Tag had some friends over today. They got out some large pop-up tubes that go with a pop-up tent. They're visually intimidating, difficult to manipulate, and thus are very difficult for a young child to put away.
Me: Tag, go clean up your room. Your friend made a mess.
Tag: But that's not my responsitibally.
Me: The mess was made by people who you invited into your room and my house. You get to pick up after them if you didn't remind them to help you before they left.
Tag: No! It's not my job!
Me: It isn't my job. Whose job is it?
Tag: Let's just wait for the movers. They'll take care of it.
I was watching a man justify, through his collection of evidence and observation, the idea that people are not blank slates and no matter what parents try to do to change them, they are who they are by an intrinsic nature we can't hope to mold.
He used the example of identical twins separated at birth who ended up in the same patent office carrying the same invention for consideration. However, he postulated, adopted children who grow up in the same home never turn out to be as similar to each other as blood siblings. Of course he had many more examples and reasons, but I'm curious to know from any of you what personal experiences you might have had concerning both the direct impact a parent has had on you as well as how similar you feel adopted siblings might be to each other.
This has me insanely curious.
But of course I shall not relent in my quest to help my kids grow to be happy, self-sufficient people regardless of what the data might indicate. I just gotta know.
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2 comments:
I have two adopted siblings, both older, and my younger brother and I are my parents' biological children. I think all of us were treated equally, as in equally important as part of the family, but my younger brother and I are definitely more like my parents. I think my adopted siblings learned a lot of virtues from my parents and have followed my parents' examples in many ways, but when it comes right down to personalities they are both quite different from my parents and from my younger brother and I. And it's not that my younger brother and I are clones or anything, but we did inherit similar interests and talents while my older siblings have interests and talents in other areas.
Here's one for you. When my sister was adopted, for some reason the nurse put the birthmother's bracelet in my dad's pocket, so even though it was a closed adoption (this was almost 35 years ago) my parents always knew who the birth mother was. She actually lived in the same town, and every once in a while they would hear about her in the news because she was in charge of a group that studied UFOs. My sister was unaware of this until she was older, but she has always had this crazy interest in UFOs. So it may be a little far-fetched (but I don't think so), but I think my sister actually inherited the interest.
Love Tag's reasoning! In response to your musings on parental influence versus genes, I took a few child development classes in college, so I formed a few opinions along the way. It seems like it's generally thought that someone's personality is about 50 percent environment, 50 percent genes. I'm not sure where our spiritual makeup fits into that:) I do think parents make a big difference in how kids turn out, but I think much of it is just the way they come.
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