When Numbers Count
How many children do you have?
In many social situations, when we are meeting new people for the first time, we are asked some generic questions. We all do it, and this is often how we start to form a picture of the individual in front of us. What work do you do? Are you married? Do you have any children? Most of us can overcome any social anxiety we may have and talk about our jobs and families. These questions open doors to extend conversations or to put others at ease with topics on safe ground. I hate these questions, particularly the one asking how many children I have. For many years now, I have never had an answer that works.
How many?
If you have lost a child, it is understandable that the normal questions about work and family are no longer trivial matters. I do not begrudge people asking these questions. In some ways, it demonstrates how we view ourselves as having a work life that supports our family life. The issue in the initial stages of your grief is that you may feel compelled to share your story of loss. This complusion is due to the emotions that are swirling around inside you. This is not always a wise time to share anything. The other option is to avoid these situations at all costs. This is not a sustainable over an extended period.
There then came a stage where I found that the question of the number of children I had was something I had to work hard to let pass. I felt completely disloyal to my son if I did not say two instead of one. It was as if I was writing him out of history. What I would do was say two children around school age and hope that would be enough to close the conversation. If the conversation was extended, I would find I would have to clarify the half-truth I had smuggled into the conversation and mention that one of them had passed away.
In recent times, I have become more comfortable with telling people I have one child, but some days it is harder than others. Equally, once I have met new people and been in their company on several occasions, I am much more comfortable telling them I have one living child and one who has passed away. Despite the evolution I have just described, it can still be difficult to answer this question. The numbers: 1 or 2?
So, why is it so difficult?
There is a simple and a slightly more complicated answer to this question. The simple answer is we love all our children. If one is deceased, you cannot and do not want to forget them. It is an emotional thing. Perhaps what is more salient is to ask is why it is so important. Emotions give us the ability to prioritise despite all the other things going on in our lives. This leads one to ask: why has nature made us this way, and why do we need and see meaning for our lives through our connections to others?
In our nature
We are social creatures, and we have evolved to live in communities. Our survival as an individual is dependent on others. The feeling of loneliness may be an evolutionary prompt, pushing us to engage with the larger group. The family unit is the first building block in the formation of a community. You start off in one of these units, and most of us will go on to form our own as adults. At a genetic level, our DNA contains the blueprint to socialise. This is our nature, and our psychology has adapted over millennia to allow us to seek out these alliances with other humans.
The flip side of this is the anti-social behaviour we exhibit, which leads to all the violence we see across the globe. I am in no way diminishing this aspect of human nature, but daily, the vast majority of our interactions will involve some sort of cooperation with other human beings. It would appear we are designed to cooperate with certain groups and not so well with others. The fact that we identify who “our” group is or “isn’t” is apparent to anyone reading this article. Why we do this can become a little unclear at times. Seeing ourselves as a part of a group and others as not, is central to a theory that most psychology students will learn about.
Social identity theory
Social Identity Theory, developed by psychologists Henri Tajfel and John Turner, explains how a person's idea of self and self-esteem are significantly derived from the groups they belong to. The theory proposes that individuals will categorise themselves and others into ‘in-groups’ and ‘out-groups’ respectively. Members of the in-group will share its norms, values, and characteristics. This is what we would call group culture. This leads to the adoption of group identities and, with it, the tendency to favour their group over other groups. This makes individuals feel better about themselves when their group succeeds and worse about themselves when their group fails.
Personally, I think there is nothing particularly interesting about social identity theory other than it attempts to describe what we all know about human nature. What we can or cannot do about this is far more interesting. Accepting that you will take on the values of the people you surround yourself with, good and bad, is important to note. It will drive us to do some unpleasant things to others and hopefully show limitless amounts of empathy and kindness to those we hold dearest.
Our Identity
Our identity is made up of parts. A major part is how we see ourselves as part of various groups. This can lead us down some strange rabbit holes when we start to look at all the groups we can and should feel part of. When it comes down to the very core, we see ourselves as part of a family before anything else. That means being a parent, and thus having a child, makes up so much of who we see ourselves as we move through the world. If they succeed, we succeed; if they fail, we fail. I believe I enjoyed my children’s successes much more than my own and found perhaps their failures more upsetting than they did at times. The elation and sadness derived from what your child experiences in life transcend everything. You are in the presence of beings who matter more than you. You survive through them, so it does not matter as much if you survive, as long as they do.
Back to the question
When we are asked about our children in a social situation, we are being asked something far deeper, perhaps, than we realise. Imagine how you would feel about a person who did not know how many children they had, or what their names were, or told you they hated their children and wanted to change the conversation. They have just told you they do not share the values of you or the broader society. You would immediately place them in the out-group. How they treat their children and talk about them tells you a lot about their identity and whether you can or will cooperate with them socially. So much of who we are is our families. This is why these simple questions about how many children you have, in certain situations, can become so difficult. You are being asked about who you are, and you may no longer be sure who that person is anymore.