Mikhail Zavalov. Not a single percentage of marriage

Not a single percentage of marriage
Family psychology Makarenko

Publication date: April 28, 2001

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A person is patronized <hereinafter it is emphasized by me. - M.Z.> the laws of human society, and not just the laws of nature. The laws of social life are much more precise, much more convenient, and more logical than the laws of nature. But they impose much more severe demands on man on discipline than Mother Nature, and neglect of this discipline is punished very severely.
A.S. Makarenko

For a long time, as long as I can remember, I have had two dusty books, “A Book for Parents” and “On Education in the Family.” Obeying a curious desire, I decided to count them. They amazed me in different senses of the word, made me laugh, upset me, horrified me. I understand perfectly well that the book written by the teacher gives a completely wrong idea of ​​how he worked, and besides, the center of gravity of Makarenko’s entire practice lay not in the life of the family, but in working with large groups of teenagers who have lost their families (“ I have there were 500 individuals ,” he recalls about the commune). And yet so many parents, including mine, read it (for lack of anything else).

Style

First of all, I was struck by the style:

This future person does not experience any nutritional breakthroughs.

Or: Dad pats Volodya in some suitable place and asks...

Isn’t it true that Makarenko can really surprise you?

And here is the last - a portrait of the fading thirty-three-year-old Evgenia Alekseevna:

The eyes are still good, in a photograph they seem “magical”, but in their natural form they are still thirty-three years old. The lower eyelid can still coquettishly rise, giving the eye a defiant and promising enthusiasm, but along with it the treacherous shading of wrinkles rises, and the enthusiasm turns out timid and smacks of technique.

And it seems to me that Makarenko perfectly describes his own literary style here... A timid enthusiasm that smacks of technique.

Novella about family

A triple bed of the brand “Lenin is always with you” was released for the anniversary

(this is no longer Makarenko, but just an old joke)

It seems that he himself calls the long everyday stories from the “Book for Parents” “short stories.” Here is one of these pedagogical short stories (the eighth chapter of the “Book for Parents”), the contents of which will have to be briefly summarized. Vera Ignatievna Korobova, mother of two children and the main heroine of the story, works in the library of a large factory. It is at her workplace (where she puts things in “ cozy, relaxing order ”) that we see her at the beginning of the story.

“ She never thinks about herself. She thinks only about books and about her family... ” And so the sacrificial mother goes home, almost runs. The youngest in her family is Pavlusha, who “ seems like a golden-bluish boy.” Both the face and the eyes <I can’t resist continuing the quote> Pavlusha is such a captivating vision that Vera Ignatievna cannot even think, but only sees, sees, and nothing more ." And the eldest girl, a student at the architectural institute, Tamara, in whom Vera Ignatievna sees “something exceptionally charming, feminine, tender, ” is, as it soon becomes clear, a low-quality product of upbringing.

Arriving from the library, Vera Ignatievna finds the house in a Kafkaesque mess: “ Pieces of food were scattered on the table, and there were plates with the remains of dinner. In the hallway there were lumps of earth, some strings, and scraps of wire lying on the floor .” Of course, she starts cleaning, because that is her role in this house.

And Tamara, while her mother is cleaning, sits down in a chair and demands new shoes. In response to her mother’s timid objection, she becomes angry; we see that her robe has fallen open, and “ the pink bows of her underwear also looked at Vera Ignatievna angrily .” Tamara ominously retreats into the bedroom.

And husband? He is at work at this time - a senior economist - and in every sense the last member of the family - he will appear only late in the evening - but for the sake of completeness it is worth introducing him. I'm almost never at home. He is distinguished by his “ exceptionally even character ,” so that other wives envy Vera Ignatievna. Ivan Petrovich is well dressed, wears a beard and is the only one in the whole family who, it seems, eats tasty and with pleasure. He gives his wife three hundred rubles for housekeeping, but how much he receives remains a secret to the family. Recalling the past, Vera Ignatievna thinks about how she married him: “ ...it was impossible not to marry: Ivan Petrovich, at least, could have whimpered ” (?).

So, Vera Ignatievna is already washing the dishes, playing, according to her strange habit, with the plates and flirting with the stove, and then she thinks about shoes for her daughter.

Then there is a knock on the door and a non-family hero appears, a psychotherapist from the factory committee and an over-fulfiller of the plan, the bearer of a curly mustache living his male life, Andrei Klimovich Stoyanov, about whom his fellow milling machine operators exclaim (blush, Freudians!):

- Sam-Stoyanov.

