It's a scorcher in the NCR! Between panting and running through sprinklers, I'm wrestling with a contract and alternating between three contrasting reads: Black Like Me (John Howard Griffin, 1961), Conversations with Rabbi Small (1981), and Female Masculinities (Judith Halberstam, 1999). The thematic cocktail of these, along with some deep emotionality in my personal life, has led me to a new set of musings about expression and love. Mostly, I'm sitting with a sense of wonder with regard to what we, as different people, are exposed to in life and love, by choice or circumstance (are these things even separate?)... and what this does to us.
I've been thinking about all sorts of effects on love (I wish I had my colleague Patty's romantic love expertise here) including childhood experiences with siblings and peers. I know there are lots of offshoots of Bowlby that I haven't read and I'd like to return to attachment theories one day. Along this old school stream of psychology, when I was working as an addictions counsellor, I read something on effect of sibling order on personality and behaviour. I was skeptical as I thought the theory was trying to mash functionalism with pop-psych to birth some knowledge for the addictions field, but upon scanning the descriptions under "eldest child," "middle," "youngest," my skeptical self was humbled by how well the list described the behaviours of my own siblings and me (minus the corresponding drug habits).
This came to mind a few mornings ago as I sat in a cafe window watching a dad try to wrangle his three young girls and grocery bags down the sidewalk to the car. The younger one was a toddler. She was throwing a temper tantrum and the dad was grabbing onto her arm insisting she calm down. The middle one had wandered down the sidewalk and was winding herself around a parking meter and singing to herself. The eldest (who was carrying a grocery bag) stood about 4 feet southwest of the screaming child and watched in silence how the dad dealt with her. When the toddler stopped asserting herself, the eldest grabbed her hand and they walked to the car together.
As my dad used to say when I swung way into social constructionism, "Amanda, just watch children play. Boys throw rocks up the slide, girls organize their dolls in a circle" (or something like that). Maybe some things are the way they are, in all of their crude essentialism. I'm reminded of a Tina Fey interview in which she was asked by a member of the Google audience about raising her daughter to feel empowered to cross the boundaries of typical womanhood the way she herself has done with comedy. She responded by describing her bewilderment with her daughter's obsession with Barbies (and made some joke about how she'd be in trouble if she had a son with a corresponding gun collection).
But the sibling order stuff shows how we are also shaped by our surroundings and relationships. Watching the eldest child supervise dad + sibling in the sidewalk tantrum (no doubt so she can recount to mom), I had a flash of glee as I remembered what that felt like. Memories of my brothers and I squabbling at Extra Foods, my mom pausing with the cart to hurriedly scan her list or price check as we swarmed around her, and all of us queuing up like angels at the Valley Fair Mall bakery counter for smiley face cookies rewarding our good behaviour (even though it was never good) rushed to mind.
Now I'm wondering how my eldest child syndrome affects how I love. Do I love like a big chicken unconditionally loves a spazzing chicken? Do I love like a student classroom monitor loves the kids who stay in their seats? I shudder at the thought. I might have to start a poll.
No comments:
Post a Comment