I have grown to see the opportunity the classic "nature vs. nurture" debate, or the argument over the determinants responsible for human development, more specifically factors affecting children's ability to grow into healthy adults and adopt certain traits, opens for selfish, egoic parents to completely indemnify themselves of any and all responsibility associated with disruptive mental conditions in their children. I used to laugh off critics who accused parents of blaming "nurture", or society and the personal experiences that accompany communities, for all their child's ailments, but were first in line to praise and promote the same child's accomplishments in school, often indirectly claiming and celebrating credit for their A+ in calculus, hence "nature", as irresponsible, poor, etc. parents, mainly because I was in love with the pop culture parental ideology.
I have learned yet another lesson in life. Yes, my Grandpa would be proud; "boy, life ain't fair now, ya' hear?"
I have since experienced this miracle of, what I call, "total positive attribute responsibility", or otherwise known as "I''ll take credit for everything awesome about my pro-creation, and anything failing to coddle or stroke my ego is automatically, obviously, and arguably the result of factors affecting my pro-creation that are clearly out of my control". Let me provide some examples of credit-taking, subconscious or not, some I'm sure will hit very close to home.
"We are so proud of our daughter. She is really excelling in sports, and making awesome grades. Her father was always such a diligent student, and I won state on the balance-beams in 1978."
"Our son graduated honors in engineering. I just know he gets that math stuff from his Dad! I was never good with numbers."
"Our son has a beautiful girlfriend, and they will likely marry and have adorable children. I was always told he had my eyes, and he definitely gets his lips from his father."
"Our son is such a hard-working American. We made sure he learned the value of a dollar at an early age, and now look at him... trying million-dollar cases... and winning!"
Now, let's look at some relate-able scenarios where parents duck and dodge negative characteristics their children may be starting to display or are already demonstrating full-blown symptoms.
"We just found out our daughter, at 16, is pregnant. Can you believe that? What are we going to do? I always knew that boy she was dating was bad news."
"Our 27 year-old son was recently diagnosed with severe depression. I always feared those concussions he experienced in middle school and high school football would lead to this. It's all over the internet, how concussions cause depression."
"Our son beat-up another school mate today. Can you believe what video games are teaching kids these days? It's unacceptable. Congress needs to intervene."
"That rap music! It's ruining my daughter's discipline for use of clean, friendly language! I taught her better than that. We need to stop those rappers!"
Please note all are fictional, and unrelated, respectively, to one another. And sure, you can argue either side (nature vs. nurture) for any of these statements. Sure, a son may get his math skills from his dad, and a girl may very well learn to say "bitch" from Snoop Dog. But what I want you to see is how powerful ego preservation and defense can be, even when a child's well-being is either at risk or already compromised. I do not have the answer; parents will always, forever, without any judicial consequences, be able to assign blame for unfavorable behavior in their child to society; was it the fact that the daughter knew Mom was pregnant at 16 that caused her to believe such is acceptable since "Mommy did it", or was it an article in Cosmopolitan Magazine on "how to tease your man tonight... be young, sexy, fabulous, and hot..."? No way to tell.
All I know is I have seen parents do an excellent job promoting their children's strengths simply because it reflects positively on them, just like when they write their resume, and fail to take responsibility for weaknesses simply because it may, although you can argue otherwise, "chink" at the armor of the self-image they have heavily invested in creating and protecting.
To Moms, Dads...
Step up. Help diagnose and cure. Otherwise you could be trying to celebrate that all-state high school football story while friends and teachers share stories of how depressed he was the two years leading up to his suicide. Going to be tough to ignore whether or not more could have been done when "there are plenty of fish in the sea, so stop sulking and get those A's in history back" was all that was said in reaction to his constant sadness after his girlfriend broke up with him... "we thought it was just puppy love... he was too young to be in love", or how maybe since depression and alcoholism really did run rampant on dad's and mom's side of the family, respectively, but conveniently ignored, could have played a factor in his decision to end his life. Hold yourself accountable in helping those same math whizzes, sports stars, and doll-faces deal with and confront the root issues in their early pregnancies, severe depression, and anger / rage before those same children have 14 more kids, commit suicide, or kill someone, as adults.
Don't abandon. The time when they need help the most is the same time your parenting reputation is on the line. Choose them. Choose to "nurture" your "nature" instead of choosing "nurture" to indemnify your "nature".
Because after all... does it really matter whether or not it was "nurture" or "nature"? Does it matter if his closet, chronic alcoholism is a result of your genetics or effective iPhone app advertising associated with Angry Birds? No. It doesn't. What matters is your pro-creation has built a dependency on a dangerous substance, and you can help break it. Ignoring it or blaming elsewhere will most certainly do at least one thing...
not help it.
Make a commitment today. Commit to take responsibility for the "good" and the "bad" in your children, whether you already have them or not. And I don't mean you have to promote their new anti-depressant prescription after sharing their LSAT score at your next black tie affair or on the detergent aisle at Wal-Mart. You can keep your facade. I mean if you are going to attribute their LSAT abilities to your or your spouse's nature, then you automatically assume responsibility for the possibility the same nature is a factor in their depression.
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