If you read my blog, you know I spend a lot of time thinking about how to be a better parent. Today I’m thinking about childhood memories. I’d like my kids to think back on their childhood with fond memories. But I wonder if I really have much to do with that?
I had a good childhood. I had friends and “stuff” and opportunities and experiences and my parents treated me well. But when I think back now, while I have a fuzzy notion that my childhood was “good,” my most vivid memories are of the bad stuff. Fights with friends or parents, embarrassing moments, stupid/dangerous things I did. I have a few memories of really happy times, but they are very few. As in I could count them on one hand.
I am generally a “glass half-empty” kinda girl. I have never been the happy-go-lucky, perky one. I’m the practical, serious one. So maybe my brain is simply hard-wired to allow the negative to have a greater impression? Maybe the things my kids will remember when they get older will have very little to do with my parenting skills.
I don’t want to get too deep into a nature vs nurture conversation here, but sometimes as a parent you wonder just how much the stressing and worrying we do over raising our kids will really amount to when they become adults. In my personal case, I feel like the “nature” part played a bigger role. I definitely have personality traits that my parents have. But I can’t say for sure that it’s inherent because I don’t know what my parents consciously did to raise me a certain way. I suppose this is a question that can never really be answered. If it were, we’d all have the secret key to perfect parenting.
It seems to me that we become who we are not because of the things we have or do, but because of the personalities we are exposed to regularly. It’s the example we set as parents and not so much any one thing we do. Maybe. Who knows.
What is your experience? Do you have more good or bad memories from your childhood? And do you think your personality has anything to do with that? Do you think you’ve become who you are because of things your parents did or because of who they are inherently?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: diana_prichard
March 26, 2012 at 3:21 pm
I think it’s a play between the two; both nature and nurture. I believe the most effective parenting is that parenting which nurtures the child in such a way that his nature responds best. Because each child has her own nature, the nurturing that will most effectively reach a child varies.
Example: To this day I remember the exact moment at which I lost, and still struggle to regain, any and all respect for my mother. I was no more than six years old, I don’t remember for what infraction I was being punished, but she stood me in the corner and as I stood there, facing the beige walls where our dining room met the family room, I thought to myself, “What a tiny and ineffective person she must be to have to resort to demeaning a child in order to have control. My Mother is a fool.” I began, at six years old, to pity my own Mother. And it wasn’t until just a couple of years ago when I relayed this story to my cousin and aunts as we were talking about different parenting techniques that I even realized it would be considered abnormal. My cousin said, “You know normal kids don’t think like that, right?” I hadn’t. How would I? I’m the only kid brain I’ve ever been inside.
What I learned from all of it though is that while standing a child in a corner, nothing more than the old-fashioned version of a time out, is a perfectly socially acceptable punishment for misbehavior, it’s not necessarily an effective one. In hindsight, it is quite literally responsible for the beginning of the erosion of my relationship with my Mother. The simple act of standing me in a corner! That’s crazy! How could she have seen that coming?
My sisters were stood in the corner all the time, it didn’t have any significant effect on their perception of her parenting abilities.
So I guess what I’m saying, is that I see every interaction as an act of nurturing and that no one act can be inherently wrong or right; because each child’s nature is going to cause him or her to react to that action in a different manner. Nurture in the way that feeds the nature. Easier said than done.
Twitter: shannonentin
March 26, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Insightful, as usual, Diana. I think your story reinforces my feeling that we’ll never really know what’s going to impact our kids the most. We can just do our best to pass on our values and teach them to become independent adults.
Just wanted to let you know I really loved this post and I’ll be pinning this on pinterest!
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Well, this has been on my mind lately, I think because my oldest is about to turn 12. Diana’s comment makes me feel a little sick because I’ve definitely lost my temper in an way that could cause a person to lose respect for me. I know I lost respect for me. *sigh* It’s moments like this I’m glad I believe in a forgiving God who can smooth over our mistakes. Hopefully my kids will forgive me, too!
Thank you for your interesting post. I was surfing the web looking for any information on why we as adults have childhood memories as opposed to the general notiion that adults tend to forget and here is why I was surfing in the first place. I am a male, worked all my life since leaving school with a family to raise and yet lately I am having childhood flashbacks at any given point in the day, stupid stuff almost insignificant memories, my first day at infant school, my first school playground fight, being taken to the shops etc. I remember crying my eyes out on my first day at school. In fact I am sure that if I consciously applied serious thought I could dig up a wealth of childhood memories; But I dont want to, it would seem a waste of time. So whats happening? why am I having these seemingly random thoughts of my childhood.
I am a parent to two girls both now adults, both grown and doing their own things. So is it a type of shock a recoil perhaps of parenting after years of looking after them, wondering if I could have done things better. Has the notion of me being their superman dad worn off and I still think will they be okay in the world or could it be that now I am trying to recall my memories of their childhood and you know what, its not so easy, time has flown so fast.
Mark