- Even Stoyanov.

- Well! - Stoyanov.

- Vot-Stoyanov.

Smiling a shy and tender smile, he informs Vera Ignatyevna that she is being given a bonus, but not in money (he himself creatively insisted on the last point at the factory committee), because money is “a slippery thing .” Here Vera Ignatievna, of course, asks for shoes for her snake daughter. Stoyanov answers directly that “ your young lady will not get anything here .” And then (“ Don’t be angry, mistress, that I’m interfering here... I, as a factory committee member, have state rights ... ”) says the harsh truth that Vera Ignatievna, “ our worker ,” is too ragged compared to “ daughter- dandy ", etc.

In response to such confrontation, Vera Ignatievna timidly remarks: “ Everyone lives in their own way. So, I like it that way .” Stoyanov demonstrates his power: “ But we don’t like it... We, the people, don’t like it .” After which, running his hand over his mustache, “ from the nose to the side ,” he disappears, leaving Vera Ignatievna in therapeutic confusion.

Then there is dinner with the children (Pasha eats porridge, gloomy Tamara eats “ meat cutlets” ). The mysterious husband finally appears on the stage, eats, tries to think about the problem of shoes, whistling “ the Duke’s song ,” but it seems that he was too unconscious, and went to bed without solving the problem, and “ Tamara turned angrily in her chair and hit the bedroom door with a hot look ."

” in Vera Ignatievna’s soul But Sam-Stoyanov with his independent mustache (his husband’s beard is clearly turning pale) began a “ silent movement . She takes off her skirt and examines it with a tear. A lyrical description of this piece of clothing follows: “ Once upon a time it was silk. It was very pretty, gentle, playful. Now the silkiness of the fabric could only be seen if you looked closely, but this silkiness was gray. And in this light trembling gray hair there were wrinkles everywhere and the scars of old life wounds... " and so on. Vera Ignatievna begins to think about herself, and now in the night she is no longer alone, her company, firstly, is her skirt and “ secondly, Andrei Klimovich’s mustache was smiling somewhere far away .” She is getting younger in her self-awareness.

On the second day, Vera Ignatievna is solemnly rewarded with a piece of crepe de Chine, and on the way home, Andrei Klimovich takes away the premium piece (“ We’ll lock it in a drawer here... ”).

At home everything is as usual: Pavlusha is at the skating rink, dissatisfied Tamara has withdrawn into herself, her husband is unknown where. Vera Ignatievna is thinking about taking the crepe de Chine to a second-hand store, but a curly smiling mustache drives away the temptation. Tamara is lustfully interested in the prize: what, where and what color. The husband appears and says, pulling a plate of cheesecakes towards him: “ Money is more convenient in every way .” End of the series.

“ The new dress spoke in full voice only on the next day ,” on the third.

Vera Ignatievna is only now learning that crepe de Chine is cherry color, and this causes embarrassment. She is no less embarrassed by the girls' fuss in the factory workshop where the tailoring will take place. But later, filled with a “ serious determination ” to sew and wear, she feels a “ new image ” of herself, in which, however, there was nothing “ frivolously flirtatious .”

She came home “ in a state of unusual peace ” and - instead of the usual cleaning - sank into a chair (which Tamara had occupied earlier in this story), where she “ sank into a passive light sleep, when thoughts do not sleep, but run without a conductor in a free light crowd .”

Tamara swims out, and they have another round of fighting around the topic of shoes, but Vera Ignatievna is already trying to fight back: “ Look at the ones I’m wearing! ”

- Mom, you’ve outlived your time, but I’m young, I want to live!... Who should you dress up for?.. In front of your father, right? ... It's a shame for you to look young in your old age...

” are heard from the bedroom At the climax of the conflict, when Tamara’s hysterical sobs “ muffled by the pillow , there is a knock on the door. Who's come? Not hard to guess. A kind genius from Fabzavom who knows how to smile with a curly mustache. Having examined the situation, he comments, turning to Vera Ignatievna:

- Afraid of her? Are you making enemies , Vera Ignatievna? (Written in 1937. A wave of fear - we speculate for the modest author - stronger than the small ripples of pedagogical anxieties rolls over Vera Ignatievna, and another barbel, a prototype, soars proudly above this wave.)

