Slice of Life
Cameron is doing an honors project on the theory of nature vs nurture. As I read through, I wonder which of the five big personality traits she inherited from me: openness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, extraversion, or agreeableness. I look closely at her and try to see myself. Then I think, what traits do I have of my mother? We try so hard to be so different from our parents-not to act, or say things that they might say, but then sometimes we say something and wonder why we hear our mother, or do things and envision them making the same movements.
What do I do that she shuns from? What might I say that she would not like to hear come out of her mouth?
Cameron has a test to find out your five big personality traits, maybe the results will be fodder for my writing. I am still working on my memoir, angling it towards mother daughter relationships. Is it nature or nurture?
3 comments:
I can see myself in my girls. My oldest is an adult now and on a recent visit, I saw how she is different. Part of the difference is that desire to not be like her mother and part is a real departure, her unique self. As I've aged, I see more of how I am like my mother. I also realize that with age, I put up less of a fight to reject this part of myself.
T, Come pick up your Splash Award.
I see so much of my mother in me ... and so much of her mother and sister, too. I go back and forth on the nature/nurture question. I know I'd be different in some ways if I'd grown up in a different place, with a more actively-parenting father, etc. But at the same time, in so many ways I think I'd still be so much who I am, still taking certain traits from my mom, from my grandmothers ...
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