Some day I'll write a post about the change for good that one woman can do. But at the moment the story that I keep chewing over isn't an uplifting story. It has helped, though, in that it has me looking more carefully at how I am living my life.
I met a woman a while ago that I really didn't like. That doesn't often happen. Close to never, in fact. There are people that I really like, and then regular people. To actually dislike someone...too much energy! I don't like how I feel physically when I hold dislike inside. But this woman...boy, was she a piece of work. And then...
Then I met her mother. "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh...now I get it. Yup, I'd be a horrible human being, MUCH worse than the actual daughter if my mother had been like that". So I slowly started coming around to understanding the first woman. I'm amazed, sometimes, that she is still in society, living her life. As opposed to serving time in gaol for matricide.
I had such an incredible childhood and an wonderful mother. Awesome parents, in fact. So when I see parents treating a child in a way I've never experienced I tend to watch them like they're some zoo display. Or a test on a psych exam.
Close to two years after meeting the first woman, I find out that the grandmother treated the mother the same way that mother treats her daughter. And that the great grandmother was the same! So now I want to know how far back something like this goes? Did something happen to one woman a century or more ago that twisted her so profoundly that she ended up beating her daughter's self worth into the ground? Which then continued down to the present day daughter of the house? And will this trend end, with anything other than someone not having children?
My guess - for any such situation - is that you'd have to see the trend yourself. Look at the line of women that came before you, think about how it came about and make a conscious effort to NOT BE THAT WAY.
One of our (many, too many) psychiatrists suggested that this is not so much learned behaviour as it is genetically inherited personality! Scary thought. And, according to this same specialist, it can skip a generation. So, though I like to think I'm a better mother than my own mom or my grandmother, there's still a good chance that one of my daughter's could take up the nasty torch and carry on in her ways.
ReplyDeleteWow. I never even wondered if being emotionally and verbally abusive could be genetic instead of learned. Very scary indeed!
ReplyDeleteThe sins of the fathers are visited unto the children, even to the fourth generation.
ReplyDeleteHard to tell where nature and nurture divide on this one. I tend to go with nurture but one never knows. I was not a better father than my own, just a different one, I am afraid.