A Culture of Missing Attachments
attachment voids + distortions have given birth to identity culture
I think anglophone culture has created a massive attachment distortion. I think we are living the consequences of that attachment distortion. On many levels. In multiple sh1tty manifestations. This phenomenon we call mental illness in dualistic nomenclature has risen alongside the growing disconnection of family unit from itself. We have failed to support the attachments as we have metamorphosed through societal changes wrought by technology and the culture of material accumulation that demands both parents work outside the home. The culture has rigged itself against parents, against families, and as a sad result, against children. We do not value child rearing and child care itself — certainly not the developmentally sound kind anyway. We see children and young people as pawns, as property, as weapons to use against their parents and families of origin.
I am beginning to feel more and more grateful for the very insular and connected way my parents raised me — my home and parents provided a safe room from the larger world and culture and I could tell them anything stupid and bad I did. My parents ultimately did know all, I kept nothing from them and this kept me safe because I decided some dumb things as a teenager. This is the function of parents and family - to provide a safe landing spot for kids and young people. And here we are, chest deep in a hostile culture predicated upon and cultivated within spiritual and intellectual contraction, spreading divisiveness and fear and shame and suspicion.
Parenting is a relationship requiring three things — a dependent being in need of care + an adult being willing and able to assume the responsibility + a healthy and functional attachment bond from dependent being to adult. Attachment strengthens parental confidence and intuition. How do you think the culture of attachment erosion has affected parents and children overall in their relationship health? Perhaps we have a problem of root insufficiency in human society related to attachment starvation imposed by the wider culture? What if the family was the most essential + foundational unit of society? We are killing it by slowly poisoning attachment bonds.
Parents cannot be expected to co-parent with people they barely know, with people whose values and culture wildly + dangerously differs and even opposes a their own — We no longer live in villages and are no longer connected to those we live next to. Incessant transplanting has rendered us anonymous, creating the antithesis to the attachment village, writes Gordon Neufeld with Gabor Maté. In postindustrial society the environment no longer encourages our children to develop along natural lines of attachment, Neufeld + Maté also write.
What if SOGI culture creates an environment that actively discourages children from developing along the natural lines of attachment? What if parents, who do know their kids best, have neurocepted this intention and what if that’s what parents have risen up to battle?
SOGI is the tune and pedagogy and the peer culture of young people is new pied piper and parents are trying to hold onto their kids. Even for those parents whose children are beyond school age, they also live immersed in a cult of self-loathing and boundary violation and body modification. The trick becomes for parents to provide a better attachment alternative than that destructive SOGI culture preying upon kids and young people.
Remember that a gender identity to a young person feels very real, you don’t understand the distortion inside their mind which causes them to want to see themselves as the opposite sex and you are called as a parent to walk this line between no affirming a delusion and not destroying the connection. There’s no manual for this and no expert or therapist or coach knows better than you what to do with and about your kid.
Sometimes they cannot love you in the present state because they struggle to love and connect with themselves. Uncertainty hurts like hell and sometimes we are called to live in that uncertainty as parents. The task becomes how to live with yourself in your own body throughout all this chaos and heartbreak. The pain of grief can be an asshole inside your head - you aren’t crazy or bad you are a normal human feeling normal feelings in response to a really sh1tty situation perpetrated by the larger society and the even the state, which is supposed facilitate and protect your rights now take them from you. Yes, this is real life and it is super fcuked up and others feel this too.
If you haven’t already read it, do go take a look at the first Spiritual Literacy Reflection on Attention. Grieving demands a recalibration of your relationship with yourself, that’s what spiritual literacy does - gives you the tools to connect with yourself. Every relationship you have with anyone and anything begins with your relationship with yourself.
So, I just decided to start. With a nonprofit structure that has $150 Canadian in the bank and a small board of directors of three. Here we are, everything has a beginning, this is ours — humble and serving. There’s a Calendly link below and my availability for outreach coaching with parents who are struggling. I hope to have a core group of peer coaches + counselors for parents to provide outreach support. If there’s a demand we can start an online group coaching outreach - please let us know in the comments if that’s a thing you would be interested in. Your confidentiality is always guarded.
Next week my sister and her daughter are coming to town (first time in 7 years and firsts time together since mum’s funeral, pretty exciting) so I have marked my availability off from the 9th to the 13th of May, however anyone really struggling can always reach out by email and I can find a bit of time to be a rage or grief doula for the struggling and alone. If you need a weird time or a time that is outside of times offered, just ask, maybe I can accommodate.
This is to serve you, parents - this is a space for you to heal. The only requirement is your commitment to yourself and the process of connecting to yourself.
You don’t believe you can and yes, you can. People do not realise the full strength of their own wisdom and light in the face of grief and rage and loss. Oh particularly when it comes to our kids - our hearts outside our bodies!
Believe in your ability to make it to the next moment + know we are always right here.