I recently heard a radio report from a mother whose daughter just left for university. She was feeling depressed because her daughter was starting off on a new adventure in life and she was now left to finish off her life with no foreseeable adventures in her future. This shocked me. What was this woman thinking? Why was it that when her children flew the coop , that she did not think she could do the same?

When my children leave home- I will be leaving too!! I will get back my more adventurous live that I have forfeited while my children grow up. I know many mothers worry about the empty nest- all I can think about is how I will regain my singular freedom. That is not to say that I begrudge my children the restrictions they place on my life. I wanted them, and want to keep them safe and am unwilling to take the risks I used to take while they are still young. But in the back of my mind I am also waiting for the day when they take flight so I can too.

The Indian Problem

The Indian Problem

“I don’t know why those people are complaining. They got an education. They would have nothing if those schools hadn’t taken them.” This was a comment I was recently treated to while discussing the fact that the Nunavut Territorial Government was not as successful an experiment as had been hoped when the territory was promulgated in 1997. I believe that so many of the people who were meant to administer the “self-government” did not have the educational background to do an adequate job. Hence the above comment that those that got education in residential schools should count themselves lucky.

Well, to the best of my knowledge most kids in middle and high school do not appreciate the educational opportunities they have been afforded. How could the native peoples of Canada be expected to appreciate their educational experience when it was accompanied by sodomy, beatings and cultural annihilation?

What people fail to realize is that even though the residential schools have not been in operation for years, the abuse that occurred there has been passed on from one generation to another like a maladaptive gene. Abuse begets abuse. The scars on the grandparents’ hearts manifest themselves in the often abusive lives lead by their children. It takes a great deal of work to break this cycle and very few people can. When they do, it is a personal triumph but in this case an entire class of people have been affected and a few success stories don’t attract attention away from the general trend.

This issue may be of concern to many Canadians no matter their ethnicity. But for me, I have always taken a special interest in Native problems. My Great Great Grandmother was Iroquois. I never met her and saw but a few pictures of her, but her Indianess is writ large in my mythology of the clan.