Of late I’ve been pondering the notion of pride, prompted in part by recent media shots of proud parents cooing over their offspring's A-Level results, and Jamaican citizenry partying after Usain Bolt's' fantastic medal winning feats (no doubt much the same has been going on in Michael Phelps’ hometown, and those of the many less famous British medal winners.)
I'm not averse to feeling a spurt of pride from time to time, but when I examine it, it always troubles me. For I suspect that pride has less to do with the endeavor of the person whose achievement triggers it, than with our selves. When we beam broadly and proclaim, "I'm proud of you!" isn't it really ourselves that we are celebrating by proxy, our chest puffed-up on the strength of the other's success, a success now claimed, in part at least, as our own?
"I'm so thrilled for you, you've done so well, it's truly wonderful, well done you!" is surely fulsome enough praise. What is it, I wonder, that make so many of us opt instead for the words, "I'm proud of you!"? I suspect it is that pride has something to do with ownership and possession. In declaring my pride in another, I'm claiming the other as my own. When I declare that I am proud of MY son/daughter, MY country, MY team, I swell up, bask, and preen myself in the reflected glory of their success. Indeed, in effect, I claim a share of it as my own.
And what’s wrong with that, you might say? Well, if I'm entitled to feel pride at what my kith and kin get up to, then am I not also entitled to feel shame, when they fall short, when they chicken out, when they 'let the side down'? Pride, it seems to me is essentially both possessive and judgmental, one side of the coin of conditional love.
Pride in one's country seems odder still. After all, it's a mere accident of birth and geography that makes me British, or American, or Sudanese (I'm half-Irish by the way) so why should I feel pride in my nationality, rather than simply love, or affection, towards my country's scenery, its values, and its people?
Pride in one's children seems a somewhat different proposition because how they turn out is, in part, down to us parents. However, god knows how you measure your own input into the process of what becomes of your kids; perhaps it's safer to let them hand out the brickbats or bouquets in their own good time; hopefully, when old enough and suitably chastened by the challenge of parenthood themselves. And may I suggest that when they start dishing out the plaudits and the complaints, we have the good sense to take both with a large pinch of salt.
I am more comfortable with the expression of pride in one's own performance and achievements than those of others. My novel, 'Listening In' will be published in 2009, I'm proud of that fact; it's been a long struggle, hard won. Proud too, of the short story that was published earlier this year. I have a right to say these things, the ideas were mine, I did the work, and I kept faith in the result. I'm hugely grateful to others (and they know it) for encouraging me, for having faith too, and for caring about me through the various disappointments and rejections I've endured along the way, and I'm grateful too, to various friends and relatives for helping me celebrate my small, but precious, recent success.
I almost wish I could end these musings here. The trouble is I keep coming up against a serious flaw in my argument that gnaws at my comfort like a persistent midge. Many children, often long grownup, admit that they still yearn, just for once, to hear a parent declare that they are truly proud of them. Perhaps I’ve been missing the point. Perhaps being claimed (willingly and happily) by those above us in the scheme of things is the ultimate form of approval, the need for which goes deep in our psyche? After all, how can we ever repay those who gave us life, for bringing us into being, even though, as the saying goes, ‘the night my parents made me, their minds were not on me’? Of course it is not the mere fact that our parents fucked with intent, or casual disregard, and thereby brought us into being, that matters so much, but that they stuck around and had a serious go at making a fist of the most difficult job on earth, being a parent.
Perhaps when at last we hear a parent say, “I’m proud of you,” it is tantamount to them saying, ‘It’s ok, it was all worthwhile,’ and, on hearing those words, we feel the burden of their sacrifice weighing just a little lighter on our shoulders.
KC Chandler
(www.myspace.com/kcchandler)
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