Читать книгу The Complete Parenting Collection - Steve Biddulph, Steve Biddulph - Страница 26

Nat was fifteen, and his life was not going well. He had always hated school and found writing difficult, and things were just mounting up. The school he went to was a caring school, and his parents, the counsellor and the principal knew each other and could talk comfortably. They met and decided that if Nat could find a job, they would arrange an exemption. Perhaps he was one of those boys who would be happier in the adult world than the in-between world of high school.

Luckily Nat scored a job in a one-man pizza shop – ‘Stan’s Pizza’ – and left school. Stan, who was about thirty-five, was doing a good trade and needed help. Nat went to work there and loved it: his voice deepened, he stood taller, his bank balance grew. His parents, though, began to worry for a new reason. Nat planned to buy a motorbike – a big bike – to get to work. Their home was up a winding, slippery road in the mountains. They watched in horror as his savings got closer to the price of the motorcycle. They suggested a car, to no avail. Time passed.

One day Nat came home and, in the way of teenage boys, muttered something sideways as he walked past the dinner table. Something about a car. They asked him to repeat it, not sure if they should. ‘Oh, I’m not going to get a bike. I was talking to Stan. Stan reckons a bloke’d be an idiot to buy a motorbike living up here. He reckons I should wait an’ get a car.’

‘Thank God for Stan!’ thought his parents, but outwardly they just smiled and went on eating their meal.

You might think that (in the old societies) the boys’ mothers, and perhaps the fathers too, would resent or fear their son being ‘taken over’ by others. But this was not the case. The initiators were men they had known and trusted all their lives. The women understood and welcomed this help, because they sensed the need for it. They were giving up a rather troublesome boy and getting back a more mature and integrated young man. And they were probably very proud of him.

The initiation into adulthood was not a one-off ‘weekend special’. It could involve months of teaching about how to behave as a man, what responsibilities men took on, and where to find strength and direction. The ceremonies we normally hear about were only the marker events. Sometimes these ceremonies were harsh and frightening (and we would not want to return to these) but they were done with purpose and care, and were spoken of with great appreciation by those who had passed through them.

Traditional societies depended for their survival on raising competent and responsible young men. It was a life-and-death issue, never left to chance. They developed very proactive programs for doing this, and the process involved the whole adult community in a concerted effort. (Some innovative ways we might go about this, appropriate to our times, are described in the final chapter, ‘A community challenge’.)