Mary Kenny
“it’s a sense of grittiness that you need to get through life, not just confidence in yourself”, writes Mary Kenny
Psychologists these days are constantly called on to help inspire self-esteem and a sense of self-worth in growing children – David Coleman, the clinical psychologist, is in regular demand to advise parents, teachers and guardians on how to do this.
This is in response to the awful episodes of self-harming and even suicide that occur among Ireland’s adolescents. Suicide among Irish teenage girls, it was disclosed last week, is the highest of all the 27 countries in the EU.
That is a shocking statistic. Parents and guardians need all the help they can get in facing the possibility of such tragedies.
The paradox that I wrestle with is that when our, now quite elderly, generation were growing up in the 1950s and 60s, we were given no self-esteem whatsoever. Quite the contrary. We were repeatedly told to be humble, think little of ourselves, never put ourselves forward, and call to mind our many deficiencies.
My uncle and guardian, for fear I might develop the vice of vanity, once took me aside and said: “Now don’t forget, Mary. You’re not especially pretty or attractive. You’re just average. Nothing more.”
Yet despite this absence of self-esteem, most of us grew into a robust and even quite rebellious generation. There always have been fragile people, and one school friend of mine – a sweet and clever girl, desperately afflicted by nerves – did take her own life in her twenties. But that was very unusual.
I’m not against helping to create self-esteem, but I wonder if it is always the best way to build character. Because it’s a sense of grittiness that you need to get through life, not just confidence in yourself. Life will dent your self-confidence (and sometimes justifiably): what you will then require is the spiritual resource to rise above those slings and arrows.
Role of religious in 1916 Rising
I’m honoured to say that I’ve been invited to make a contribution to RTĖ’s 1916 events by giving a talk on March 28 in Dublin. I’ve chosen the theme of the nuns and friars who ministered to the wounded and dying in the streets of Dublin – partly inspired by Muriel Brandt’s fine painting of this event, depicting the Vincentian nuns in their butterfly wimples. In preparing this talk, I’d be grateful for any advice or pointers from Irish Catholic readers, fully acknowledged, naturally.
Power dynamics in a relationship
Conor Brady, former editor of The Irish Times, revisited the Bishop of Galway-Annie Murphy story when speaking on radio with Miriam O’Callaghan last weekend. He had been on the editorial chair when the story broke. He looks back on it now with more compassion than most of the media showed at the time. My recollection is that whoops of jubilation greeted the fall of a bishop.
However, I think it is almost impossible for any outside person to form a judgement about the dynamics of an intimate relationship between two people. Conor seemed to suggest that Eamon Casey, because he was a bishop, had the power, and Ms Murphy was ‘in his care’, and therefore a victim of the abuse of that power. Believe me, when two adults are behind closed doors, you do not know who has the power, in emotional, psychological and sexual dynamics.
The weediest-seeming chap can be compelling in a relationship of intimacy. A woman who may have little status in the eyes of the world, yet in personal relationships may exercise considerable magnetism.
Judgements can be made about objective facts: funds paid from a diocese: and the narrative facts as they are recorded. But never assume knowledge about the power balance in any intimate relationship.