baby outside

What’s true for me may not be true for you!

Posted on by Jill Turner
What's True for Me

Whatever we hold dearest to our hearts like views on raising and educating young children, ideas on love and life, and so on, are all wrapped around what we think is true. And thinking of this, is so very important to how we provide care and leadership to the small children in our lives.

I learned a great lesson on how *we* look at the world and our experiences in it from a teacher in grad school. She taught us to look at the idea of “truth.” When we say something is true, is it? Or do we just think it is depending on our personal perspective to whatever we are saying is true?

What shaped me the most in how I approach my life and my work, is a simplified version of what is known as “critical social theory” and the work of sociologist Jürgen Habermas. (Habermas’ work is pretty complex if you are not a scholar of sociology or philosophy, but you can learn more about it here.) If you are a scholar of these concepts, please forgive me and my very very simple interpretations!! Actually, please contact me for corrections!

Below is a framework of some very complex thinking! My take away was the idea that there are three main ways to view any situation. (The examples below of having my daughter, are the same examples my teacher used for me about having her daughter.):

  • Objectivity: this is the viewpoint of knowing something is true based on what happened in the observable world: what was seen and said. This means that if more than one person saw something, they would tell the same story about it.
For example: I gave birth to my daughter; I was there and so was my doctor, mother, my daughter’s dad, and nurses. We can all attest to the fact that this person came out of my body.
  • Subjectivity: This truth can only be understood by ourselves and no one else. This has to do with our feelings and thoughts, and is as equally true as objectivity, just different.
For example: I love my daughter at a depth that seems beyond knowledge and words; a place of utter knowing, silence, and godliness. I am the only one that experiences this truth and the best that I can do to get you to understand my truth about loving my daughter, is try to describe it through words, but you will never understand it as I do.
  • Normativity: this a truth claim based on the wisdom of the community we live within, in other words, the cultural perspective, and what is normal for our community. This is the perspective of “shoulds.” Our ideas of what should or shouldn’t happen around us come from our cultural inheritances.
For example: I should love my daughter. In the society I live within, it would be weird if I did not love my daughter, one should love their children. This perspective is also equally true to subjective and objective truths.

Can you see how this gets at what we do with young children?

There is a complex interplay of differing “truths” when it comes to planning for the children in our care. We plan our schedules or have no schedule, plan what to eat or not eat, teach what to say or not say or what to do or not do, and so on, based on what we think is true.

Conflicts arise when my truth and your truth are different, so maybe, just maybe, if we could understand where we are coming from, it would be easier to come to agreements around the best care and education for small children.