Red Room Where the Writers Are

People often say that babies arrive on this planet as blank slates, that parents make them who they are. I know for a fact this is not true. Genetics plays a far bigger part than just about anything else.

My children had personality the day they were born. For example, my daughter cares about everything. My son finds the humor in everything.

Her tendency to care and his tendency to laugh are genetic. She reminds me of my mother and her mother, and he reminds me of Krista's Uncle Rick and my Uncle Rick. Clearly these qualities descended through time as survival mechanisms. Like so many other qualities, because of the necessity of people's social interactions, these qualities thrived. People who care are loved and adored by those around them. People who find humor and express it too are loved and supported. Those qualities enable tribes to survive hardship. If everyone cares about one another and they are able to find the humor in even the most horrible of times, they are more likely to survive as a group and thus those genes continue.

However, these qualities are double edged swords, because each of them has a positive (which I've been talking about until now) and a negative side. The negative side to caring, is caring too much and attempting to control everyone "for their own good." How many people have you met who do that? Or worse, how many people have you met who think they are manipulating those around them for the people's own good, but actually do it because of their own selfishness?

Dave has a powerful sense of humor and because of it he tends to laugh at other's trials and tribulations. Everything is funny to him. Dave often cares too little. Debi often cares too much. Its as if caring itself is the quality they share, but Debi cares a bit too much and Dave a bit too little. Of course its not this clear cut, but it makes for interesting conversation and wonderful introspection.

Introspection? Of course, because this quality they share exists within Krista and I. We care and we care a lot. In fact I think we both care too much. So for me Dave is a real eye opener. He offers me the example of (sometimes) caring too little that helps me find my middle without having to oscillate back and forth.

Children have basic needs. Food, water, body maintenance, love, affection, and play. These are, in my opinion, necessities, for them to grow into a healthy adult. But there are other needs as well. Needs defined by their personalities and other qualities.

Most parents afford their children the basic needs automagically through something we call instinct. But very often, a parent will miss an "extended need" because they don't have the need within them and thus have no instinct or awareness to support it.

Children in very unhealthy environments are deprived of the basic needs. Children who have their basic needs supported, but not their extended needs are deprived as well. Often, as adults you'll hear people comparing "how horrible" their childhoods were and the ones who don't have their basic needs met are often "victorious" in the battle of comparisons. In my opinion, there is no emotional or psychological difference between basic needs and extended needs. Both cause a hurt that has to heal (and people who compare and whine about their childhoods haven't yet healed).

Children who are deprived of something develop skills to get their needs fulfilled. I call these skills, "Button Pressing," because children learn quite quickly how to manipulate the mental and emotional qualities of the adults around them to get what they need.

Instinctively, babies cry to get what they want. Generally, after they can point and talk, the crying for what they want goes away and tears only come when they get hurt, because instinctively crying gets them the attention that might save their life. If it saves their life, its a genetic advantage, thus it persists in the gene pool.

Parents are wired to respond to crying. In fact, its so strong in Krista and I that we actually ache when our children cry. We act quickly and where possible decisively. But this quick response time has a disadvantage. If we just react and "solve" the "problem" as quickly as possible, we might become short sited. We might not act for the best long term outcome and instead act for the best short term outcome. I've discovered that if I react, I may make a "mistake" and pay for it later.

Because of our quick response to our children's needs, the children have learned that if they cry or make a stink of any kind we will jump to stop them from crying or fussing. Therefore, if they don't get their needs satisfied, they can turn to crying and fussing to try and get it, and Krista and I will try to figure it out. Because we don't share our children's needs, we might have absolutely no idea what they actually want. Hopefully, they'll be able to figure it out for themselves and tell us. Reality is often unfair that way, often we (even adults) don't truly know ourselves well enough to know what we want, so we throw a fit, get angry, defensive, fearful, etc, even though we don't know why.

Children almost never know what they need and can never say what it is they need. As parents we have to be intuitive or experimental to figure it out and honestly, sometimes we never do. That's not our fault, really, we are who we are, that's just reality's way of instilling a goal for the child. Its something he or she will have to learn on his or her own. Its a spiritual mission.

If you look into your own life you will see things you "thirsted" for as a child that were not met in your family environment, so you went out and found it in a school activity or some other place.

Children will discover ways to get what they want. The best and easiest example I can describe is the child who needs attention and feels as if he never gets enough. I have a cousin like this. He didn't get positive feedback, because his elder sister was "almost perfect" so he got attention the only way he could, by acting out, acting up and getting in trouble. Negative attention is better than no attention to a soul who needs attention. If you ask his Mom and Dad if they thought he got enough attention they would say, "sure he did." But to him it was not enough.

This is also the best example of button pressing I have. This is how we learn to press buttons, to get what we want. And its the same mechanism that Rush Limbaugh uses to manipulate the people who listen to his show. He talks about subjects that will push righteous disdain buttons causing some people to resent him and others to resent the left political spectrum.

He's a genius at it too.

Like Rush, children need attention, love, entertainment, affection, etc, and like Rush they push the buttons of those around them to get it.

Unlike Rush though, most children will grow out of it. For even if we don't or can't meet their needs, as long as we love them, they'll come to accept our love anyway. They will choose to love and let go, where as Rush chooses to be a button pressing, attention getting ... child.