My childhood
I’m taking a moment from packing for Tokyo to reflect. on my younger sisters recent graduation from college. For a family that lived in poverty, her graduation was a very special event. Not to long ago her older brother, and my younger brother graduated from college too. That makes two of my younger siblings graduates of higher education.
We didn’t grow up in a traditional family structure of two parents and we really didn’t have much opportunity, yet somehow we turned out really well. Why is that?
Its clear to me that our childhoods greatly effect the way we see the world but it doesn’t define us. It doesn’t decide who or what we will become. Once we reach a certain age, young. Maybe 16 or so? We make a conscious decision about who and what we want to be. Sometimes we model our parents, but in the absence of that we must create a new mold, shaped in part by our childhood experiences but not defined by it.
I only hope that if I should have children they can accomplish as much as my two siblings have accomplished thus far.
May 7th, 2007 at 9:16 am
makes one wonder about the old “nature vs nurture” thing. some people no matter what circumstances just seem born to strive and others destined to fail.
May 7th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
hello there. remember me?
This is SOOOOO true >>>childhoods greatly effect the way we see the world but it doesn’t define us.
so true.
May 9th, 2007 at 12:53 am
Congrats for your sisters graduation, but then they have a great role model in you
I agree 100% “childhoods greatly effect the way we see the world but it doesn’t define us.”
May 18th, 2007 at 1:25 am
my sister and I were talking sunday night—i had some important new developments and struggles at work that i was relaying to her—the specifics of which i am unable to remember—what i do remember is that the conversation somehow took a turn and she told me that she e-mailed our (for lack of a better word) estranged father- she left him a very brief message jokingly hitting him up for money for her wedding—she isn’t even engaged yet, but that isn’t the point—the point is he found it terse and somewhat offenssive—this spiraled into a series of e-mails between them where he chastised her and she reminded him of his infidelities and the lack he imprinted on his three daughters’ lives by not being there— in the end of it all he told her to “grow up” …”get over it” and that she should have graduated to a point of letting the past be in the past—she responded with some fancy psychoanalytical rhetoric…she is a social workder…something like “growing up” and “getting over it” is for people who don’t have the ability to take full responsibility and ownership of their choices—I am not giving her response justice. However, I think we can wish that our chilhoods were different–me and my siters could wish that our circumstances were different—there is no way to know that if they were full with the presence of both parents that, we would have turned out any better than we did- I am happy to say that we are turning out to be pretty okay people— Okay in where we are, okay in knowing it is a process–okay with having moments that aren’t okay—we have all chosen different paths—all of us have graduated from a place of “higher learning” but I think we have achieved so much only because we have been given the strenth to embrace growth however it presents itself—our mother’s example taught us that—We all have to grow on at some point-
Congratulations to you and all your siblings- especially your younger sister-