We often associate a privileged childhood, or privileged life, with a swimming pool in the garden, holidays abroad, lavish presents, luxurious lifestyle — and maybe someone else taking care of our chores. Our ideas are plainly focused on material benefits.
However, as the author and philosopher Alain de Botton shows in his book How to Overcome Your Childhood, this is a narrow way of looking at life. This idea of seeing and judging others’ lives only through a materialistic lens may have some truth in it to convince the cynical parts of us, but the growing number of breakdowns and mental illnesses tell a different story.
True privilege, the book reminds us, is an emotional phenomenon. It involves receiving the nectar of love — which can be stubbornly missing and oddly abundant in the bare rooms of modest bungalows. If this is the case, then would a truly privileged childhood look like? The book provides a number of cues to help us see the most valuable forces that shape our childhood. Here are a few of them:
- It is true privilege when a parent is on hand to enter imaginatively into a child’s world. When they have the wherewithal to put their own needs aside for a time in order to focus wholeheartedly on the confusions and fears of their offspring.
- It is privilege when a parent lends a feeling that they are loyal to us simply on the basis that we exist rather than because of anything extraordinary we have managed to achieve.
- It is privilege when parents can shield us from the worst of their anxiety and the full conflicts of their adult lives.
- It is privilege when parents don’t set themselves as perfect or, by being remote and unavailable, encourage us to idealise or demonise them.
- It is privilege when parents can bear our rebellions and don’t force us to be preternaturally obedient or good. It is privilege when they can accept that we will eventually need to leave them and not mistake our independence for betrayal.
True privilege is an emotional phenomenon.
Alain de Botton
It may happen, as parents are flawed human beings like everybody else, that they end up not ticking all these boxes. But the fact that they try should make us grateful.
All of the above mentioned moves belong to privilege sincerely understood, and they are, at present, about as rare as huge wealth. Yet, it is much more valuable than any other inherited wealth. It is those who have enjoyed years of emotional privilege that deserve to be counted among the true one percent. If you happen to be one of them, count your blessings; if not, let’s work towards acquiring this privilege.
Reference books:
Kalampedia 