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Since I am one of 7 children, I think my siblings had more to do with the way I turned out than my parents did. My father traveled almost weekly. My mother did the required volunteering in our private school, but was certainly not heavily involved in our day-to-day activities. That was the norm in our area in the late 60's and 70's.
But, I was almost always with a sibling or two. I cared a great deal about how my older brothers perceived me. I took risks to gain their approval. I didn't tattle, ever. I learned to roll with the literal and figurative punches, and have remained that way to this day.
My DH, on the other hand, was the only son with one much older sister. When we first started dating, he expected attention more than I did. He has since become more like my brothers, thank goodness.
You know we don't pass all of our genes on to each child, right? We pass different combinations of genes on to each child for a reason. Passing them all on would condemn children to our failures.
I really do think genetics is our biggest contribution. When I look at my family, the differences were apparent at birth. I look at my best friend who you'd never guess comes from an amazingly disfunctionaly family. And here's one for you...dd#2 has habits of her paternal grandfather who she NEVER even met!! She jas bitten her tongue when thinking ever since she was very small. My neice points with her middle finger like my dad did. And dd#2 is the reincarnation of a cross between my mom and my paternal grandmother. She has mannerisms that each of them had. I'm serious when I say I saw my children's personalites on the day they were born. They really have not changed. Dd#2 is so much like relatives she never met that when she was born, I felt like I knew her. My reaction was "Oh, hello AGAIN". Dd#1 is her father's child. She has personality traits of dh's family. She's seen one of his cousins about three times in her life but if you wath them, you'd swear she was her daughter and not mine. They have the same mannerisms.
Who knows who you take after. You didn't have to get your mom's genes and who knows who she might have been if she'd never gotten into drugs. I would stay away from drugs and drinking though. Easy addiction tends to run in families as does depression and conditions like bi-polar disorder that often lead to self medication.
This reminds me of the story of the indian grandfather who tells his grandson that inside of every man lives two wolves, one good and one evil. The grandson asks "which wolf wins" and the grandfather answers "The one you feed". You can feed your weanesses or you can feed your strengths but that doesn't change that you were born with both. The one you feed will become strongest. Perhaps your biological mother fed her weaknesses and no one ever saw her strengths. Perhaps that is what you see when you look in the mirror.
Three out of 4 of my surviving children are nearly perfect 1/2 & 1/2's as far as resembling my husband and I. You can see us both, very clearly in them. My 3rd child, however, has never looked like his siblings. He's even very slightly built, nothing at ALL like hubby and I. My mother is a slightly built person, as were her parents and her siblings. While doing geneology about 10 years ago, I met some relatives online, who had picture of some of my mother's family. My 3rd son is almost a reincarnated version of 2 of my mother's uncles!!
It's funny, my mother has always, since he was an infant, been closer to that son than any of my other children. The feeling is mutual. There is just something special in the way those two will carry on conversations and as I said, it has been this way since he was very, very small. What you say about genes is so true. When you figure there are literally 10s of thousands of combinations, things which have been passed on to you, which may be recessive or dominant, physical or emotional traits, gifts and abilities, (predispositions), etc., the odds of having a child just like you is an absolute rarity. They might live with you and pick things up because of that, but it's also highly likely that you're going to have a child who is nothing like you.
Three out of 4 of my surviving children are nearly perfect 1/2 & 1/2's as far as resembling my husband and I. You can see us both, very clearly in them. My 3rd child, however, has never looked like his siblings. He's even very slightly built, nothing at ALL like hubby and I. My mother is a slightly built person, as were her parents and her siblings. While doing geneology about 10 years ago, I met some relatives online, who had picture of some of my mother's family. My 3rd son is almost a reincarnated version of 2 of my mother's uncles!!
It's funny, my mother has always, since he was an infant, been closer to that son than any of my other children. The feeling is mutual. There is just something special in the way those two will carry on conversations and as I said, it has been this way since he was very, very small. What you say about genes is so true. When you figure there are literally 10s of thousands of combinations, things which have been passed on to you, which may be recessive or dominant, physical or emotional traits, gifts and abilities, (predispositions), etc., the odds of having a child just like you is an absolute rarity. They might live with you and pick things up because of that, but it's also highly likely that you're going to have a child who is nothing like you.
Yup. Given the genetic lottery system, we're more likely to have a child like someone else in the family than like us and there are two families to pick from. There must be a reason mother nature mixes things up. It's a good thing too. I think I'd go insane if I had to raise myself....I was a PITA.
