The Melbourne experience

I am in Melbourne visiting my daughter. At least twice a week I go in to the office with her and use one of the desks to work. The idea being that doing this will help structure my time and allow me to work on the thesis. It is not so easy to get distracted here by things that 'need to be done'.

However, it is proving difficult.

I have been musing lately on one issue that troubles me. A lot of former members seem to believe that before 1960 everything in the garden was pretty rosy. But this is actually not true and to say such things is to dismiss the experience of those whose childhood was in the 40s and 50s like mine was. Ok so we did not have all the directives - that lost list of rules but actually is it harder or easier to live in a group that has clear explicit rules like that? I suggest it is easier because at least you know what the rules are. When the rules are implicit and often unspoken how does a child know what it is allowed to do or not do - how can it learn to set its own boundaries?

The brethren have been dividing families almost since the groups inception as evidenced by some of the 19th Century writers. So that is not new though it is more frequent and possibly much harsher than back then. Separation has always been a key doctrine and whether or not a child is affected by it during the crucial years of its development depends not just on the brethren era but also on its parents - were they strictly religious or spiritual? If strictly religious this may mean that the child is heavily constrained as to what it can and can't do, think or not think, feel or not feel. I heard only today of another former member of the brethren, who is older than I am, so brought up in the 30s and he told me his mother was strictly religious and he seems to have had similar experiences to me.

I am wondering if I interview someone from that era whether similar themes will emerge in his or her life story. I have already interviewed a man born the same year as I was and his experiences were different in that he was encouraged to think about things as a child. But other things he talked about resonate.

See I said I was musing.... but that is what this space is for. What it is not for is for anyone to take what I write and use it against me. Thoughts are embryonic often and they go through many iterations. What I write today may be different to what I write tomorrow.