Mind MovesThere are comments made by parents that are wise. They are profound. They make immediate and total sense to their children. This recognition of parental wisdom is not as rare as parents think, although it may be only after parents' death that children realise the import of the parental astuteness they took for granted or disregarded during their parents' lives, writes Marie Murray
Of course, parents make ongoing commentary upon life for their children: either directly to them in the form of advice, to someone else in their children's hearing, or in the behaviour that they model for them throughout their lives.
The parent/child relationship is an ongoing mutual commentary upon life, each informing the other from a generational perspective and each absorbing the messages of the other in whatever form those messages may take. Relationships are built by messages. Positive messages build positive relationships.
In all these exchanges between parent and child there is often a particular comment that resonates, that sticks, one that remains a maxim for the recipient ever after. This may be a moment of especial wisdom on a parent's part which coincides with receptivity on the part of offspring, when wisdom is transferred from one generation to the next.
Most people will quote one comment, one maxim, one action, one message from a parent that they recall from childhood, adolescence or adulthood, a remark that exemplifies the parental perspective on life.
One comment made by a father to his daughter remained with her from the moment it was said. She was lamenting her dilemma about which dress to wear to a formal event and what type of transport to take there. "These are problems," he said "these are high-class problems."
"High-class problems" are the problems we confront, the dilemmas, disappointments, displeasures and discontents that are the province of the privileged. The sun holiday when it rains, the limousine that is late, the theatre tickets that are sold out, finding a favourite restaurant overbooked, poor seats at the opera, sparse snow at the ski resort, and the flight that is delayed: these are high-class problems.
These are the frustrations that people are lucky to have. These are the aggravations of the affluent. These are problems for the prosperous. These are not the problems of the poor.
High-class problems are those problems that seem catastrophic until one considers what a privilege it is to have these problems in the first place. High-class problems are the problems that many people would love to have. They are the nuisances for one person that another person would wish to confront.
These problems would be an unimaginable joy for someone who has never had the opportunity to experience the irritation of poor service in a restaurant, the question of which of many garments to wear or where to travel next. And perhaps that provides the definition of high-class problems: if the problem is one that another person would be delighted to have, chances are it is a high-class problem.
There is psychological merit in the nugget of wisdom that father gave his daughter and the words he chose to convey it. He did not trivialise her dilemmas. He did not say that what she confronted was not real, that the decisions she had to make were inconsequential, trifling or petty. He did not suggest that her concerns were unworthy of resolution. Nor did he diminish them by denying that they were problems. But what he did do was remind her that her problems were of a different order to other problems; they were in another category, a different class of problem, so to speak, than other problems.
They were high-class problems. They required perspective. They were the problems of privilege. There may be many ways to make children aware of their social, economic and educational advantage but few that avoid a sanctimonious, moralistic, guilt-inducing tone. The simple recognition that some problems are "high-class problems" solves this dilemma. In its own quaint, old-fashioned courteous way, it names the reality of inequality without degenerating into a treatise on poverty and privilege, the gratitude one should have to have escaped the former or appreciation to have been able to partake of the latter.
It says that no matter what you have in life you will have problems. It recognises that privilege is no protection against problems. But it reminds the person who has high-class problems that there are other problems that beset people in the world; people to whom the problems of privilege would be a privilege to have.
High-class problems remind us that many problems are of our own making and that in another person's dictionary of life they may not classify as problems at all. High-class problems are often temporary. They are of the moment. They are the problems of the present. They are replaced by similar problems. They usually focus on externals. They are likely to be ego-bound.
Tragically, high-class problems are relegated to inconsequentiality when accident, injury or ill-health are encountered. Then high-class problems become the problems we remember with affection, problems we wish we still had.
Clinical psychologist Marie Murray is director of the Student Counselling Services in University College Dublin.