Is it really mine if I have to share?
By: Charlotte Tuggle (with a little help from her Johnny Boy) – May 2020
Have you ever wondered why history repeats itself? Is there some inherent reason why we keep making the same mistakes over and over again? I’m now eighty three and John is seventy seven, and as I look at my children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren why are they not able to make better choices than I did. Why haven’t they learned? Did I not teach them? Recalling Robert Fulgrum’s Book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, it seems to be pretty basic stuff… say please, thank you, take turns, share, etc. Did I not read them Aesope’s Fables and The Little Train That Could?
The other day, my daughter was telling me about her daughter’s two boys who she takes care of two days a week. And she tells me how the older one is always bossing the younger one around. She also noted that the older one was quite skinny and the younger one by two years was beefier, and how she suspected the balance of power would be changing in the not too distant future.
Squabbles seem to usually revolve around things. At this age it’s mostly about toys. Is it universal that children feel that everything belongs to them… whether it belongs to them or not. Unfortunately, some of our world leaders, past and present, are still stuck in their childish dreams and are plagued by the same malady.
I paused and reminisced about all of the times she and her sisters had to work out similar issues and now they are having to do it with their own children. And so it goes… does it ever end? Is this why we are here? Or, is there a greater purpose?
There are other children not related to me. Jimmy is two years old and Eddie is six months old. Are they doomed to follow in Cain and Able’s footsteps? Is there some innate or primordial DNA embedded into our genome that cannot be bred out? Will this always be a part of us? Is this what defines us as a species? Or, is this just part of the human experience? Do our life’s choices and responses mold and define us? Or, do our choices make us who we are? Why are we who we are?
Is it nature or nurture or both? Does an experiment by a Russian scientist done in the twentieth century shed a bit of light on the question. For many years, he bred a skulk of feral foxes intent on discovering if their aggressive behaviors could be bred out of them. What do you think happened? He succeeded! How could he not succeed? Also, something else that wasn’t anticipated happened. The reddish brown fur of the foxes was slowly turning white as each generation of foxes became less aggressive. For more information on this topic see Belyaev’s farm fox experiment, We met the world’s first domesticated foxes, The Fox Domestication Project and the Genetics of Complex Behavior, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftjN2BQL_HQ
Meanwhile, Jimmy and Eddie are soaking up nature and nurture like there is no tomorrow. What are they learning? Do they wonder, when they do something funny and it makes people laugh, that’s OK even if it was unkind? Are they learning that the bigger you are the more right you are? Is this what I want them to learn?
Can fairness be taught? Can we teach children to be fair? Why do some kids seem to get it and some don’t? What do you think this says about us? Can offering different choices help? If we suggest one brother cuts the cupcake in half and the other chooses which half he wants? Would this help? Or, if the girls are fighting over a toy and one says it’s mine and the other says no, it’s mine. And, the parent intervenes and says “No, it’s really mine. I bought it, and I’m letting you play with it but only if you share and play nice.” Or, do we need to show them that sharing is better than saying “It’s mine!”
Does what we say and do as adults matter to children? Or, do they grow up regardless of how they are raised? Can we make a difference? In spite of everything we do or don’t do, can “good” parents raise their children to be “good.” Or, will some children always turn out to be bad because they are just bad no matter what you do?
Let your mind drift back to the time when you were a child. What were some of the good things you learned? What were some of the bad things you learned? Who taught you the good? The bad? What made you accept or reject the things you saw other kids or people do?
How did they teach you, by word or deed? How did you form your values?
How did Hitler learn to hate? Where did Mother Teressa learn to love? If there is a God, is this a test?
So many questions. What to do? What to do?