Residential schools shaped bad parents: survivors

[Canadian]

Many Indian residential school survivors blame the experience for making them bad parents.

As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission prepares for its first national event this week in Winnipeg, former students say they were denied parental love and role models and that has affected their own children.

"I brought them up in a pretty horrible way — didn't know how to parent, didn't know how to show love," said Peguis First Nation elder Josie Bear.

No one should be surprised by this and yet the UK Government and Churches seem not held accountable nor is anyone in jail.

Unless issues are dealt with the 'bad parenting' will be passed on and on....

Read the rest here

[elkouri]

Many Indian residential school survivors blame the experience for making them bad parents.

As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission prepares for its first national event this week in Winnipeg, former students say they were denied parental love and role models and that has affected their own children.

"I brought them up in a pretty horrible way — didn't know how to parent, didn't know how to show love," said Peguis First Nation elder Josie Bear.

No one should be surprised by this and yet the UK Government and Churches seem not held accountable nor is anyone in jail.

Unless issues are dealt with the 'bad parenting' will be passed on and on....

Read the rest here

so true CANADIAN,
in very few instances do we see these unfortunate children
learning the beautiful things in life.
tooooooo SAD

BUT i have seen instances of those that see lots of drinking, steer away from this life.
and IN MY case,
not having a mom that loved me,
MADE me love my son, even more.

kAYROSE

[Dana]

I wondered about the latest effort at apology the Canadian gov''t is making now. The right thing an way to go about it? I can't say.
One thing it is doing is bringing forward people like Josie Bear and their stories, to give us some insight and more understanding of their situation, the effects and after effects of residential schools.
This issue of lack of parenting skills, appearing like a lack of caring or love, being simply a lack of knowing how to express these things never shown in meaningful ways to themselves while being raised in institutions. Then going home upon occasion as strangers, perhaps feeling like dirty strangers after being molested by the 'care-givers'.
No wonder the distorted views, much like my own mother's, also institution raised in and old country someplace, shaping her outlook on life and herself.
Yes, if we hear these stories we can better relate, I think.
The least we can do is bear witness and understand, cry and apologize, say it was not your fault, it was 'ours'. (no, my peeps wuz many miles away when all this wuz going on, no 5 generations here.......but that does not mean that Daddy''s peeps did not hate someone else!)
So, as a nation we must all apologize and accept responsibility for what was done in 'our' name in another time.

D

[angora]

Generally I have every sympathy for the native Canadians. However, this issue is raising alarms for me. I agree residential schools were wrong headed and surely badly run but it was the time that was at fault not the ideology. At that time children were considered in an entirely different way than they are now and were considered to be more affected by environment than by heredity.And more like chattel. Consider that there were still children out working at full time jobs to contribute to the household income

It would not have been a big deal to take them away from their parents. Most children at the time were brought up by people other than their parents. They were sent away to boarding schools, raised by nannies and governesses. Had tutours and rarely saw their parents except for special occasions.

As Dana says, even later than that time many people still thought it best to send children away from home for their upbringing. It wasnt done to hurt the child. It was meant to improve them.

My husband was sent away to a public school in england (read private school here) Only home for hols until his family moved here when he was 15.

He had no father present in his home and yet his children and I will take every opportunity we have to tell anyone what a wonderful father he is and was. He didnt let all that poor me pity influence him.

My mother spent her life telling us how her mother didnt love her - she believed this although there is no independant evidence of it. Anyway, the point is - she was a great mother to me.
We all are in charge of the person we become and should give over blaming everyone and everything else.

[elkouri]

not having a loving Mom , made me a LOVING MOM
and MORE.

AND IN PEAPOD'S WORDS,
WHICH i juuuuuuuuuust love

JUST SAYING.
wink.

with an added.
i cannot fathom anyone making up a story ,that their mom didnt love them.
a most horrible excruiating feeling,
and to those that have gone thru this.
god BLESs YOU.
wHOMEVER your GOD IS.
kayrose

i would not wish that ON anyone.

[angora]

i was actually making a point about children being raised in a residential setting. That's all.

[angora]

i cannot fathom anyone making up a story ,that their mom didnt love them.

Just saying.......

about having illnesses, when they dont

people make up stories about being sexually abused, when they havent been

about being raped, when they havent been

about their children being sick, when they're not


People make up stories about a mulitude of things because they are sick and desperate for help and/or attention

The result of this is that the poor people to whom it really happened are often not believed because of the lies the others told.

