CULTURAL JOURNAL

by

DARIA DOERING

Education 243

April 12, 1998

CULTURAL GROUP MEMBERSHIP

a)    Socioeconomic status

I tend to see my socio-economic status as high, but nobody else seems to agree!

Education: I have a B.A. in Economics from SDSU, and my husband has a B.A. in Sociology from SDSU, plus a Masters Degree in Public Health from SDSU.  My parents both have college degrees, my mother from Sarah Lawrence, an ivy league college.  My mother’s parents both had Ph.D.’s in Economics and were college professors and authors; this at a time when this was quite unusual for a woman.  My father’s parents both had college degrees; his father was a civil engineer and his mother a best-selling author.

Occupation: I am a homemaker, a very low-status occupation at this time in history.  My husband is an Industrial Hygienist and Hazardous Waste Specialist, and is an inspector for Cal-OSHA.  Hence he is a government employee, a fairly low status occupation.  I am headed for being a teacher, which I regard as the highest calling, but which is regarded as low-status by most people.

Before becoming a parent, I worked as an Associate Producer for KPBS-TV, which was a very glamorous job, and gave me high status as far as that went. However, it really wasn’t the right field for me, as I am very anti-television; plus I eventually decided to quit work after becoming a parent, so that is no more.  Before I quit, I asked my husband if he would still love me if I didn’t still work for KPBS (he was, in fact, ecstatic that I left that stressful job), and wondered how life would continue without the “specialness” of that job.  I have survived just fine; albeit constantly starting new “special” enterprises.

Perhaps I should add that maybe I see myself as having higher status than others do because of my family history.  My father (Richard Russell, a stock market analyst and publisher of Dow Theory Letters) and maternal grandfather (Max Lerner, syndicated columnist) are nationally known figures.  I rarely share information about my relatives with people because I want to be regarded in my own right, which is usually a disappointment.

Income / Assets: Our income is mid-range, though we have received considerable financial help from my father, which allows us to own a house in Mission Hills, which we could not otherwise even dream of, and for us to drive relatively new imported cars.

Power / Leadership: I do have a penchant for starting and leading projects.  Some of the things I have started since quitting my job at KPBS are the later-mentioned Attachment Parenting Groups of San Diego (recently featured in a front page Currents article in the San Diego Union); Baby Cheer, wherein numerous playgroups of mothers and babies visit elders in retirement homes on a monthly basis; and a weekly after-school enrichment program, the Tuesday Kids’ Club, at Grant Elementary, where my children attend.  I have started these programs because of their own merit, and they have all been successful.  However, quite honestly, I am often surprised at how little respect I have received because of them.  We were treated like celebrities for a few weeks after the article in the San Diego Union, which featured two pictures of our family in our “family bed,” but that has faded.  I feel I’ve started some worthy enterprises, and have made a few good friends out of it.  However these accomplishments  haven’t seemed to improve my standing in the community all that much.

b)    Community history

Some of the cultural groups we are members of:

Attachment Parenting Groups of San Diego: This is an organization that I started after the birth of my third child, Nina, to promote the practices of Attachment Parenting (AP).  AP is a parenting style that can include a “family bed” (babies and young children sleeping with the parents), long-term breastfeeding, holding babies as much as possible, and responding to their cries promptly.  (For a more complete description of AP, see Appendix A.)  AP has been written about by Dr. William Sears and others, and is becoming increasingly popular.  However, it can tend to make a person feel isolated, as one hears other parents talking endlessly about problems that one doesn’t have (i.e. bed time problems), and can also subject a person to criticism and ridicule, as many people are quite threatened by this parenting style.  So the AP support groups can be a very important source of friendship, parenting advice and support, as they certainly have been for us.  We meet monthly, with the whole family.

Parents, Babies and Children Potluck and Singalong: This is another group I started after the birth of my first child, Nicholas.  My family has a history of involvement with folk music.  My parents owned a folk music coffee shop called the Candy Company when I was 11 or 12.  My mother is an excellent musician who plays the piano and guitar, and instilled in me a love of folk music.  I never learned to play any instrument well (to my everlasting regret, though I am still trying to learn recorder and accordion, in “all my free time”), but I still enjoy singing and hearing folk music.

