Last weekend my husband was working outside and wearing crew socks to avoid poison ivy. He never wears crew socks, only ankle socks. I commented that he looked like his dad. He said that he thought he looked like our son! “Oh my gosh!” I said, “Crew socks skipped a generation!”
I can identify pieces of our personalities in all three of our kiddos: oldest is most self comfortable like me but moves much slower than DH or I, calling it conservation of energy; middle has my artsy interests but none of my chill; youngest had the drive for success from both DH and I but worries more that I do. I develop plans A thru M, and sit back. I have always worked to understand their personalities and styles and have helped DH in seeing them as independent thinkers.
When our daughter was six, she told us, “You know, I would be perfect if it weren’t for the bad qualities I inherited from you!” And of course she was right, about herself and her brother.
The main difference between us and our kids is that they don’t quite have our drive. Neither of us parents was pushed by our parents at all, but we were always achieving, academically and otherwise. With different styles – I was the naturally brilliant inspired type, my wife systematic and always working harder than anyone else to make up for what she was sure was a lack of intelligence imperceptible to anyone else – but pretty similar results. We didn’t push our kids, either, other than by example. They were always good students, but neither excelled quite the way their parents did, and they were quick to give themselves permission to pull up a little short. That has continued into adulthood. They are fine, smart people who work hard, but they don’t have the same kinds of ambition we had at their age. (Mine, to be in the room where the action was happening; my wife’s, to make concrete changes in the world for the better.) They are not likely to do as well as we did economically.
It hasn’t been hard to deal with that kind of difference. It’s not as though they were anti-intellectual slackers, and in many ways they are better, more admirable people than we. Also better looking. We love them a lot (although my wife gets frustrated by one child’s failure to be systematic enough in plotting career advancement).
Another interesting difference: Each of the parents chose a spouse who was very similar culturally to his or her own family. We were demographically very similar. Each of our kids’ spouses is from a very different culture/ethnicity, although there are of course tons of shared ideas, interests, and values.
I was dropping our youngest off for his sophomore year and twice someone called me by my son’s name. I am flattered. He has 25 lbs of muscle on him that I don’t.
My wife has all the qualities I was missing as a kid, mainly physically very strong and healthy with a farmer’s work ethic. I was undersized, asthmatic, and lazy yet very smart. I had report cards that said “great work, highest honors, is not working up to his potential.” I get bored easily. My wife is pretty smart and one of the hardest workers you will ever meet.
With kids we were blessed times 3 and feel very fortunate. To us each one is unique with a mix of our qualities that works well. To outsiders they would seem like carbon copies of each other and definitely related to us.
The one telling difference is the environment in which they were raised. My younger years were spent in a string of budget apartments with a couple stints living in a tent. Occasional meals were rice with ketchup or noodles with margarine. I learned both the kindness and cruelty of other people. My parents eventually bought a small house, furnished it with garage sale finds, and climbed into the middle class.
My kids all had things I never had: soccer shoes, new bikes, a pantry, their own bedrooms, a sense of security about their food and housing, an upper-middle class lifestyle in an upper-middle class neighborhood, their own passports. Their attitudes are much more in line with the prevailing attitudes you see from the parents on this site.