And then Stoyanov invites Tamara - mixing threats with kind words - to wash the dishes. A dramatic clash of angry eyes... And the defeated Tamara goes into the bedroom to change into a dressing gown... And Vera Ignatievna sees in amazement: “ In the middle of the room stood a stocky, rudely splintered and domineering man, stood the milling machine operator Sam-Stoyanov. He was bearish and at the same time he looked slyly at the bedroom and quacked like an old man... "

He and Tamara wash the dishes, seating Vera Ignatievna in a chair, where she experiences “ respect for his open, hairy hands ,” listening to how a stranger raises her daughter. “ Now his mustache does not curl over his gentle smile, but hangs upright, and they look as if they are not a mustache at all, but a sharp weapon . ”

Continuation. From now on, when mom comes home, she sees complete order. And at work, her demands on the library girls increase. She keeps thinking: why in the library does she have “ such a gentle harmony ” between duty and joy, but at home everything is not the same? There is no joy at all in family life. And it dawns on her that she needs to take her well-established sense of duty home from work: the solution has been found. With this insight, she rushes to her family, without even waiting for the end of the working day.

And at home, Tamara, who has started spring cleaning, asks her mother to leave. And then Vera Ignatievna takes power into her own hands with the help of a very interesting psychological technique. She put up a chair and told her daughter: “ Sit down ,” she settled herself in the chair, and then, looking at her daughter, “ Vera Ignatievna made another effort to place one of her young employees on the chair opposite her .” And she found the right tone, the scene ends with a hug.

Next is the finished cherry-colored crepe de Chine dress. Amazed Tamara willingly donates her scholarship to her mother for shoes. Pavlusha does not take his eyes off Vera Ignatievna all evening, but his mother says with her newfound parental authority: “ Maybe now you won’t spend the whole evening on your skates? ”

And the last act. Ivan Petrovich enters, he is shocked and reacts to his wife as if she were an unfamiliar sexy woman, flirts with her and does not even whistle the Duke’s song. And this woman, transformed internally and externally, Vera Ignatievna, says calmly:

- Yes, Ivan, I keep forgetting to ask you: how much salary do you receive?

A curtain.

Comments

The main idea that Makarenko seems to want to establish here is understandable, sympathetic and quite relevant: parents are people too, when parents are happy, then it’s good for the children, life for the sake of children leads to a dead end. Any teacher will say that it is worth learning to set limits to the desires of the impudent Tamara. In the novel, what seems to be happening, in the words of modern psychologists, is the restoration of the barrier between generations of parents and children, without which a good family life is impossible.

But when, continuing this topic, you want to take the next step, your foot falls into a hole: in this “ typical among the working intelligentsia ” family (as Professor V. Kolbanovsky, author of the preface of “Books for Parents”) defines it, there is no marriage. And this is a fatal defect in Makarenko’s ideas about the family. Ivan Petrovich is so detached and psychologically impotent that he might as well not exist. Makarenko slyly lowers the curtain at the moment when the wife wants to “get” her husband, seemingly not knowing where to put her husband in such a changed family.

In a love triangle: husband-wife-Soviet power - the last participant has incredible power, is endowed with all male attributes and the right to control and correct without asking the consent of the others. Always and under any system there is such a triangle - two spouses and the external social world (in America a social worker intervenes in the life of the family, say, in the case of rough treatment), but marriage, love relationships are possible only when the couple resists external forces and fights for their privacy, although this tension itself introduces the necessary drama into the existence of the spouses. Makarenko sincerely believes that “ in the Soviet country, not only a child, not only a schoolchild, but every citizen is exposed to education at every step .” The teacher begins to put things in order in the bedroom and nursery, but the family scatters, leaving a lonely civil servant cleaning up the world of his ideals.

It seems to me that in the above-mentioned short story the main defects of Makarenko’s system are clearly visible. Let's take a quick look, from a bird's eye view, at some of its working concepts.

Sterilized family

any childhood disasters, no failures, no percentage of defects , even expressed in hundredths of a unit! We should not have

Marriage somehow doesn’t work out in any of his short stories. The husbands in his artistic world are either bankrupt, or sexless, or betray their suspicious relationship with Sam-Stoyanov, who personifies the state.

place is here either It’s not clear what the kids’ . They are most often present as future drummers, bringing nuts to their older brothers. In one theoretical speech, objecting to corporal punishment, the teacher adds (leaving the reader in tetanus): “ True, I’m not talking about those cases when a mother spanks a 2-3-year-old child with her hand. The child won’t even understand anything .” Not included in the work collective, irrational units fall out of the teacher’s field of vision, and, judging, for example, by his classification of children’s games (up to 5-6 years old - “ lonely, indoor games ”, then, up to 11-12 years old, collective outdoor games , and, finally, the highest phase - organized games, sports ), his ideas about both small children and the nature of the game are in no way in touch with reality.