[typomary]

Angora says "It would not have been a big deal to take them away from their parents. Most children at the time were brought up by people other than their parents. They were sent away to boarding schools, raised by nannies and governesses. Had tutours and rarely saw their parents except for special occasions. "

That's not true. Only the upper and upper middle class were able to send their children away to school or to have nannies and governesses. That does not add up to "most children". It was certainly a part of the white culture, but would have been completely unfamiliar to the aboriginals. Whites who sent their children to school, or who employed governesses did so by choice. The First Nation peoples had no choice, their children were taken and pitched into a completely unfamiliar environment. Often their identities were denied, they were given new names and made to speak a new language. I think Angora it was a very big deal indeed.

[angora]

I was thinking of the times and the way children were thought of at the time. Yes, only the upper classes were sent to schools etc but the lower classes did not have the family situations that we are used to now. The children were thought of as extra work hands. They were not coddled or schooled but sent out to work in the fields or apprenticed or begging in the cities. It was an entirely different mind set. Children, as I said, were chattels , rich or poor.

When I said that it was 'no big deal' I was speaking about the authorities who were largely white upper class males and accustomed to the scenario I presented above. I was not speaking of the natives because I dont know how many of them did or did not embrace what might have been seen as an advantage to them. Paid for schooling.

Agreeing that the idea was wrong headed, as I did from the start, I was trying to present a more balanced picture and encourage people to think beyond today's politically correct reaction.

[Dana]

One parent whose child was abused keeps saying to me how not all abused victims remain victims all their lives.
How some just 'get over it' and that those others should also get over it.
Deep feelings of guilt?
I know how that child has reacted more so than the mother from whom some things are kept.

Are we just publicly going thru the motions to help get the others 'over' it? Along with getting over the loss of their cultural and familial heritage, made illegal, children sent to foreign speaking places where many, many were systematically raped by men of religion.

Children were chattel and Indians were what? To be civilized.
Obviously, as a society we did a horrible job.

No excuses are acceptable.

[peapod]

You got it dana, they were to be civilized naturally its always the white view on what is civilized.

[eriatilos]

The white Christian settlers did not do too well in North America. Genocide is the best word to describe their actions. Naturally, they felt they had the right to behave like that.
Must be a great feeling to be religious and right.
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population ... #Massacres

[elkouri]

The white Christian settlers did not do too well in North America. Genocide is the best word to describe their actions. Naturally, they felt they had the right to behave like that.
Must be a great feeling to be religious and right.
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population ... #Massacres

as far as im concerned, IT WOULD be great to be anything AND RIGHT.

jussssttttttttttttttttttttttttttt teasin with ya.

[peapod]

I seriously doubt "education" was at the root of residental schools, it was more like aggressive assimilation.

“I want to get rid of the Indian problem. Our object is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed. They are a weird and waning race…ready to break out at any moment in savage dances; in wild and desperate orgies.” – Duncan Campbell Scott, Head of Indian Affairs, Canadian Government, 1920.

[CDNBear]

Wow! Another crutch to use, instead of just being accountable for ones own actions.

It simply amazes me when I see people blame someone else for their own poor choices.

There is literally a litany of outreach programs, mental health programs available to the Native community that is not available to the Non-native community. All of which are applicable and accessible prior to sentencing by a Court, at no cost.

If you have the ability to accept your short comings, so much so that you can affix blame, then you have the ability to seek help, and own your own responsibility.

Simply shifting blame, isn't healing. It's shifting blame. It might make you feel better, but you're still not anymore healthy.

[peapod]

"]Wow! Another crutch to use, instead of just being accountable for ones own actions

Well that does go both ways init? Best first nations use the courts, hoping whitey will be accountable for their actions is just a pipe dream. Like, taking indian and northern affairs canada to court to stop them from diverting aborginal funds to non aborginal bank institutions. At least now whitey has to prove they fulfilled their duty to consult. The one thing the first nations really have to learn, whitey is a sneaky pete, init.

[Swiss Miss]

CDNbear say goodbye. your comments are not welcome here. go back to canadian content or wherever the hell you came from. racist pig.

[angora]

Ive read CNDbear's comment and I dont think it is either racist or piggish. It is just one person's opinion expressed in, what to me, seems to be an acceptable fashion.

Of course, I dont know him/her from anywhere else but have read him only here.

If he/she starts saying things in an unreasonable fashion then I'll join in condemning him. But, first give the rest of us a chance to decide for ourselves what kind of an animal he/she is.