The practical power of stories

While working on the Nausicaa Lesson of my myth course this week, I stumbled upon a wonderful example of the practical power of stories.

Princess Nausicaa is that famous teenage hero from the Odyssey, Books 6-8, who saves Odysseus' life. Athena prompts her to go on an outing with a bunch of girlfriends to the mouth of a river, next to the sea, where Odysseus is sleeping, shipwrecked and brine-encrusted. She gives Odysseus food, drink, and directions to her mom's house, where he will find hospitality and a ride home.

In the lesson, I noted that ancient Greek women didn't usually have the freedom to go unaccompanied "far from the city," as Nausicaa and her friends did.

I also asked my students in a sidebar how much freedom they had. Did their parents watch their every move?

Parents are more wary nowadays, to the point that this spring, when a columnist for the New York Sun newspaper allowed her 9-year old son to go home alone on the subway and bus from the Bloomingdale's Department Store, a little blaze of controversy flared up.

Lenore Skenazy sounds like a real pistol on the Talk of the Nation NPR show where they interviewed her. I immediately had a huge crush. She argued that we are doing a disservice to children by sheltering them so thoroughly from the world that they don't have a sense of independence, of striking out into the world on their own.

I happen to agree with Lady Lenore's stance. I wrote a column about it myself when I was a suburban dad print columnist long ago. Baby boomers remember well that the neighborhoods, the buses, and town in general was our oyster, way back when. Parents didn't know where we were, and mostly didn't care.

But all that can be the point of another post. What especially knocked my socks off about the NPR interview was Lenore's contention that when we allow our children freedom, they develop memories of independence that stay with them forever.

One man called in to tell the story of how, when he was nine, he took the train and the subway from Newark, New Jersey, to Brooklyn, to see the 1956 Dodgers play in Ebbets Field.

"I packed myself a lunch," he said, "wrote my mother a note, got on the bus, took the Hudson Tubes, took the Brighton Beach local and got off at the Ebbets Field station with everybody else."

It didn't matter to Lenore Skenazy's thesis that this man's mother freaked out, and "literally called out the National Guard" even though she had told him quite clearly earlier that year that he could go to a game "sometime."

"See?" Lenore shrieked. The value of going to the game by himself was that this man had created a memory that would stay with him the rest of his life, and that he could call with pride to a radio show and recount that memory. His heart must have been full.

"It's better than a Bar Mitzvah," she said about these memories of independence. Neil Conan, the host, was more interested in showcasing his knowledge of New York trivia than in this comment, but it was extremely perceptive.

Bar Mitzvahs are about coming of age, about becoming an adult and joining the adult religious community. Lenore's point is that these moments of independence are also rites of passage, turning points in one's life.

I believe in the power of retelling this type of experience. I believe that we build ourselves up by building up our own history, our worthwhile narratives, the myths, the traditional "good stories" of our lives. I believe that when we suppress the events of our lives and do not recount them, parts of us are destroyed, never to return.

You can always tell a healthy family, for example, by the amount of stories it tells on itself.

So it may be true that we are doing a disservice to our children by not allowing them to go on their Funky Little Adventures (more on that sometime. Very funny story). But more generally, it's very important that we give children the opportunity to have the experiences to create their own good stories.

After all, as any self-trained mythologist knows, the best stories are the ones with a little excitement in them.

Comments

[Ailia]

Nothing real insightful to say but wanted to comment because this post gave me goosebumps! My goddess it's a good one. Think I'm gonna have to repost some chunks of it with links, star it, and share it on my Google Reader.

Thank you.

[Iulia]

May I just add that wandering and the-world-is-my-oyster sensation is valuable, too, for 21 year olds? It was valuable for me, and it's no great wonder that many of my recently-graduated (from college) friends have stricken out with a car and a map on their own Great American Road Trips this summer and feel all the more confident going into their respective graduate programs. Although, perhaps, these adventures are a grand gesture in response to all the solo subway/train/bus/bike excursions they were not allowed to have in childhood.

I appreciate, too, the Nausicaa tie-in.

[DF]

Allia, Thanks for the praise, though it's a little like handing out crack to an addict. I'll just want more.

Iulia, It's great to hear this from someone who has first-hand knowledge of this trend. Could the overprotective parent have something to do with the outsized alcohol consumption of the college freshman? Or is that just inevitable?

[Bob Mustin]

I agree wholeheartedly. Last night I watched an episode of "Everybody Hates Chris" (I know, I know...), in which Chris and brother Drew played hooky and rode all over NYC, hoping to find Wayne Gretzky in order to get his autograph (they didn't). I was so enthralled that my dear wife gave me one of her "You watch too much TV" looks.
But what had me in thrall was this grandiose rite of theirs. Mine at a similar age was riding a trolley downtown to explore dime stores - sans parent. Road trips became a staple of my slowly ripening coming of age, including a Greyhound bus trip I made alone from Shreveport, LA to Biloxi, MS a couple of years later. On that one, I sat behind a bunch of college kids from Mississippi Southern, (sort of) watching the couple in front of me make out for some two hours. That was at least as informative to this young teen as the stuff I learned about a little later in Southern pool halls.
Road trips became such an integral part of my narrative that I kept doing them well into my forties. Besides having something to tell over a pitcher of beer, or reminisce about with pals who took the trips with me, they were a way out of the humdrum of my working life. Certainly, they weren't as legendary as Kerouac's fabled trips, but they were the psychic release I needed to make me believe my life promised something slightly beyond the reach of the ordinary.