Monday, March 20, 2006
Gene pool reflections
Eyes, noses, mouths, cheeks, chins and hair. Poring over our photographs, marvelling at family likenesses, we readily acknowledge the contributors to our gene pool. But accepting just how many of the other myriad characteristics that make us what we are may have been forced upon us by these same contributors is a lot scarier.
We take delivery of our beautiful baby, believing that we can mould that soft helpless bundle into the child we desire. Full of good intentions and some loving guidance, we surely can’t fail to turn out a happy, honest, well-adjusted, hard working adult. And then we have another because we believe that an only child will be spoilt and never learn to share.
And then the straightforward bit ends. What’s happened to my nurturing when my four children leave home with such different values and quantities of ambition, drive and confidence, though I meant them to have the same? Two spend as much money as possible, one as little and the fourth somewhere in between and one rejects my advice on the clothes that flatter her most, in favour of the flashier taste of her grandmother. And has anyone done a survey to show whether an only child is more selfish, or that one with siblings less selfish?
I remarry and notice that, although my husband and his son are separated in age by more than 40 years and by as wide a gap in upbringing, they exhibit many identical personality traits. They’re not only bored by the same things, but in the time it takes to say boredom threshold they’ve reached it. Though they have a fascination and talent with words, they have difficulty at times understanding the simplest of them when they concern domestic trivia and how weird is that, that they both spell that word wierd. They also have the same unusual appreciation of the technical aspects of music and share the same shy nature that prevents them making too much eye contact.
So here I am, on the eve of my sixtieth birthday thinking that it may be a pretty small role we play in influencing the way our children turn out. Of course, the parents who produce the sweet tempered, well-adjusted and successful adult remain convinced that their brand of nurturing, rather than any similarity to their own character is responsible for their success, whereas those, whose dream ends in tears and bewilderment, begin to wonder if they were handicapped from the start.
We take delivery of our beautiful baby, believing that we can mould that soft helpless bundle into the child we desire. Full of good intentions and some loving guidance, we surely can’t fail to turn out a happy, honest, well-adjusted, hard working adult. And then we have another because we believe that an only child will be spoilt and never learn to share.
And then the straightforward bit ends. What’s happened to my nurturing when my four children leave home with such different values and quantities of ambition, drive and confidence, though I meant them to have the same? Two spend as much money as possible, one as little and the fourth somewhere in between and one rejects my advice on the clothes that flatter her most, in favour of the flashier taste of her grandmother. And has anyone done a survey to show whether an only child is more selfish, or that one with siblings less selfish?
I remarry and notice that, although my husband and his son are separated in age by more than 40 years and by as wide a gap in upbringing, they exhibit many identical personality traits. They’re not only bored by the same things, but in the time it takes to say boredom threshold they’ve reached it. Though they have a fascination and talent with words, they have difficulty at times understanding the simplest of them when they concern domestic trivia and how weird is that, that they both spell that word wierd. They also have the same unusual appreciation of the technical aspects of music and share the same shy nature that prevents them making too much eye contact.
So here I am, on the eve of my sixtieth birthday thinking that it may be a pretty small role we play in influencing the way our children turn out. Of course, the parents who produce the sweet tempered, well-adjusted and successful adult remain convinced that their brand of nurturing, rather than any similarity to their own character is responsible for their success, whereas those, whose dream ends in tears and bewilderment, begin to wonder if they were handicapped from the start.
