I’ve been reading a lot lately, came across this one book called; “Freakonomics”. Mighty interesting I must say. It’s all about “cause and effect” and correlations. A breath of fresh air some might say. The most interesting part of the book was about parenting. It got me wondering about the same thing that the author was questioning. How much does parenting affect a persons life?
The author, or the authors to be correct, had massive piles of data to back up their theories, I can merely judge my own life. I can also to some extent judge the lives of people very close to me since I tend to know their parents quite well too. I absolutely agree with the book when it comes to genetics. At least 50 % of peoples behaviour can, in my opinion, directly be linked to their genes. It’s the rest, the things that determine who you really are that is interesting. If I had to jump to conclusions my thesis would be this;
I think that parents…shit I’m going to need coffee for this one…
I think that parents can form your entire youth to some extent, they probably have very little impact on your personal IQ, but they can have a rather large impact on decisions you make as a youth. But after you reach maturity, your decisions, behaviour and personality will be entirely yours. Once in a while you will do something out of respect for your parents, but I’d like to claim that even that is not linked to parenting as much as it is to love.
Although I stated that parenting will be reflected in a persons youth, you can never be sure on how it will be reflected.For example; A popular belief is that if a child comes in contact with cigarettes as a child, the same child will probably be a smoker. My best childhood friend had parents that both were smokers. He never touched a cigarette. My parents weren’t smokers. I started smoking when I was twelve.
I think that parents are kinda like alcohol. Imagine this scenario; Although intoxicated, she wouldn’t steal a candy bar until given the opportunity. Sober she wouldn’t steal the same candy bar although given the opportunity. To sum it up;
- She has a tendency to steal candy bars, but is too afraid to do it sober.
- When drunk, she will not steal a candy bar until she accidentally comes across an empty shop with candy bars.
Another scenario;
She finds the piano intriguing. She is too afraid to ask the local hotel owner, (that she knows owns a piano), if she could practice playing the piano at his place. Her parents notice that she talks a lot about that there is a local hotel owner that has got a piano. They encourage her to go ask the local hotel owner if she could play his piano.
- She is interested in playing piano, but is too afraid to do it without encouragement.
- Encouraged she wouldn’t play the piano unless there was a piano close by.
What I’m saying is that through your entire youth you are merely intoxicated by your parents beliefs and ideas, not necessarily in a negative way. Your behaviour will very much also be affected by opportunity given. In the end I would also like to add that there are millions of other things that may have a large impact on your personality during the first 20 years of your life. I, for instance, would probably not write this blog at all had I been a son to a multimillionaire in say, the United States.
Anyways, I just wanted to share some thoughts with you, I kept on writing as the thoughts struck me so the opinions that I just expressed, are much likely to differ from the opinions that I’ll have in five years.
…hello horsy, off to wonderland, away!
