Sticking Ourselves in the World

The Washington Post and World Health Organization teamed up last month to deal me a blow. On the last Wednesday of June, I was in the middle of my annual “vacation” at Houghton Lake in the north-central part of Michigan‘s lower peninsula.



I put the word “vacation” in quotes because it’s not really my idea of a vacation.

Houghton Lake is Michigan’s largest inland lake, which is impressive since Michigan has thousands. But it’s a dirty lake, a breeding ground of little bugs and bacteria that lead to swimmer’s itch. The area is also kind of “worn out.” It’s been Detroiters' tourist destination for a hundred years. The lodge where we stay has pictures of Detroit Tigers (e.g., Bill Freehan and Jim Northrup) who frequented the place in the sixties. But today, the entire Houghton Lake area is fairly depressed; it seems as if no capital improvements have been made to most of the lodgings since those Tigers won the World Series (1968, not 1984).

But each year, at my wife's request, I go.

To join 40 in-laws: my wife’s parents, brothers, sisters-in-law, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, first cousins, and first cousins once removed. With my seven children, 49 people attend. For seven full days. And nights. And mornings. And mid-afternoons. And dusks…

Now, they’re all good people, and that helps a lot, but a “vacation” with 40 in-laws isn’t any normal person’s idea of a good time. I express that opinion to my wife occasionally.

But that’s where the Washington Post article and the WHO study come in.

The Post reported that a three-year study by the WHO shows that people in third-world countries recover from mental illness better than people in the Western world. No one is sure of the reason, but the evidence points to one thing: stronger family, including extended family, in third-world countries.

In third-world countries, the ill person is among family — in the morning, at work, in the evening. His grandparents are there, so are his uncles and nieces and cousins. He lives with his parents or close to them. It gives the person “social connectedness.”

If strong family ties help a person recover from mental illness, it doesn’t seem far-fetched to suspect that such ties help prevent mental illness in the first place.

Is it a coincidence that mental illness in the United States seems to be increasing at the same time that families are getting smaller and extended families have been torn apart by an increasingly mobile culture?

A few weeks ago, long-time writer Phil Brennan reflected on his advanced age. He wrote:

I am old enough to remember that most people lived where their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents lived. Families were close-knit. Kids knew and saw their grandparents and their uncles and aunts and cousins all the time. As a result we had a genuine sense of who we were and who we came from and above all, what our heritage imposed on us — what was expected of us, which was what our parents expected of themselves.

Being with family gives a person bearings, a sense of belonging, rootedness in solid ground. Even if a person finds himself removed from his roots, if he's in a community where other people have roots, he is more likely to get a rooted sense.

In his first novel, The Moviegoer, Walker Percy’s narrator referred to people “sticking” themselves in the world. At one point, for instance, the narrator said that making money isn’t a bad way of sticking oneself in the world.

To the best of my knowledge, Percy never explained what he meant by this term, but based on the context and Percy’s thought in general, I suspect Percy was referring to ways that people give themselves bearings in an increasingly volatile society.

When we leave our home towns and families, either physically or in attitude, we might think the whole world opens up in front of us. And it no doubt does. But that doesn’t make it a good thing. For at the same time, a whole existence closes up behind us. And if we don’t get our bearings — new roots, ways of sticking ourselves in the world — adverse effects might be lurking.

And what does all this say about my annual week of pain at Houghton Lake and my belief that a vacation with 40 in-laws isn’t any normal person’s idea of a good time?

It says a lot. It says that maybe that week should be an entire year, a decade, a lifetime. It says that maybe the week imparts some of the salve that comes from living with extended family year-round. It says that, instead of denigrating the week, I ought to be grateful for it and especially grateful that my children are exposed to it.

Don’t get me wrong. I still don’t think my Houghton Lake “vacation” is a normal person’s idea of a good time.

But I’m not so sure that today’s “normal” person is all that normal.

© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange

Eric Scheske is an attorney, the Editor of The Daily Eudemon, a Contributing Editor of Godspy, and the former editor of Gilbert Magazine.

Subscribe to CE
(It's free)

Go to Catholic Exchange homepage

MENU