My husband and I had started going to a “folk circle” in San Diego, and liked it very much.  However, this was disrupted by our first child learning to walk, and proceeding to wreck the houses of the hosts (who didn’t have children).  So I decided to start our own folk singing group, for people who have children.  It has evolved into four families who are “regulars,” and we have been getting together to play music every month or two for over five years now.  Our children act fairly disinterested, but I hope that underneath, they are absorbing the same joy in folk music, and particularly in playing it, that my mother passed on to me.

Church: I was raised in no religion at all.  My parents said “We’re Jews,” but we never once stepped foot in a synagogue, never once participated in a Jewish holiday or religious custom, and never prayed.  About all you could say is that we were members of the Jewish Community Center on 54^th Street, and my parents’ friends were mostly Jewish.  I really felt the lack of religion in my life: the lack of learning religious values, the lack of prayer and religious traditions to rely on, and the lack of a religious community of friends.  My friends while growing up were mostly Catholic, and I was always very interested in the Catholic religion.  I remember occasionally going to church with friends, and a friend telling me about praying the rosary.

After my marriage, (to a man who had been raised Catholic, been an alter boy and gone to Catholic schools, but had since become completely disenchanted with the Catholic church) I started attending mass sometimes.  After our first child was born, I felt more and more of an urgency to find a church or synagogue to raise him in, that we all felt was right for us, so that our children wouldn’t lack the benefits of religion as I had.  I visited many churches, and continued going to mass at times.

We decided to enroll in a year-long class on Judaism for mixed-faith families, called Pathways to Judaism, which was a great learning experience for all of us.  After Pathways, we joined a synagogue, but really didn’t feel comfortable there.  Although I value my Jewish heritage very much, I didn’t feel that Judaism fulfilled my spiritual needs.

I finally enrolled our oldest son in CCD when he was in first grade, and after our third child was born, and after a long soul-searching, we had all our children baptized as Catholics.  The following year, I enrolled in RCIA (Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults) and became a Catholic.  Nick attended another year of CCD, under duress, and received his first holy communion.

There was a problem, however, in that my children hated mass.  At around the same time that Nick started in CCD, I had enrolled him in a summer program at our local Methodist church, and he absolutely loved it.  The upshot of all this is that although we are all Catholics, we now attend and are members of the Mission Hills United Methodist Church.  It is a very friendly and open-minded church with a dynamic female minister, and has wonderful programs for children.

I have ended up feeling that there are unique things I love about all three of these religions, and many other religions as well.  Concerning Judaism, I appreciate the history, commitment and suffering of the Jews, their emphasis on education, the incredible achievements and contributions to mankind of many Jews, the family culture of questioning and argument that arises from the study of the Torah, the weekly Shabbat, and the Israeli music and dancing.                Regarding Catholicism, I appreciate its long history, including the monks keeping learning alive in monastaries through the ages; the power and majesty of the mass; the veneration of the saints; the beauty of Catholic churches; the physicalness of crossing oneself, genuflecting, and other customs; the memorized prayers; the moral absolutism of the church; and the church’s history of social activism.

With Methodism, I appreciate the warmth and personalness of our church; its flexibility and tolerance, which attracts thinking and questioning people; its success in working with children and teenagers; the many helpful classes it offers; and its social activism.

c)     Language

We speak English.  I have studied Spanish fairly extensively, in Junior High, a trip to Spain to study Spanish during Junior High, and in college.  This has resulted in my speaking Spanish to some degree, but not nearly as well as I would like.

One of my educational passions is that children should all learn at least one other language, when they are young, as recent brain research has conclusively shown in imperative.  Learning other languages, as well as being part of a cosmopolitan education and a great boon for employment, is the ultimate in multiculturalism.  What better way to understand other cultures than to learn their language?  It is such a shame that foreign language is taught in middle school, when it is far too late.

ETHNIC GROUP MEMBERSHIP

a)    Ethnicity

As mentioned, my family is Jewish, but in a cultural and psychological sense only.  Actually, my mother is from a mixed-faith family: her father was Jewish, and her mother Episcopalian.  However, I don’t think that the families of either of my parents were religiously observant.  My mother learned a lot of hymns, somehow; I think from her mother.

So we regarded Judaism as our ethnicity.  Going further back, family stories about my father’s side of the family include that he is a Son of the American Revolution, and his ancestor, Abraham Alexander, was one of the very few Jewish officers in the American Revolution.

My paternal grandmother wrote a best-selling novel called “The Grass Grows Green.”  It is a fictionalized account of her ancestors a couple of generations ago; of their arrival in America from Germany, and immigrant life.

