On Independence and Dependence

I came to Canada 22 years ago. While living in a “first world country” or the “West” was not my lived experience, it was certainly familiar to me in the alternate world of my imagination. My early childhood was in Kuwait, then under British governance, and I attended a British school. At 9, my parents moved back to India, assuming that I would assimilate with my own country and people quite easily. I did not. Like Scarlett’O’Hara, my body belonged to the very particular rules of my family and culture and country. But my mind was my own.

To understand my later point, we must start with my early experience in India. India is a very old, very deeply collective country. Belonging, that very deep need of ours is very clearly dictated from parents to children, in so many conditional, unmysterious ways. I notice my use of the word “very” many times. India is very “very” in its convictions. The rules for a girl were very specific as I grew up. The expectation to get married, soon after college graduation, was high for both boys and girls. This is tradition and there is a clear understanding that “parents know best”. The point here is that , there is very little opportunity for the process of “differentiation” as Murray Bowen would point out. Differentiation was not understood , encouraged or even expected, in my experience. In fact, I would go as far as to say, any signs of healthy differentiation ( different opinions, different thoughts, different behaviour - the things that define oneself as a separate person) were understood as “undutiful and dangerous” and strongly discouraged. This enmeshed closeness of the collective, driven by the fear that any individual action would cause a collapse of the traditional structure, was comforting to many and suffocating to some. Absolute dependence, from children to parents and parents to children, later on, was the norm.

I arrived in Canada not really having definitive words like ‘independence, dependence, enmeshment and differentiation’. As I completed my Social Work degree and started working, I started bumping into the words “strong” and “independent”. I realized that these words were greatly valued and stated with pride. I also noticed that the individuals who used these words often had trouble with vulnerable feelings, making mistakes and asking for help. In a way, anything not “strong” and “independent” was seen as the opposite - “weak”. Therefore, making mistakes and asking for help were often understood as weak. This places the strong, independent person in somewhat of a trapped space, one where one must always seem in control and “fine” or “happy”. Coming from a very enmeshed collective , I quite enjoyed my new-found “boundaries” (another new experience!). Coming from a crowded billion-person country, I marvelled that people talked about ‘personal space’ so much. And expected it. However, I also noticed the personal “walls” that sometimes felt like fortresses, were also called ‘boundaries’.

I have a personal theory about the admiration that surrounds this stoic ‘independence’. Canada and the United States are two unique countries populated by a huge immigration process over centuries. The migrations have involved generations of people coming from all over the world, some fleeing wars, some fleeing persecution, some shackled in the bowels of a ship and some, voluntarily on an airplane, like me. To some extent, one learns to be stoic, away from home, away from the village, away from the extended family. The one who “pulls up his bootstraps” and “moves on” is successful - survives. Being ‘strong’ and ‘independent’ gets you through. There is little time in a harsh new country for soft feelings. The pioneer does not have the luxury.

However, it seems to me that over time ‘resourcefulness’ in the face of survival and hardship got misunderstood for stoicism, a disdain of emotion and the perception of weakness in asking for help. In my work, I see parents hurrying their children into independence and speaking proudly of how independent their toddler is. But ‘survival’ is different from ‘thriving’. Thriving requires ease. Attachment theory emphasizes the need for safety and a feeling of security before a child can live in their curiosity. The pre-emptive push for ‘independence’ pushes many children forward without the pacing needed for the development of an inner feeling of secure attachment that supports a feeling of ease. Gordon Neufeld, the eminent psychologist, talks about the need to know how to depend as a requisite for competent independence. It is the difference between “pretend-independence” and sustainable independence. We acknowledge that we are in reality, just fragile and imperfect human beings and it is just a fact that we all need help at the edge of our limitations. One is stronger if one can include one’s vulnerabilities.

In trying to understand an issue, we tend to look for simplistic explanations. It is a mistake to not have the patience or the tolerance for complex answers. We are quicker to understand physical vulnerability as embodied by babies , physical injuries and illnesses. Emotional vulnerability is given little thought or space to exist. All families have ‘sensitive’ children who require ‘sensitive parenting’. Families often find the “sensitive” child to be inconvenient to the flow of everyday life. Instead of slowing down or accommodating the pace of the sensitive child, parents try to speed the child up. All children know the rules of the family well and early. As children, we are extremely aware of of what makes our parents upset, in any small way. The child who is able to move along is validated and receives the twinkle in his parents’ eyes. In the absence of a supportive pace, children learn to hide their vulnerable feelings and step up to the expectations around them. The inconvenient feelings are left churning in the depths of our intestines till life starts piling more expectations onto the plate. “Pretend - independence” only goes so far before the infrastructure starts secretly crumbling.

Culturally, in North America, there is much pressure placed on the age of 18. Parents and institutions talk about it so much that young people internalize a sense of wild freedom and terror , all at once, about this milestone. Everyday I work with young people diagnosed with anxiety and its various presentations, OCD, eating disorders, addictions who are crippled by the thought of rising up to the expectations of ‘independence’ as understood by their parents and society. If independence was understood as a person’s effort to do their best and ask for help when they need to, it might not feel like such a scary and unattainable thing. We know today that the human brain comes to rest after its huge transformation through teenage, at the age of 25. A 25 year old is a “baby adult”. Standing gingerly at the doorstep of making decisions and moving forward- looking forwards, then looking backwards, then forwards again. Like birds supported by invisible air currents, young people fly well with the support of their elders and others beneath their wings.