That Seems Normal

We humans have a penchant for normalcy. It provides the baseline from which we can discern the abnormal. There is a great variety of norms, but the first we perceive is understandably egocentric. To paraphrase, home is where it’s normal. In my instance, normal was initially being the only child of a mother and father who were married. Normal was a turn of the century parsonage which housed the three of us. Normal was white people. Normal was belonging to a church. Normal was everything I experienced while safely protected from any deviance. With maturity, however, comes an increasing awareness of the abnormal. That kid lives in a different house. That kid has only a mother. That man over there is alone. There are brown people who talk funny at the Post Office. Early on, the human objective becomes maintaining the norm, sometimes to the point of a conservatism that is counter to reality. When that desire to maintain the status quo is confronted by what Andrew Cherlin, Johns Hopkins University professor of public policy, describes as “more turbulence in our family lives, more changes of partners and parents, than any other nation;” tension and conflict are generated. What seemed so normal then turns out to be the home to which Thomas Wolfe says I can’t go again.