On my mother’s side, her father came to America with his family as a young boy of about five.  They were from Pinsk, Russia, as many Eastern European Jews are.  They had to sneak across the border, in danger of being killed.

My maternal grandmother, the Protestant one, was descended from an immigrant German father, and from a family that included prominent Virginia attorneys and judges on her mother’s side.

Some of the hallmarks of the Jewish Ethnicity, as I have experienced them:

 

Emphasis on education.  As my father has said, as a Jew, it is assumed that you are going to college.  My family didn’t actually push education, and in fact my mother strongly encouraged me to attend alternative schools (albeit it was the Sixties).  On the other hand, the entire time I was growing up, my mother always said, “You can attend any college you want, and we’ll pay for it.”  (Naturally, I ended up going to San Diego State.)  I guess my current tenure at USD is that nice private college they always promised me.  At any rate, my mother had gone to Sarah Lawrence, and my paternal grandmother to Hunter, and they both seemed to greatly value their college experience.  I think the valuing of education is related to the Jewish religion itself, to its legalistic nature, and the history of Talmudic scholarship as a prime occupation of Jewish men.  Another reason is that education is a form of human capital, while Jews were denied many other forms of capital.

Culture of argument: My Catholic husband and myself, especially while attending the Pathways to Judaism class, have done a lot of discussion about the different essential personalities of Jews and Catholics.  In Catholicism, there seems to be a lot of emphasis on obedience.  Argument and challenging the established order are definitely not encouraged.  Criticism in general also seems to be strongly discouraged.

Jewish families are the opposite.  Parents are impressed when young people have views of their own and challenge others.  Families tend to be loud, opinionated, and blunt in expressing themselves.  Jews also tend to be argumentative and critical, I would say.  I think this culture of argument has its roots in the Jewish practice of studying the Talmud, and arguing or splitting straws over its ever nuance.

I must say that most of the very nicest people I know are Catholic, and that has impressed me enormously.  I wish I could emulate that niceness and selflessness more.  But I also value the Jewish character.  I always wish there were some way to combine the two, and I’ve thought about that a lot, especially when trying to decide in which religion to raise our children.

Selfishness / Drive to succeed / Emphasis on money.  This is a Jewish stereotype, but I think it is a true one.  There are historical reasons for the preponderance of Jews in financial services.  Jews were barred from owning land and from many occupations through much of history, so they turned to shopkeeping.  Christians through much of history actually lived by the “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle …” admonition, and their religion forbid money lending, so Jews became the bankers.  The drive to succeed is probably related to Jewish insecurity as well.

Personally, I am rankled by it.  We joined a synagogue for a year, and everyone seemed to be so occupation conscious that we didn’t feel we fit in.  Also, everything had a price tag, and it was always high.  Synagogues charge dues for membership; $1200 per year for this one.  I was always puzzled by why they did this, when churches seem to get by with free will offerings, and Jews seem to be generally affluent.  We actually pay that same amount to the church we belong to now, but it is voluntary, so it doesn’t bother me.  Our church often has dinners, but on a donation basis.  This synagogue had monthly dinners, always at at least $10 per person, which is more than we would even spend at a restaurant.

I’m also reminded of some typically Jewish neighbors we have.  We are on a friendly basis, but this woman loves to go on and on about the accomplishments of her children, and how one of them is a computer wizard, and is bound for MIT.  Both her kids are in seminar; they excel in piano; they take karate, in which one of them is near to being a blackbelt; the other practices basketball endlessly (in his free time, which isn’t much), because he’s on a competitive team; and they study quite a bit for Hebrew School.  They are likeable and well-mannered kids, and I have to admire them, but I don’t like this competitive pressure to succeed.  We attended her oldest son’s Bar Mitzvah, and the parents gave a testimonial to him.  I found it embarrassing, tantamount to bragging.

Emphasis on psychology.  My parents were obsessed with psychology, and I think many Jews are.  Jews seem to tend to be neurotic, or maybe they are simply more aware of it!  There tends to be what my mother calls “Jewish self-hated,” either from the history of persecution, our different appearance, or whatever.  My parents themselves both had unhappy childhoods – they both had working mothers who essentially abandoned them, for one thing – and tended to be unhappy as adults.

