Gilded Age

Gilded Agehttp://luckyfox.blog.co.uk/en-EUhourly82000-01-01T12:00+00:00Gilded Agehttp://luckyfox.blog.co.uk/http://data5.blog.de/design/preview/60/79683c25de6e266f0118e051172094_160x200.jpgage time lineshttp://luckyfox.blog.co.uk/2007/10/25/age_time_lines~3191009/2007-10-25T03:49:07+02:00 One of the courses I'm taking right now is Geriatric studies, sort of a combination of gerentology specifically combined with general cultural studies. To be honest, I only took it as a requirement, but it's turned out to be one of the more fascinating of the classes I take. Today the discussion was on the theories of aging, specifically active aging as compared to passive aging, and also things like norms and social roles. I've decided I really think social expectations are quite negative constructs in human life. There is this idea that a person runs along the time line of school, college, uni, workplace, marriage, children, career, etc until death, which fairly specific ages for many of these roles. While this provides structure for a person who can't decide what to do with his or her life, it's quite problematic for someone who doesn't want to live on that time line. For instance, a person who, at forty, still hasn't chosen a career or held a long-term job would often be looked at as irresponsible, but what if he or she is happy that way? What if they have enough to meet their needs? Or a person who does not marry until they are forty-five and gives birth ten years later. That's not unheard of, of course, but it's quite a shock. I think people should be a lot freer to map their lives according to an internal timeline, rather than trying to jump from point a to b per a script. My opinion, anyway. <a href="http://luckyfox.blog.co.uk/2007/10/25/age_time_lines~3191009/#comments">Comments</a> One of the courses I'm taking right now is Geriatric studies, sort of a combination of gerentology specifically combined with general cultural studies. To be honest, I only took it as a requirement, but it's turned out to be one of the more fascinating of the classes I take. Today the discussion was on the theories of aging, specifically active aging as compared to passive aging, and also things like norms and social roles. I've decided I really think social expectations are quite negative constructs in human life. There is this idea that a person runs along the time line of school, college, uni, workplace, marriage, children, career, etc until death, which fairly specific ages for many of these roles. While this provides structure for a person who can't decide what to do with his or her life, it's quite problematic for someone who doesn't want to live on that time line. For instance, a person who, at forty, still hasn't chosen a career or held a long-term job would often be looked at as irresponsible, but what if he or she is happy that way? What if they have enough to meet their needs? Or a person who does not marry until they are forty-five and gives birth ten years later. That's not unheard of, of course, but it's quite a shock.

I think people should be a lot freer to map their lives according to an internal timeline, rather than trying to jump from point a to b per a script.

My opinion, anyway.