[Children] should move expediently . No aimless movements.

Although Makarenko uses the words: “ joy ,” “ pleasure ,” “ happiness ” (he was going to devote the fourth unwritten volume of the “Book for Parents” to the latter), the eternal attempt to attribute expediency and social benefit to these things kills everything. So from a game , devoid of its creative aimlessness, nothing remains but the name, and toys, divided into “ ready-made ”, “ half-finished ” and “ material toy ” - these toys, cleansed with bleach of any symbolic meaning, you will not want to take in your hands.

is subjected to similar sterilization Fantasy : it is recommended to exclude fairy tales about Baba Yaga or the mermaid until the child has matured enough to understand that all this is fiction; children are allowed fairy tales about animals (heading: “ education of cultural skills ”). But in the newspaper, even “ when the child is still illiterate ,” he will find a lot of interesting things for himself. Namely, the teacher clarifies, “ in every newspaper you will find the following material: international events, demonstrations of workers on a holiday, border episodes, Stakhanov’s achievements, heroic and courageous deeds of individuals, construction and decoration of cities, new laws .”

***

any particularly persistent interest in sexual issues The child does not and cannot have . Such interest begins only during puberty, but by this time there is usually nothing mysterious in sexual life for a child .

No amount of talking about the “sexual” issue with children can add anything to the knowledge that will already come in due time.

The issue of sex education - and indeed, by no means the easiest question for any living parent, then or today - seems to place Makarenko in particular confusion. The seventh chapter of the “Book for Parents” is dedicated to him, where it is simply impossible to understand anything in the main story. There and in the parallel “Lectures on Raising Children” we find dozens of pages of reflections, incredibly complicated. He argues: 1) that this is an extremely important problem, which, “ despite any explanations ... still wants to remain a sexual problem, and not a problem of cranberry jelly or apricot jam ”; 2) that in practice it is resolved, nevertheless, very simply; 3) that the child has no interest in sexual issues (in contrast to a healthy interest in, for example, “ new laws ”, in the family budget or in production issues that concern parents, which Makarenko recommends introducing children to), therefore “ we are in no hurry to burden him with overwhelming knowledge ahead of time ,” but 4) if he is told “ about the most secret details ,” then this may “ lay the foundation for sexual experiences for which the time has not yet come .” And here follows Makarenko’s most amazing statement: 5 ) when you need to know this , every person already knows this ; but it is followed by a new, additional statement, once again devaluing the previous one, 6) that then it’s time to talk - because then the young man already understands that “ discussion this topic is necessary for reasons of benefit, that this benefit, while remaining intimate, will at the same time be real ." We need to talk about issues of sexual hygiene and, in particular, sexual morality. But in general 7) there is no need to exaggerate the importance of such conversations and 8) " in fact, it will be much better if these conversations are conducted by a doctor ." The parent reading this book has long ago fallen into a trance (Ericksonian hypnosis, creating confusion), without understanding whether to talk or not to talk - and about what, and with whom, and where is he located, and what is his name... The teacher’s line of reasoning is approximately the same, only twenty-eight times longer.

And in places he suddenly says the right things, about the fact that, say, the most important thing here is the example of parents - but he does not manage to fit sexuality into the framework of industrial and social interests, and he circles in his paradoxes and double binds , and his tone denounces his own dizziness, and he calms down only by moving on to his fundamental topic - to his beloved questions of order . Because sexual problems also arise from “ uncontrolled, empty pastime .”

Control over order

If the apartment is perfectly clean, if there are no unnecessary things and if you maintain order , your child cannot be very bad.

If we find games, sexuality and pleasure in Makarenko - despite the abundance of words - too little, then the anal theme of order, control, discipline is presented with wild excess. This is his hobby, his fetish, his idol. The main sin, according to Makarenko, is called the word “ sloppiness ”; visiting a family, the first thing he notices is scattered shoes, drawing from this formidable and final pedagogical conclusions; He tells the kids that “ order in the toy kingdom there should always be complete , cleaning must be done, ” etc.

In Kharkov, we demonstrated how to enter the theater: a column of six hundred people passes to the theater, a signal is given - on the right, one at a time, run, and six hundred communards ran in within 1 minute.