I often feel like I’m the only person I know who had a rather miserable childhood. (Everyone always says, “Oh, my childhood was so idyllic …” and contrasts it with whatever problems they currently have.)  The unhappiness wasn’t for any materialistic reason, but because my family was so miserable, clueless, and dysfunctional on an interpersonal level.  My parents always had a difficult relationship, and finally divorced when I was 17.  I have an autistic sister, who is a very difficult and demoralizing type of person to deal with.  My parents had a “permissive” method of childraising, which essentially meant that they taught me nothing about how to be a responsible human being, how to get along with others, or even any practical life skills, and I had great problems with the first two of those issues for decades.  I still get depressed at times (though I think depression is always for a reason, and it actually lets me know when my life is off track in some regard).

Feeling different.  I’ve always had this feeling of being different, of not fitting in, and I think it’s somewhat related to being Jewish (well, also to my whole life!)

Secularism.  I think Jews tend to be less religiously observant than other religions.  A friend of mine from Israel told me that less than 10% of the people there attend synagogue.  Of course my explanation would be that the religion itself is lacking, since that’s what I concluded as far as my own spiritual needs.

 

b)    Family missions

Family traditions were lacking within my family.  In their defense, I think my parents valued individuality, and certainly didn’t believe in imposing anything on their children.  At any rate, here are the main things I can come up with:

Music: My mother is a wonderful musician, as described previously.  I have memories of sitting with her at the piano and singing while she played.  She taught me countless songs and hymns, which I enjoy to this day, and hope to pass on to my children.  She also played the guitar and sang, which was nice.  She played at their coffee house a few times.  My only regret is that she didn’t really push me to play an instrument myself.  I played clarinet for awhile with the school orchestra, but quit.  She also played some interesting record albums that are dear to my heart: Songs of the Spanish Civil War, Mozart Concertos, various folk singers.

Reading: My parents read me a lot of wonderful books as a child, that I remember very fondly, and am trying to read to my own children: Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins (the whole series), Dr. Doolittle (the whole series), Little House on the Prairie, the Oz books, Heidi, the Secret Garden, a Child’s Garden of Verses.  I’m always shocked to find out that my husband has read practically no great children’s literature.  I assumed that everyone read these kinds of books to their children, but obviously they don’t.

Writing: I come from a long line of writers.  Writing has always come very naturally to me, in fact it is much easier than talking for me.  I like to ponder things and write from a place deep within myself.  It is very hard for me to think quickly enough to talk, and to process whatever is happening between people quickly enough.  I’m always amazed at people who can “think on their feet,” and engage in witty reparte.  My husband is very good at that sort of thing.

Sometimes I wonder about my writing ability, because my parents never did anything specific to encourage writing.  Well, my mother did a few small things.  When I was five or six, she briefly kept a journal for me, which I would dictate to her.  I also wrote a series of stories at that age, encouraged by her.  Additionally, she always talked about keeping notes to write a funny book about family life.  She never carried through, but I almost have!  I keep notes all year for our annual Christmas letter.  It is not the typical “brag sheet,” but I put in some of the funniest family disasters which have happened to us, and people seem to really appreciate it.  My only problem (you won’t believe this!) is that I do tend to go on and on, the way some people talk too much …

Food: My mother was a wonderful cook, though not of any particular type of ethnic food.  I think she liked european type food: souffle, crepes, etc  My parents were also proponents of low-calorie and whole grain foods way before the “health food movement.”  I was always the only child in school with brown bread, and my mother never fried anything in my entire life, because it was too fattening.  The interesting thing was that my parents had great appreciation for both food and thinness.  They had met when my father noticed my mother going through the food line at college three times.  But they did manage to bring it off: eating well and being thin.

Thrift: My parents were unfortunately obsessed with saving money.  They had both lived through the Depression, and spoke of it frequently.  My father is a stock market analyst, and always made a moderate to large amount of money (more and more as time went on), but thrift was like a religion to him.  He bought us silverware and housewares from Goodwill (again, way before this was considered “hip”).  We lived in a rented house until my parents had saved enough money to buy one with cash.  My clothes were bought at the cheapest possible stores.  I was lectured endlessly about the need to “hold onto one’s capital.”

In their favor, my parents did spend money on what really mattered.  I was a horse nut as a child, and they eventually bought me a horse.  They also sent me to Spain to study Spanish during Junior High.  The horse and the trip to Spain brought me much happiness.

I still retain and believe in a lot of these thrift values.  For example, we were never allowed to order drinks with our meals at restaurants (on those extremely rare occasions when we went), and I have that rule with my children.  My father only let our family drink one can of orange juice per day, and discouraged the drinking of milk, saying, “Milk is for babies.”  At the time, people made fun of him, but in retrospect I feel strongly that he was right.  Juice is fattening and of little food value, and I only allow my own children one juice per day.  I am also one who agrees that drinking milk is unheathy, for various reasons.  I would say that both my parents are still neurotically miserly, and I myself love to shop.  But I make purchases very carefully, due to their influence.

