Recently I came across this quote:
”We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction…We should not long to return, my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.”
Doesn't that sound lovely, ideal even? So why did it make me cringe?
Perhaps it was the “one size fits all” part. In a world where we're calling for respect for all, how can any one solution fit all?
Last century we made huge steps in equality for women. Women can now choose to have a career over being a housewife and even mother. They have ownership in their own right, equal to men. But what about those women who would choose to be solely the housewife and carer? Our society, and indeed our system, doesn't support it as a valued or productive choice. Indeed many see it as a cop out and financially our society doesn't support it. These days if you're not on a high income, then the chances are you'll both be working because you have no other choice and the workload of the home will be on top of the daily grind. If you are able to scrape by while the children grow up, when you come to try and get back into the workforce none of what you've been doing to look after your family will count as experience. In fact you'll be almost starting from scratch without any references behind you, but also without youth behind you to be able to take on things like apprenticeships other opportunities aimed at young adults. The odds are against you, unless you can find an employer who is open minded enough to realise your child rearing experience could actually be an asset and you won't be leaving to have children now that part of your life is behind you.
So while we're here trying to stop discrimination, are we actually just moving it around to other places? We still don't seem to be accommodating for the fact that what works for one doesn't necessarily work for others. We have a tendency towers tunnel vision. Because a certain way of life works for us and we can't imagine living any other way, we assume that everyone else would want to live that way too.
Even amongst the acknowledgement that not everyone functions the same, there is still a tendency to try and put in a comparison to what is “normal”. Neurotypical is a word that often comes up when we discuss autism level spectrum and mental health. In some ways it's almost become something of a derogatory term used to complain about the ’neurotypicals who just don't understand what it's like for us!’ Yet what is normal, really? How many of us conform to what is seen as normal behaviour, when in fact it's not something that comes naturally to us? How many of us have levels of social discomfort or experience depression and anxiety, but constantly fight or hide it? Could the normal, in fact, be this huge range of what we've begun to call mental health issues?
Years ago I used to visit my grandparents in a Welsh town called Barry. There was a local tramp who went by the name of Beppo. He slept on the streets and looked huge in his layer upon layer of clothing. What was odd about it was that he lived on the streets in this small town, when most homeless people gravitate towards the cities to try and survive. As it turned out, it was his own choice to live on the streets. He had friends and they'd tried to give him a place to stay, but he'd just lash out and smash the place up. So finally they took a step back and stopped trying to push help onto him that he didn't want. I believe he was well fed. Everyone seemed to know him and local shops gave him food that would have been thrown out.
Some people like to be nomadic. They might travel around in a mobile home. People like this who have children can be frowned upon and some have been forced by authorities to take on a static home via the threat of removal of their children. Why is it that taking your children travelling and camping as a holiday is seen as fun and maybe even educational, but being nomadic long term with children is seen as abusive? Is it so hard to imagine that some people might actually enjoy the freedom and being out in the open? After all, we all used to live that way once and perhaps some people's minds are still wired to that way of life.
I remember a discussion on how young children have the assumption that what is reality for them is also reality for everyone else. If they don't like something, then no-one else must like it and similarly if they like something then everyone else will also like it. A young child helping to choose a gift for a friend's birthday will choose something that they like in the belief that their friend will like it too. Then as they get older or more mature, they start to think about what things their friend likes instead of what they like. It's not that they don't have empathy. In fact the ability to care enough about someone that you’re willing to part with something you like for your friend's happiness shows that they do. They just find it hard to comprehend that different people have different likes, dislikes and opinions and some of this doesn't always seem leave us as we move into adulthood.
For many, life in any form is better than death, but for some death is preferable to certain ways of living. The former can't seem to comprehend that, yet it's a phenomenon that isn't exclusive to humans. Perhaps you've heard of dolphins and orca captured from the wild who will end up drowning themselves rather than continue to live in captivity.
Maybe this is the next step we need to take in our evolution. To recognise that its okay for someone to be happy in a situation we find uncomfortable and stop trying to make a one size fits all system, but rather a system with enough room to maneuver.