Mirroring....
Self reflection can be difficult. Spending so much time with Dad these past few weeks has really made me take a look at myself. As children, most of what we know is from our parents. We watch them, play we are them, incorporate their habits into our own whether we know it or not.
Then we become teenagers, where everything our parents do is horrid and awful and an embarrassment. However, we don't know, at that point, that it is really too late. We've already picked up some major habits.
As we hit our twenties, and begin to marry and have our own identities, we swear we won't do what they did, with our kids if we have them, with our homes, with our lives. Now, I know you see where I'm going with this. It really doesn't matter what we swear, does it?
We've all found ourselves saying what they did, doing what they did...it's like the revenge of the old, isn't it?
Dad, as some of you know, talks to everyone. He doesn't care what he says or what he does...back in the day, he did have some stops on his behavior, but now? No. This can be a good thing - he's friendly in the same way to just about everyone...I rarely see him greet people differently regardless of their age, ethnicity. He does call all those with a vagina "young lady", so I can't say the same about gender. While I don't call women "young lady", I do seem, thankfully, to have picked up some of these characteristics.
He doesn't listen to those he speaks "with", though, and tends to talk over them. Dad has to be not so gently told to listen. Not so thankfully, I've picked this habit up as well, and have been working to break it. Not so easy, but I figured now or never.
Dad needs social interaction...he has a reluctance, as well, to stick his neck out into new arenas to get that social interaction. He prefers the comfort of tried and true. I'm trying to get him to do at least one new thing a month, to help with his reacclimation to the North. Dad absolutely refuses to do this, so I'm going to try and set it up for him as a fait accompli. I had that same reluctance, but working with students - a new group every so many weeks or months - got me over that.
I want to be able to self-reflect on the habits I've picked up from Mom, but that is so difficult to do. As I thought about it over the past 2 weeks, I realized sunshine has a lot to do with Mom. Some of you may have seen the gigantic glasses Mom had on in a picture I posted. For a dollar, they kept her occupied for several hours, and she was also laughing at her ability to make others laugh when she popped them on. Being a clown is what she gave me - the ability to lower the stress level in a room. It's things like this that make me realize we are certainly a product of our environment.
Then we become teenagers, where everything our parents do is horrid and awful and an embarrassment. However, we don't know, at that point, that it is really too late. We've already picked up some major habits.
As we hit our twenties, and begin to marry and have our own identities, we swear we won't do what they did, with our kids if we have them, with our homes, with our lives. Now, I know you see where I'm going with this. It really doesn't matter what we swear, does it?
We've all found ourselves saying what they did, doing what they did...it's like the revenge of the old, isn't it?
Dad, as some of you know, talks to everyone. He doesn't care what he says or what he does...back in the day, he did have some stops on his behavior, but now? No. This can be a good thing - he's friendly in the same way to just about everyone...I rarely see him greet people differently regardless of their age, ethnicity. He does call all those with a vagina "young lady", so I can't say the same about gender. While I don't call women "young lady", I do seem, thankfully, to have picked up some of these characteristics.
He doesn't listen to those he speaks "with", though, and tends to talk over them. Dad has to be not so gently told to listen. Not so thankfully, I've picked this habit up as well, and have been working to break it. Not so easy, but I figured now or never.
Dad needs social interaction...he has a reluctance, as well, to stick his neck out into new arenas to get that social interaction. He prefers the comfort of tried and true. I'm trying to get him to do at least one new thing a month, to help with his reacclimation to the North. Dad absolutely refuses to do this, so I'm going to try and set it up for him as a fait accompli. I had that same reluctance, but working with students - a new group every so many weeks or months - got me over that.
I want to be able to self-reflect on the habits I've picked up from Mom, but that is so difficult to do. As I thought about it over the past 2 weeks, I realized sunshine has a lot to do with Mom. Some of you may have seen the gigantic glasses Mom had on in a picture I posted. For a dollar, they kept her occupied for several hours, and she was also laughing at her ability to make others laugh when she popped them on. Being a clown is what she gave me - the ability to lower the stress level in a room. It's things like this that make me realize we are certainly a product of our environment.
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