Honesty: My mother always said, “You can do whatever you want as long as you tell us.”  I was a pretty wild partier and drinker as a teenager, and hitchhiked all over the place, and they never tried to stop me from doing any of that.  I was never punished for anything I said, no matter how critical or shocking my thoughts or actions were (in fact, I was almost never punished at all!)

Dependability: Another thing that made a big impression on me was that my parents always kept their word, and often expressed shock at what they referred to as “California values.”  My parents were unfailingly prompt, and would always call if they would be late, needed to cancel, R.S.V.P., etc.  I’m still utterly shocked at how our culture seems to be getting less and less dependable.  God help anyone trying to sell anything: people make appointments to come and see something, and half the time don’t show up.  Anything you can get away with seems to go.  And pity anyone trying to plan a party or wedding these days: nobody R.S.V.P.’s.

Psychology: Both my parents are enamored with psychology.  They’ve both been through decades of therapy.  In fact, I think that’s the main thing they ever had in common.  They passed on to me this interest and belief in therapy.

They also believe deeply in personal responsibility, or in the roots of problems residing in individuals, a viewpoint I tend to share; while my husband has a more sociological view of issues, feeling that the roots of problems lie with society.

Idealism: I’d have to say that my mother also passed on a “searching” mentality to me.  She was (and still is) always “searching for the answer to life,” “searching for solutions for mankind”; very idealistic.  I share that researcher and idealistic mentality.

Ability to see both sides of isses: My mother was always a democrat, and my father a republican.  I’ve heard so many different arguments from both of them, that I think it’s given me a great ability to have a centrist point of view.  I can generally have at least some sympathy with very different points of view.

Education: I’d have to say that my parents passed on something about the value of education to me.  They didn’t explicitly encourage me to pursue my education, which I actually hold against them, because I feel I wasted a lot of time.  But they were so intelligent, such searchers and strugglers, had so many books, were such deep thinkers and did so many interesting things, that the effect was to promote education (though my sister is an actress and has never been to college).

Appearance: My parents were both very concerned with sexuality.  My mother is very beautiful, and always considered that important, which she passed on to me (at least I try!)  She impressed on me the importance of looking as beautiful as you can at any age.  I’m always sad that so many women seem to give up and cut off all their hair, and take on a dowdy or matronly appearance, or seem to feel it’s “selfish” to try to look good.  God knows it’s hard for me to find the time to do anything on this front, but I feel it’s important for a person and for one’s marriage to try.

Religion: As mentioned before, I wasn’t raised in any religion.  However, my mother became very interested in many “New Age” religions, and still is.  I had no interest in religion for decades, but have finally become quite interested in religion myself.

Recreation: We never took any vacations, and my parents were not much into humor or telling stories.  In fact, they had a hard time “having a good time,” a trait I share.

Risk-taking: One of the most important things, if not the most important thing, I learned from my parents was to be a risk-taker.  My parents both took tremendous risks, again and again, throughout their lives.  My father risked his family’s financial security in starting a new business, plus another one late in life; took many risks involuntarily during WWII, and risked doing the “alternative therapy” of EDTA Chelation instead of multiple bypasses for his heart disease, which I believe has saved his life.  My mother took huge interpersonal risks in developing her philosophy and organization.  Both my parents continue to take risks in always investigating and trying new things, always looking for better ways to live.

I particularly remember my mother saying to me, “If the only risk in doing something is embarrassment to yourself, then that shouldn’t stop you.”  I know that in my life, I feel that virtually every wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me was the result of taking a huge and frightening risk; either in initiating and creating a project, or reaching out boldly and innovatively for help or friendship.  I have to credit my parents for modeling and encouraging healthy risk-taking behavior.

Not Petty: My family is not petty.  They don’t hold grudges, are not vindictive, and generally do not get into stupid spats.  Though my parents are divorced, they are on pretty friendly terms, and talk on the phone and see each other occasionally.  I think the lack of pettiness is because they are focused on and struggling with the larger issues in life.  They are always trying to learn, rather than blaming others when problems occur.