What if there is no order in the family? And here we touch on the saddest topic in Makarenko’s legacy. For he sincerely believes that then Stoyanov himself, the representative of the power of that educational state, which has the right to educate everyone, should restore order in the family. A change agent , an analogue of a psychotherapist or, rather, a social worker, enters the family - strongly and confidently. In some stories from the "Book for Parents" a similar role belongs - alas - to the author himself. This sharply makes sense of everything that is right and good that Makarenko says about the family, since it eliminates the family itself, deprives it of both spontaneity and responsibility, because the power of parents, he claims, is “ only a reflection of social power .”

We cannot say that a family can raise as it wants. We must organize family education, and the organizing principle should be the school, as a representative of state education. The school must lead the family.

Trying, on the one hand, to subordinate the family to the control of the state, and on the other hand, to bless the family: be fruitful, multiply, love - and obey the elders who are quietly watching you - Makarenko inevitably gives paradoxical instructions that are impossible to follow (like the classic one in books about the psychology of communication commands: “be spontaneous”), for example, arguing that we simply “ have to be happy .”

Paradox

During the game itself, parents should, if possible, give the child complete freedom of action, but only until the minute the game goes correctly.

The funny thing is that Makarenko plays the same game with the parents themselves and with their families. “ Watch him, listen discreetly to his play, try to make him on his own feel any specific deficiency and want to replenish it .” This “ independent” touches, Makarenko expects the same independence from readers - from parents and from family. The following recommendation could also be placed in the “Guide to the Effective Education of a Future Schizophrenic”:

You should never say: “Don’t ever do that, it’s not good,” but it’s better to say: “I know you won’t do that - you’re not like that.”

Growth and production

People need to be carefully and carefully cultivated, just as a gardener grows his favorite fruit tree. (almost E. Maslow)

Makarenko quotes “ the words of the brilliant gardener, Comrade Stalin ,” which here is expressed entirely in the language of humanistic psychology (but the little word reveals the same paradox) - and thus introduces us to the topic of growth . And below, clumsily playing with the metaphor “ gardener ” (and setting the associative series Michurin-Lysenko-Makarenko), the author reminds that we are “ not servants of nature, but its masters ,” and can “ make our own powerful adjustments to the life of nature .”

More familiar to Makarenko in relation to the process of raising children are production metaphors: “ not a single percent of defects ,” “ this is still raw material, but we will raise him to be a great citizen .” And the family is something like a small social factory for producing citizens.

After all, in your factory, in your institution, you are ashamed to produce defective products instead of good ones. It should be even more shameful for you to give bad or harmful people to society.

Here there is a distrust of organic, original, spontaneous growth, a disbelief in nature, with enormous optimism (which is not lacking in the rather popular behaviorist techniques in the States), with the confidence that you can make anything you want out of a person (the authorities). He often abusively calls the laws of nature “ zoology ,” which is opposed to understandable, clear and orderly “ mechanics .”

Soviet children have an amazing passion for mechanics.

Therefore, in his pedagogical mechanics, he allows a large degree of emotional insincerity, especially persistently advising teachers and - what’s even worse - parents to hide their “ minor ”, ​​disagreements, conflicts from children, so that “all moods disappear ”, offering to use as auxiliary techniques voice and practice facial expressions.

You need to make sure that your face, your eyes, your voice are, in some cases, autonomous. The teacher is obliged to have a “parade on his face.” It is advisable that parents also have a “parade” on their faces.

***

It's all sad. Fortunately, sincere parents may have gone into a trance, trying to control a child who was at the same time given complete freedom, or read to kids about the heroic deeds of individual people - but this is unlikely to have had a strong influence on such an incredibly stable thing as a family, which could defend herself - not directly, but indirectly, giving birth, for example, to jokes, disorder, alcoholism, mystics, poets, madmen and all sorts of unnecessary and spontaneous things, which Makarenko did not know how to appreciate and therefore wanted to control.

Having sat down for these thoughts, I sincerely thought to find something valuable from our teacher, but now I am in a trance, and my hand does not rise. Better to shake off the ashes that have stuck to me from dusty books, and wash my hands in clean cool water, I will quote another husband and father, outraged by the spiritual predecessors of the myopic teacher:

It is very possible to live without political freedom; It’s impossible without family immunity: hard labor is far better . (A.S. Pushkin)

• Website dedicated to Makarenko
• Arkady Nedel. "Sketch of the Stalinist metaphysics of childhood"
• Makarenko Museum

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