Best wishes to all people rearing children, in all parts of the world, using that amorphous and challenging concept known as ‘love’.
BECOMING; Michelle Obama; memoir, Viking Penguin, London; 2018
Carl Rogers: http://journalpsyche.org/revisiting-carl-rogers-theory-of-personality/
Sindhu Vee; Live at the Apollo; 12 40 to 20 55
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bw8hbt/live-at-the-apollo-series-14-episode-6
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