Philosophy of marriage: My mother taught me a philosophy of marriage, which is that each partner should do whatever he/she wants, as long as they remain sexually faithful.  In other words, couples should not be tied together like glue; they should pursue their own interests and paths jointly or individually.

Taking responsibility: My parents always take responsibility for things, as opposed to blaming others.  I think they consider blaming to be weak and unempowered.  It’s something I hadn’t given them credit for until I saw how many other people have a basically irresponsible, blaming attitude.

Problem-solving: I think one of my most outstanding virtues is that I have a great tenacity.  I never give up on anything.  I’m not a flashy person, and it usually takes me a long time to reach my goals, but I keep chipping away at problems, and reliably get there.  I never have a shadow of a doubt that I’ll get there.  I have to credit my mother for giving me the attitude that problems are meant to be solved.  She used to say, “Every problem has a solution,” and “God wants the questions answered.”  She is very loyal and tenacious herself, and has modeled this for me in an inspiring way, particularly through her dedication to my autistic sister.

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS

a)    Personal missions

I have been interested in people’s “types” for some time now.  Waldorf education emphasizes the “children’s types,” of Choleric, Sanguine, Phlegmatic, and Melancholic, and I’ve read booklets on them.  I also recently took a workshop at church on Eneagrams.  But the system that I have found most on-target is called “DISC,” for Dominant, Influencing, Supportive, and Conscientious.  Rather than using the cards you passed out, I would prefer to reflect using this system.  I have copied information on this system as Appendix B.

I think I am primarily the Conscientious type.  To quote from Appendix B, “They are serious about life and want to produce quality work.  This style, more than the others, is driven by its value system.  These children are perfectionists … This temperament tends to see the sad and gloomy side of life.  Those who attempt to jolly them may be looked upon as frivolous … C’s are apt to ask searching questions … They have a great need to find out … They hunger for competency and have an endless list of “should know’s.”  They revel in the world of thought and research … They look for whatever will enable them to understand, explain, predict and control.  They seek to structure their cognitive world according to definite rules and principles.”

I think I am secondarily the Dominant type.  I tend to want to be in charge, and have created numerous projects and social groups.  On the other hand, it’s not that I particularly like being in charge; maybe this need is more related to a) Wanting to bring into being things that I feel are needed, b) I tend to be quiet, blend into the woodwork, and be discounted by people unless I am in charge, c) I tend to feel that I am wasting time when I am carrying out other people’s projects rather than creating my own; and I hate wasting time, d) by being “different,” which has caused me considerable pain and is not something I consciously chose, I have essentially been forced into having to be a leader, in order to be true to myself.

Some quotes about Dominants that I think describe me: “They are risk-takers, always willing to try, even if it means failing or exposing their limitations … They dare to be different … D’s rely on themselves to find answers … They seek new and innovative methods of problem-solving … To function at their best, D students need physical involvement in their learning – a “hands-on” experience … Because traditional teaching methods have little appeal to the D’s, they often drop out of school to go “where the action is” (which I did).

Additionally, C’s tend to move slowly and D’s quickly, and I alternate between the two.  I am often slow, like to be exhaustively complete and perfectionistic.  But I am also quite good at moving with lightning speed in order to seize on an opportunity.

I don’t really see any of the Influencing in me, unfortunately.  Although I like people and try hard to cultivate friends, personal relations and talking is the most difficult part of my life.  My natural tendency is to be afraid of and avoid people.  However I’m always trying to resolve those issues and counteract those tendencies, since they certainly don’t make me happy.

I also don’t see any of the Supportive in me.  Though I am extremely reliable and have been the backbone of many enterprises, I like to start projects, hand them off to others as soon as possible, and move on.  I don’t normally like to manage things.

I consider myself a somewhat volatile personality, and think I always will be, no matter how much mental health I achieve.  Stability is not my forte.  I tend to have highs and lows, am prone to depression, and have a “stormy weather” type personality.  I think there must be positive reasons for my being this way – maybe it helps me to be a creative thinker and problem solver, accomplish a lot, think deeply, cut to the heart of matters – but it doesn’t necessarily make it easy for the people around me.

