Family Constellations

As more apples are collected and mushrooms too, Wednesday turns out rather dreary, and perfect for wrapping the apples in paper and storing them in the cold, plus mushroom soup to freeze for later. Maybe more sloes, who knows?

Family constellations is the topic today, since psychology helps us understand ourselves better. Not necessarily by asking a shrink to section you, or stabilise your mood with dangerous drugs designed to tranquillise you to accept all sorts of shite a sick society considers normal, like poverty, violence, wars unending ... you see the point?

Now, where we sit in the family constellation, clearly has a bearing on how view ourselves, not to mention the way were treated by the others, and how we treated them. For clarity, I am aware Jill Purse has written books on the subject, none of which I've read, so I'm making it up using examples from my constellation and generalising since my family was not particulary unusual, even if the blogger turned out rather weird. And the extreme examples impact on us extremely, while normal examples may impact insidiously, causing silent suffering, because the family members have not acknowledged their normal behaviour as rather weird. Which is tricky!

You may observe, dear long suffering reader, that the definition of constellation is broad, and basically means in this version, families and the problems they cause, or, families and the blessings they bring, to bring a balanced view to the story. As we know, the good news is hardly news, and tragedies and fights are far more newsworthy. For example, poet and miserabilist, Philip Larkin wrote:

They fuck you up your Mum and Dad
They may not mean to, but they do
They give you all the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you ...

Apologies to readers appalled by the sentiments and swear word, but you have to admit it hits the mark. And rhymes, which is always a bonus in a poem.

Back to the centre of his own universe, yes, that's me ... born in a cottage hospital in Fordingbridge in The New Forest of Hampshire in November 1950, i.e. nearly 71 years ago and a Scorpio, whatever that means. Mum pushed me out into this world confidently, since I was the third and she knew these things tend to get easier with practice. A year or two later, my baby sister slipped out, which made two of each, twice what she had planned for, but that's contraception for you. Number two boy and third child, is a perfect position in a normal family, since all the expectations of Dad were laid at elder brother's door, and Mum had her two girls to put into dresses, which seems rather unfair, when Scottish men get to wear skirts and no underwear, which is freedom of a kind, if a little chilly in winter. So, third child set out to get on with his life as he pleased and to cause as much trouble as possible to attract the attention of Mum and Dad, brother and sisters, uncles and aunties, cousins and random friends, not to mention teachers in schools.

Before this brief post turns into an autobiography, let's bring in other characters ... Brenda, for example, born 10 years after Vera, the only child of two doting parents, who introduced her to Vera with the words: Look what the stork's brought you! Vera replied: Well, you can tell that stork to take it back, because I don't want it. Believe it or not, Vera never forgave Brenda for being born, and Brenda, now 70, never understood why she was to blame for being born in the first place, since it was not her idea anyway. Sibling rivalry, it's called, and fortunately this was never a big problem in my family, though you'll have to ask the sisters for their opinion and elder brother died rather early some years ago, a tragedy for Mum and Dad and his wife and three girls in Australia.

What games we humans play, in families and society. .. what a life! Never mind, since we're here we might as well crack on and live it as fully as possible, be kind whenever possible and die peacefully in our sleep if we're lucky! Good night ...