Post #2: Nature vs. Nuture

Thanks for the support and the feedback.  

I have been giving a lot of thought to the nature vs. nurture debate.  I am interested in what happens in utero when a developing child is not only exposed to stimulant drugs, but to antisocial behavior.  This is not a judgment call as I am all for the expression of the self, among consenting adults--but what does it mean when you are floating inside the uterus and your biological parents are really messed up.  Will their behavior leech into the cord feeding this child and then leave a permanent mark of which nothing can erase?

When I was younger, I was firmly in the "nurture" camp.  No gray areas.  Sheer will and determination would overcome most pathalogical behavior.  Now, I am not too sure.

There has been research on this in the U.S. since 1925 and the results are skewed since the methodology in the longtitudinal study was inconsistent.  The closest and most compelling research has been done in Denmark and with a sample size of almost 15,000 adoptees.  Researchers found that adopted-away sons had an elevated risk of having a court conviction if their biological parent, rather than their adoptive parent, had one or more court convictions (14.7%).

Believe me, the factors that contribute to antisocial issues is complex, but I am really wondering if we are completely formed at such an early age that the environment we are raised in is just a pretty bow on an already formed dress?

I struggle with sharing this overly simplistic view of development, but what are the factors that cause a child to lie, cheat, steal, run away?  Haven't we all fantasized about running away from life, work, relationships, etc.  Yet, that is what they are a fantasy.  As adults we know this.  What happens when somebody acts on the fantasy, especially as a child?  You go driving around your neighborhood, in your nightgown, missing a uterus, ovaries, and some tubing, until you find a small child waiting at a bus-stop going to Culver City with his dinosaur puppets in his rolling Spiderman suitcase.

So what do you think?  Can we overcome the strong pull of nature?  Can nurture ever come out on top of the equation? Does it even matter?  Is all you need is love?

I leave  you not with a recipe, but with a poem, by Paul Anderson from his book, Storytelling with the Flannel Board (1963), which is about naughty cookies who escaped from their cookie jar one night.  They don't return and I find that very sad.

The Runaway Cookies 

The cookie jar people
Hopped out one night
When the cookie jar lid
Was not on tight. 

The gingerbread man
Opened raisin eyes
And looked about 

In great surprise. 

The frosted bunny
Twinkled his nose
And danced around
On his cookie toes. 

The sugary duck
Began to quack
And shake the sugar
Off his back. 

The cinnamon bear
Could only grunt
For he was too fat
To do a stunt. 

The coconut lamb
Jumped up so high
That his little white tail
Flew toward the sky. 

They were all so happy
To be at play
That they danced and danced
And danced away. 

They danced away
So very far
That they never came back
To the cookie jar.

First Post - Maybe the Last Post

Ok - I am jumping into the deep end with this.  Not only am I conflicted about what I have to say (nor not say) but really, who needs another blog?  I will try my best to do the following:

1.  Not kvetch for kvetching sake.
2.  Try to bring some levity to a very difficult and frequently, not very funny time, in a kids life.
3.  Listen to others constructive advice, support, and feedback.

Sit back and enjoy the ride, and know that I am certainly the worst possible passenger in the car.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Turning 12 and hitting adolescence at 100 mph.  Yes, the fun-loving, costume-wearing, very active little boy has cross the bridge into nowhere land called adolescence.  His outbursts are far more pointed, as when he told me the reason he flushed my very nice ring with the pink tourmaline stone down the toilet was "payback".

Payback for what you ask?  Payback for being told that I am the most stupid person on the planet (being that stupid is really pretty freeing at this point in life).  Payback for terrible vacations, rage and anger?  Payback for understanding that I will never really know what part is nature vs. nurture in raising a child who was born from another woman's body?

Payback for being a mother who may have just made the biggest decision of taking hold of her life and finding a small slice of happiness, just like the small slice of cake very skinny women eat?  Of course, all of it is only part of the whole.  The whole, as we like to say, the "whole child" is far more complicated.  But only slightly more complicated than setting the VCR to record.

I really believe that we live a life filled with karma.  You give good karma and at some point it comes back to you like a boomerang from space.  You never know if you will be alive to experience the karma coming back, but the giving feels great.

We give good karma to so many in different ways--small, big, boldly, quietly, etc.  Yet, as I grow older I think that the karma I give is more like compost.  Broken pieces, littered ends, cut off natural parts that if turned frequently, it will result is good material to help something grow.  Or at least that is how I see my karmic life.

I saw the flushing of the ring as a brief blip of the karmic circle.  No, it did not come back up as was asked by many friends, but the ring was only a "thing".  Nobody lost a life, a love, a breast, a wife, a mother.  It was only a "thing" that my son thought I would miss and subsequently be terribly hurt.  Yet, what he didn't know was that his thoughts were the only hurt.  I could care less about the ring.

We struggle to create meaning in our lives 24/7, but this meaning making is far too familiar to the adolescence I had.  I was terrible.  I was mean.  I made my mother miserable.  I have since apologized to those who still walk the earth and I hope that those who have left us know how sad I feel for how I treated them.  And now, I am walking down memory lane with memories I had thought I had purged and cleansed.  I guess I still have work to do . . . .

Like making pie crust, until you have made your hundredth pie, you really don't know what you are doing.

Here's something that really can't disappoint after spending time with an adolescent.

Donut Pies