I am also not naturally very nurturing, which has made parenting a challenge (though my husband is extremely nurturing, especially for a man).  I also have a very hard time with the daily routines of life, which are so necessary for children.  Cleaning puts me into a rage, and I’ve given up on trying to do without a cleaning woman.  With my children and also myself, I end up focussing a lot on rules, rituals and routines.  But I think the real reason is that I’m such a rule-breaker, so innovative, and so willing to be flexible (child raising books often talk about “consistency,” but to me it’s like a dirty word) that I’ve had to try to establish a firm framework for life so that my family and I don’t derail entirely.

b)    Physical appearance, age, gender and health

I am a 42-year-old white female.  My health is good, except for being a bit overweight and having hereditary high cholesterol.  I eat in a fairly healthful manner – low-fat, whole grains, lots of organic vegetables – except for having a sweet tooth and a love of cheese.  I constantly battle with my eating habits, although I’ve decided that thinness is not worth my mental health, so I don’t drive myself crazy over it.  But on the other hand, I definitely haven’t given up on the desire to lose some weight.  I jog three times a week, jogging to preschool to pick up my daughter, which is a two-mile round trip.  I would love to do yoga and go to the gym, but haven’t found time in my extremely loaded schedule.

I am petite; have a somewhat boyish figure; have dark brown, kinky, longish hair; brown eyes; and olive skin.  I would say I am Jewish looking.  Numerous people have told me that I look like the actress Andie MacDowell.  I wouldn’t have thought of it, but I won’t argue …

 

MAJOR DISRUPTIONS

a)    Major disruption

My parents became very involved with “Encounter Groups” during the Sixties.  They held Encounter Groups at our house weekly.  We lived practically on the campus of SDSU during my grade school years, and it became a hang-out for college students.  My parents also had students live with us; one as a housekeeper, one to take care of my autistic sister, and eventually a third person too.  I was a shy child and absolutely hated having all of these strangers around.  I wanted only for us to be a “normal family.”

Then we moved to La Jolla, and the Encounter Groups continued.  In fact, my mother felt that her life had been totally changed by Encounter Groups, and she still refers to “her change” at a certain month and year.  She started going around “telling the truth” to everyone – confronting them about what she believed their personal problems were.  She did go from being a doormat – very much dominated by my father – to the opposite extreme.  Most people would be very offended by the things she said about them.  On the other hand, she is a wise and intuitive person, and some people were helped, and became her “followers.”  Many, many people passed through my parents’ Encounter Groups.

My mother became very interested in New Age religions, and began to develop a philosophy which combined psychotherapeutic techniques and religious and values principles.  Meanwhile, my father became sick of all of this (she was very critical of him), and they divorced.

At around that time I returned home from boarding school.  I had always been utterly turned off by my mother’s pursuits, and wanted nothing to do with them.  However, at this point, my own world began to sort of collapse, and I felt overcome with my own problems.  At the time, it centered on relationships with boys, and my inability to sustain one.

One of my mother’s concepts was called “Stellar Mates.”  She believed that as well as having a marriage partner, each person had another partner of the opposite sex, the Stellar Mate.  That relationship was not supposed to be sexual, and it was to be a therapeutic, spiritual type of relationship, through which people would heal their wounds and grow.

There was a boy named Scott that I had dated once or twice before going to boarding school, and he started coming around again.  I wasn’t really romantically interested in him, but liked him a lot.  He was very interested in me.  My mother talked to him about the Stellar Mate concept, and convinced him that he was my Stellar Mate.  She also invited him to move into our house, all this without asking me.  Since I felt desperate about men and did like Scott, I went along with this, and it hooked me into becoming one of my mother’s followers.

She soon after bought a church property in Pacific Beach, incorporated the “Psychotheology Center” (later the “Center for Psychological Revolution,” later the “Center for the Examined Life”) as a non-profit, and we all went to live there communally.  Scott left at that point, but I stayed.

To make a long story short (or shorter), I stayed with her group for ten years, between the ages of 17 and 27.  During that time I took a few college classes, but mainly “did therapy,” which we were supposed to spend all our time doing, and participated in the upkeep of the property.  I supported myself by driving a school bus.  The lifestyle consisted of confrontation by my mother, who by now called herself a guru.  The group’s purpose was to develop and try out new therapeutic techniques and spiritual disciplines.

I did learn a lot.  I learned a work ethic and sense of responsibility, which I had previously lacked, by being held accountable for my numerous screw-ups.  My mother was big on concepts of self-respect, marital fidelity and chastity, which I had had disdain for, as a product of the sixties, and I came to embrace those ideas.  She challenged me about my values in many ways, which greatly needed to be done.  I learned the concept of being a giver instead of a taker.

