This question is not really fair. After all, there are many people out in the suburbs who don’t have it easy and there are many people living in the city who have never had to overcome serious challenges.
Nonetheless, it is my prejudice that those people with the highest character, those people we admire the most, are people who have overcome adversity on regular basis. They are people whose character has been forged through adversity. Not necessarily constant adversity (which can also destroy character), but the lack of adversity can results in people who are more like lumps of clay rather than admirable human beings.
The “suburbs” have often served as a token for a place that is pernicious, and for good reason statistically. There are certainly many people who have been raised in the suburbs (I am one) who have never had to face serious external adversity. Many of those people will never develop character unless they challenge themselves. Many people raised in the suburbs will never have the need to challenge themselves. We all know such people. They have been coddled by their families from day one. They don’t know how to fend for themselves, because they never really had to fend for themselves. This is especially true if the parents were “normal,” not abusive in any way and not alcoholic (no greater impetus for developing self-reliance than having a dysfunctional parent). No greater curse, I think, than a totally “normal” upbringing with video games, computers, television, and lots of financial resources that enable the purchase of a constant stream of material possessions and amusements.
What brought this on is a conversation? I had a long discussion with a friend last week. He taught high school in the inner city for a number of years and was concerned that many “suburban” children will never have a chance to develop real character because they will not have to face or overcome serious challenges. I chimed in by mentioning several families with whom I am acquainted where the entire world revolves around the child or children. These are all families headed by “normal” (sensitive and intelligent) adults who don’t recognize the important need of their children to be regularly deprived of their immediate wants.
In one child-raising book I once read, the author spoke of the need of children to get a regular dose of “Vitamin N,” (“No”). In that book, the author asked the reader to think about how many times they tell themselves “no” during a day. For instance, you’re at work, and every 10 minutes you think of getting up and (fill in the blank: take a walk, call a friend, eat a snack, watch a movie, surf on the Internet). But you usually tell yourself “no,” right? And those of us who are disciplined enough to ride herd over ourselves were likely raised with a certain amount of adversity and left to deal with it on our own. We learned to either sink or swim.
This friend and I tried to come up with a set of rules that children “in the suburbs” are deprived of learning, unfortunately, due to their deficiency of adversity. Here’s our list of the things many such children are deprived of learning out in the “suburbs”:
1 Life is not fair.
2 You don’t always get what you want.
3. Life’s not always about you.
4. Some things don’t come easy.
5. You must sometimes delay gratification.
6. You will need to spend time with people who are not like you.
Writing this, I am now wondering whether it is true that our greatest heroes rise out of serious adversity. I wonder if anyone has done a careful study documenting whether this is true or whether it is an (no pun intended) urban legend.
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