George Eliot’s Silas
Marner is in part the story of a broken man, repaired by love of a child.
From the moment that these two “lone things” find one another, the spidery
existence of the miser expands as she forces his vision out and forward, warms
“him into joy because she had joy.”
It is a beautiful story, though parts of it seem wildly
implausible to me. But I am interested in this benign portrait of a kind of
stepparent—a man who takes care of little Eppie simply because she is there,
and because they both need love. For Eppie and Silas, there are no “real”
parents in their story, at least not for quite a while. Yet Silas is still in
that odd boundary position that we stepparents know too well: loving without
the biological ground of love, without the recognition of bonds afforded to
other parents, and without the security of the indestructible love that most
children naturally feel for the parents they have known since birth.
Those of you who are parents of transitional children—those
strange beings on the cusp of adulthood that we too innocuously call
“teenagers”—may question that last part. Attempting to love these sometimes moody and narcissistic little beings can feel like a thankless, hopeless task. But—to
generalize irresponsibly from my own and a few other cases—I can say that these
little beings still love their parents, even as they are saying and doing
things that break the parents’ hearts. And there is even hope that they may
grow up, remember those ugly moments, and feel truly remorseful and grateful
that you put up with them nonetheless. The tragic case of abused children who
still cling to their abusive parents shows the power of this love. This is a
horrible basis for security, but I maintain that there is security there to be
had.
Such security is less available to a stepparent. Not only
must she fight against the lack of early bonding, she must also overcome a
cultural history full of stories of wicked stepparents, and perhaps the
hostility that often results from divorce and remarriage. She must love in full
knowledge that the love may never be returned. There is consolation in one’s
spouse of course—who, if he is worth loving, will love you all the more for
loving his children. Nonetheless, the stepparent’s love can never be rooted in
the promise of strict reciprocity.
And now that I have mentioned the difference, I wish to do
it away. The truth is that no parent’s love should be rooted in such a promise.
It simply is not good for the parent, who is in a position of greater strength
and therefore must exhibit greater magnanimity. We must love because we have
the strength to love, and because others have given us that strength through
their own love. This, I believe, is called grace.
So does this let those of us who were or are narcissistic
little beings off the hook? By no means. As I recall from somewhere, the proper
response to grace is unceasing gratitude. Expressing it is an excellent way to
enlarge one’s own soul, thus making future magnanimity possible. We were all
once lone things: if someone saved you from that, you owe them everything—at the
very least the acknowledgement of their gift.
