The Astral Pilgrim

Within the field of sociology there is a concept which lies at its very heart, the process of socialisation. In this blog I am going to highlight just a few points of this process and how they are integral to many factors of life, both good and bad.

When we are born we enter into a world that makes no sense, where people do a variety of different things for reasons we cannot begin to comprehend. They open their mouths and make sounds that we don’t understand and so we find ourselves purely at the whim and control of those who seem to give us what we want. Very quickly we learn to get what we want on demand until we start to understand the sounds that are coming out of our parents mouths, our siblings mouths and also other people that are around us. We learn to mimic those sounds to garner a similar response and through this process we also learn our position within the ‘crowd’, as well as learning the relation of the other people within the crowd.

As we grow further and become small children we start to learn the intricate details of family life, based purely on the family within which we are – no other family or their relation comes into the equation – our ego is unable to stretch that far at that time. We learn acceptable forms of communication, behaviour, sometimes even thought. It is at this very delicate stage that the groundwork is set for the development through the rest of our lives. It is here that the parent needs to develop a much higher state of awareness when it comes to the growth and development of their child as what can seem to be the smallest notion can have a life changing impact on the child. This is not to promote us tip toeing around our kids worrying about every word we say, but an awareness of what we say does not have to lead to that.

As the child begins to form their own identity, being a culmination of the shared values of the family and the outward values they are developing in private they begin to embark on a whole new process of socialisation – they go to school. Within sociology it is widely accepted that the primary school system serves approximately 40% of its time to educational values and the remaining time is socialisation, both in the classroom and in the playground. This stage of socialisation is referred to as secondary socialisation. Within this area we can also cover the impact of extended family and friends outside the school experience. It is at this stage that the child reinforces the values they have developed and puts them head to head with the others around them. A massive process of shifting, consolidation, cooperation and compromise occurs over the space of many years that allows the children to mould out a whole new shared method of social practice which becomes more and more complex as they enter high school.

As you see, the way a child grows up, the way they develop socially is a process that leaves our own real sphere of influence much much sooner than we often think. By the time a child has entered primary school the influence of ourselves dwindles at an ever increasing rate. That is not to say that the social values of the family, of the parents individually or of the rest of the immediate family will dwindle away, but they will need defined reinforcement and in all honesty will need to defend themselves against the multitude of social practices that the child will bring home from the highly competitive social arena that is the educational system.

My own experiences of this with my daughter have been interesting, hard, upsetting and uplifting. There have been times when the beliefs and practices of our family have cut against the grain of some of the ways of life that our daughter has brought home with her. There have been influences from extended family that have almost actively sought to change her and there have been many times where she has received criticism because of how she thinks or what she believes – things often adopted from the socialisation process of her family life. On top of all this she is a very happy, intelligent and centred child that has an understanding of the world around her that far surpasses her peers – and I feel this has been because we have been strong in our family life. That is not to say we have imposed our way of life on her – far from it, but what we have done is demonstrate that difference is not something to be embarrassed about and lead through example that living, thinking or even acting alternatively is not something that has to lose in the social battle of wills. Through this example she has found her own strength to be her true self and I look forward to her entering the high school arena with both eager excitement and a healthy dose of fatherly apprehension.

Your children are wonderful creatures of developing inspiration – vassals of Awen that need to be allowed to grow and inspire, to be inspired and to create. To witness this in our children is the true blessing that they bestow upon us.