Topics Children

Question When it becomes painfully obvious that an adult child is embarrassed by her working class roots should she be confronted by the parent? Or is this a right any child has to recognise or reject their background regardless of how feeling are going to get hurt?

Accepted:
April 22, 2010

Comments

As someone inclined to virtue theory, I am not really very sensitivee to sorting out claims of "rights." Is it a "natural right" to reject one's background? Weird question!

Instead, let's ask whether it is a good thing to reject one's background, just because it is working class. If being from (or in) the working class is not a bad thing, then rejecting anyone (especially one's own family members) for being in or from that class seems like it is a bad thing. Rejecting one's own background sounds on the face of it to be a kind of self-rejection--can't say I find that something I wwould generally recommend.

Of course, some backgrounds do deserve to be rejected--those involving abuse or violence, for example. But just because a family is working class? I don't really see that as a good ground for rejecting one's own past and family!

I suspect there may be other factors at work here--some a bit more complicated. "Working class" may also be a kind of code for a set of values that one becomes uncomfortable with, for example. Depending on the nature of those values, there may actually be good grounds for leaving them behind. On the other hand, it may betoken too much value being placed on material wealth, which is certainly not by itself ennobling (as too many recent news stories confirm)!

Question When it becomes painfully obvious that an adult child is embarrassed by her working class roots should she be confronted by the parent? Or is this a right any child has to recognise or reject their background regardless of how feeling are going to get hurt? Accepted:April 22, 2010

Question When it becomes painfully obvious that an adult child is embarrassed by her working class roots should she be confronted by the parent? Or is this a right any child has to recognise or reject their background regardless of how feeling are going to get hurt?

Accepted:
April 22, 2010