She also caused me to rethink my early life.  I had always worshipped my father, who was sort of a macho biker type (as well as being a businessman), and not appreciated my mother in the slightest.  She challenged me to see that it was really she who held our family together, and finally insisted on getting respect from me.  She got me to see through men like my father, who are not necessarily nice people, and to appreciate the people in the world who may not be beautiful or glamorous, but are supportive and helpful.  I think there’s a great tendency among people to look up to those who act superior, but are actually very emotionally withholding toward others; and to take for granted and discount those who are giving and self-deprecating.  That was certainly one of my problems, and the main problem with the men I chose.

Our lives in her group became more and more monastic, which I did not like.  We were on a raw foods and wheat grass juice diet for the last two years, were not allowed to converse with anyone from outside the group, had to wear shabby old clothes and go through other humiliating disciplines in order to give up our attachment to how we looked, and the list went on and on.  I became increasingly fed up, but was still committed to carrying on my mother’s work.

Finally, I got the idea that I could partially leave the group, go back to college and live as I chose, but still live at the Center and help out.  All along, I had been a follower, but had always retained my critical faculties and often been critical of my mother.  She agreed to my proposal about partially leaving.

So I made plans to attend college in the fall, and started wearing decent clothes.  Within about one hour of this change, I started attracting some male attention in the bus yard where I worked.  To back up, there was a guy who had driven the school bus next to me for about a year.  We had never spoken, since I was forbidden from talking to those outside the group.  But one day our paths crossed as I walked across the bus yard, and he said “Hi” to me.  My heart melted as if Cupid’s arrow had struck, and I fell in love with him.  Of course I thought I must be desperate and nutty to have this reaction to a person merely saying hello to me, and I went home and “did therapy” about it.

At any rate, this man, Mike Doering, suddenly struck up a conversation with me on the first day that I showed up at work in normal looking clothes.  Mike and I became friends, and started dating.  However, to jump from ten years of celibacy, which had been justified to me as completely necessary for spiritual growth, to being involved with somebody, was more than I could do.  We dated platonically for the summer, but then he got disgusted and broke up with me.

This precipitated what I can see in retrospect was what psychologists call a nervous breakdown.  My relationship with Mike had been so wonderful, so right, so meant-to-be, such a reward for my ten years of suffering, and I finally saw that I had thrown in away, due to allegiance to this crazy philosophy.  I was furious, broken-hearted, suicidal (or would have been had I believed in suicide) became a raving maniac, and literally felt like my life was over at the age of 27.  It was more than a romantic breakup; it felt as if I’d been ripped out of the arms of a parent.

It became clear that I had to move out of the Center and break all ties, because at that point, having any ties at all was driving me almost literally insane.  It got to where I couldn’t sleep at night; I would wake up every hour, all night long.

So I moved out, and was finally able to sleep, and my life assumed some sort of dead but livable normalcy.  I couldn’t do anything that reminded me of Mike, including listening to the news, aerobics, and many other things, or it would set me off into an emotional tailspin.  I started dating someone I didn’t love because I couldn’t stand being alone.  I stared doing volunteer work at KPBS-TV; and got involved in various other things.  Throughout this time I made attempts to get back together with Mike, but he was adamantly disinterested.  However, I still had enormous respect and appreciation for him, and decided to do anything I could to be a friend to him, from my end.

Eventually and amazingly, after almost a year, and long after I had completely given up on it, we did get back together.  I think Mike came to value me and my commitment to him after going through various unhappy experiences himself.  He also appreciated that I had finally separated from my mother’s group.   Fifteen years and three children later, we are still happily together.

Mike is the opposite of my father in so many respects, and I feel as if I was reborn through him.  Our relationship was very therapeutic in the beginning, and actually still is.  We started off as two somewhat dysfunctional people, and ours is a relationship of opposites in most ways.  This differentness allowed us to compliment and help each other, but also led to countless conflicts, and much growth.  I also had to definitively overcome my tendency to take nice people for granted and have contempt for them, since Mike is an extremely nurturing person.  Our relationship was parent-child-like for awhile – it was that fundamentally important to my healing as a person –  and that was one reason I completely fell apart when he left me.

To sum up my experience in my mother’s group, I wasn’t perfect when I left, but did finally feel that I was headed in the right direction, toward being a moral and contributing person, whereas previously I had been headed in the wrong direction, with very misguided ideas; headed for some kind of disaster.  I think about half of what took place there was abuse, but the other half was extraordinarily helpful.  My mother recently sold the Center property and has been trying to resume a “normal” life.   We have a close though conflicted relationship that I continue to work on sorting out.