I could not disagree more. Granted, basic temperament is probably there at birth but a parent's own reaction to her child has much to do with the child's attitude or perspective on life. A parent reacts very differently to a child whom they perceive to be "difficult" as opposed to a child who is "easy." It takes an enormous amount of effort not to lose patience with a stubborn kid and a great amount of awareness to keep from gravitating toward an agreeable kid. And sometimes our behavior as parents reinforces our children's own view of the world, whether we know it or not.
The belief that kids in one family grow up with the same parents is not true. The dynamic of parenting changes enormously with the birth of each child, as do many other aspects: time, finances, living situation, parents' marriage, schools, neighbors, extended family, etc.
How do you explain, literally, seeing their personalities in the delivery room?
I agree we parent each chid differently but it's because each child is different!!! We respond to who they are. We don't create them.
How do you explain, literally, seeing their personalities in the delivery room?
I agree we parent each child differently but it's because each child is different!!! We respond to who they are. We don't create them.
You are absolutely correct. I used to believe to the contrary. Then we had identical twins (at least they think they are identical - Dr.s are not sure. We think that they are mirror twins).
Our twins had distinct personalities before delivery. We knew which one was where and when they came out. Aspects of their personalities remained the same all the way to 20. Example: They would get up on my wife's lungs (painful). She would push them down. One would roll over and calmly move down, the other would kick and punch back when she was prompted to move. There are other examples, some of which I am not interested in relating, but they clearly had distinct personality traits in utero and maintained those traits their whole lives.
Our subsequent children confirmed what we already knew. My original beliefs that kids personalities are completely a product of environment/input was completely wrong. They come with built in personalities. They are not just products of environment although environment can certainly impact their personalities.
My mom spent too much time with me, so therefore I'm *****ed up.
OR
My mom spent too little time with me, so therefore I'm *****ed up.
My mom was stay at home mom, who hovered around a lot. As a child I was laughed at constantly, because I was afraid of everything, and didn't learn to function until I was out of college out from under her watchful eye. Most of the children I grew up with were one extreme or another.
My kids are given plenty of time to themselves while I clean and accomplish things around the house, but they are not allowed to run willy nilly through the neighborhood. I think a happy medium is the best.
I do think that SAHMs tend to spend more time with their children, as a matter of physics, but I also think too much of a good thing is bad.
Here are a few for good measure, enjoy the debate about who is the better parent because they spend the most time with their kid...
Today, so far, I spent over 8 hours with my kids, my son woke up and puked all over the place, so I have been tending to him since 3 AM. I win.
Parenting like any other endeavor in life to me is directly proportional with the time spent in conjunction with the quality of it.
At work, do the people that spend more time tend to be the more productive than those that do not?
How about a simply garden at home? Which garden tend to grow bette vegetables? The ones that you only water or the one you water, prune, check for bugs, etc?
Which athlete tend to succeed more in his field? The one that spends longer hours perfecting his skills or the one that does enough to compete?
So why should parenting be any different? Take care.
Too many mothers these days are dumping their kids off at daycare first chance they get (6 weeks).
And they wonder why the same kids are in therapy dealing with abandonment issues.
Parenting like any other endeavor in life to me is directly proportional with the time spent in conjunction with the quality of it.
At work, do the people that spend more time tend to be the more productive than those that do not?
How about a simply garden at home? Which garden tend to grow bette vegetables? The ones that you only water or the one you water, prune, check for bugs, etc?
Which athlete tend to succeed more in his field? The one that spends longer hours perfecting his skills or the one that does enough to compete?
So why should parenting be any different? Take care.
Well, elamigo ~ you win.
I am SURE that your child will be far superior to the child of any WM just by virtue of your apparent proximity.
Too many mothers these days are dumping their kids off at daycare first chance they get (6 weeks).
And they wonder why the same kids are in therapy dealing with abandonment issues.
Yes, Picklejuice,
We slacker Working Mom's cannot WAIT to dump our kids off at daycare.
Absolutely, yes.
But I am sure that any offspring of yours will be far superior to that of any working Mother. I'm just positive of that outcome.
Too many mothers these days are dumping their kids off at daycare first chance they get (6 weeks).
And they wonder why the same kids are in therapy dealing with abandonment issues.
You are so right! I totally wanted to leave my child in daycare at such a young age just for the hell of it. It had nothing to do with needing my job to support our family. Nope, I just wanted to drop the kid.
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