Comments

]]>Religious Studieshttp://luckyfox.blog.co.uk/2007/10/23/title~3180129/2007-10-23T02:03:14+02:00 One might expect that anyone choosing to sign up for a world religions elective course would be fairly broad-minded. After all, the point is not to study one faith in depth but to learn some basic facts about major world religions and other less familiar paths. However, there is one fellow in my class who absolutely drives me mad with his refusal to tolerate any teachings that don't stem directly from Protestant Christianity, specifically a fundamentalist/conservative outlook. Today was particularly frustrating, as we've started covering Islam. His reaction to Islam? It's hateful, violent, evil, etc, etc, etc and shouldn't be recognized as a major faith. Basically, he found Islam so intolerant than he didn't want to tolerate it any more. The whole class got hijacked as he proceeded to display all these newspaper clippings from mainly conservative newspapers stating how Islam is wicked and subversive. Apparently, he'd been planning this quite a long time. Things like this frustrate me terribly, because I've been raised very tolerant of other faiths and I've tried on many religions. My religious upbringing is thoroughly confusing. Here's the long story... I was born to two fairly non-religious parents. My father is originally from the USA and was raised strictly Christian Reformed. Later, when he moved to the UK, he attended an Anglican church for a while but basically lost interest. My mother was born in Romania and was Eastern Orthodox, then started going to Catholic mass when she went to the Uk to study, although once I was born she was having a crisis of faith and I had no religious training at all until I was four. When I was four, we moved from Romania to Canada in order to be closer to my maternal grandmother, who was very ill. All my parents' resources were spent on my grandmother's medical bills, so when I was five they sent my sister and I to stay with family friends, although we still saw them all the time. The family we stayed with was Jewish. I learned some about Judaism from them and they were truly wonderful people. The following year, my grandmother passed away and my parents decided to relocate to the UK. Until I was eleven or so, there was no religion at home. At age eleven, my parents went through a nasty divorce. My father moved back to the USA. My mother was unable to cope and went into various hospitals. Since there were no local relatives, I was put into foster care with a Muslim family around age twelve. Although they did not force me to revert to Islam, I was required to study Islam extensively, and to pray, fast, attend events, etc. After I'd lived with them a year and a half, my paternal aunt found out about the situation and pressed my mother to let her take my sister and I. I was taken out of the foster programme and moved to the USA. My aunt and uncle were extremely conservative and absolutely appalled to learn that I'd been exposed to Judaism and Islam but not Christianity. I was immediately put into a Christian school and made to attend three church services a week along with other religious events, camps, Bible studies, etc. Absolutely no questions were allowed and anything that was considered to promote other faiths was banned from the house. I fought this quite heavily. At fourteen, I started experimenting with Wicca and then quickly moved on to studying Shinto, and then decided I wasn't religious at all. This increased the tensions in the house a lot. When I was fifteen, my sister, who had since moved back to the UK, got married, and I was allowed to fly out for the wedding. While I was there I had the opportunity to talk to my mother, who was living independently again, and we decided she was capable of caring for me. She and I moved to Canada, but within a few months I was back with my aunt. I continued to have Protestant Christianity pushed on me until I was seventeen, when my aunt decided I wasn't benefitting from living with her. My sister and her husband invited me to live with them, and they've been my "home" ever since. I spent about a year detoxifying from a lot of religious confusion, because I needed serious time to think. Then, last year, I started attending Catholic mass. I'm hoping to start RCIA next year. That is a very long, detailed story, for which I am sorry. <a href="http://luckyfox.blog.co.uk/2007/10/23/title~3180129/#comments">Comments</a> One might expect that anyone choosing to sign up for a world religions elective course would be fairly broad-minded. After all, the point is not to study one faith in depth but to learn some basic facts about major world religions and other less familiar paths. However, there is one fellow in my class who absolutely drives me mad with his refusal to tolerate any teachings that don't stem directly from Protestant Christianity, specifically a fundamentalist/conservative outlook. Today was particularly frustrating, as we've started covering Islam. His reaction to Islam? It's hateful, violent, evil, etc, etc, etc and shouldn't be recognized as a major faith. Basically, he found Islam so intolerant than he didn't want to tolerate it any more. The whole class got hijacked as he proceeded to display all these newspaper clippings from mainly conservative newspapers stating how Islam is wicked and subversive. Apparently, he'd been planning this quite a long time.

Things like this frustrate me terribly, because I've been raised very tolerant of other faiths and I've tried on many religions. My religious upbringing is thoroughly confusing. Here's the long story...

I was born to two fairly non-religious parents. My father is originally from the USA and was raised strictly Christian Reformed. Later, when he moved to the UK, he attended an Anglican church for a while but basically lost interest. My mother was born in Romania and was Eastern Orthodox, then started going to Catholic mass when she went to the Uk to study, although once I was born she was having a crisis of faith and I had no religious training at all until I was four.

When I was four, we moved from Romania to Canada in order to be closer to my maternal grandmother, who was very ill. All my parents' resources were spent on my grandmother's medical bills, so when I was five they sent my sister and I to stay with family friends, although we still saw them all the time. The family we stayed with was Jewish. I learned some about Judaism from them and they were truly wonderful people.

The following year, my grandmother passed away and my parents decided to relocate to the UK. Until I was eleven or so, there was no religion at home.

At age eleven, my parents went through a nasty divorce. My father moved back to the USA. My mother was unable to cope and went into various hospitals. Since there were no local relatives, I was put into foster care with a Muslim family around age twelve. Although they did not force me to revert to Islam, I was required to study Islam extensively, and to pray, fast, attend events, etc.

After I'd lived with them a year and a half, my paternal aunt found out about the situation and pressed my mother to let her take my sister and I. I was taken out of the foster programme and moved to the USA. My aunt and uncle were extremely conservative and absolutely appalled to learn that I'd been exposed to Judaism and Islam but not Christianity. I was immediately put into a Christian school and made to attend three church services a week along with other religious events, camps, Bible studies, etc. Absolutely no questions were allowed and anything that was considered to promote other faiths was banned from the house. I fought this quite heavily. At fourteen, I started experimenting with Wicca and then quickly moved on to studying Shinto, and then decided I wasn't religious at all. This increased the tensions in the house a lot.

When I was fifteen, my sister, who had since moved back to the UK, got married, and I was allowed to fly out for the wedding. While I was there I had the opportunity to talk to my mother, who was living independently again, and we decided she was capable of caring for me. She and I moved to Canada, but within a few months I was back with my aunt.

I continued to have Protestant Christianity pushed on me until I was seventeen, when my aunt decided I wasn't benefitting from living with her. My sister and her husband invited me to live with them, and they've been my "home" ever since. I spent about a year detoxifying from a lot of religious confusion, because I needed serious time to think. Then, last year, I started attending Catholic mass. I'm hoping to start RCIA next year.

That is a very long, detailed story, for which I am sorry.

Comments

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