I'm working on coming up with the html code to create a totally unscientific poll, which I thought would be fun to include here, not to mention educational for me, since I've never done anything like that. Yet.
In an attempt to address the third of my nephew Hank's three questions about our family (see his post of August 17), I've noted in earlier posts of my own that my dad's parents and my maternal grandfather's parents immigrated to this country during the early 20th century, that all of our forebears were working class, that they had a pretty intense interest in political current events (I guess I need to talk about my paternal grandfather in that regard), and that ideologically most of them tended to lean pretty far to the left.
Some studies have suggested that one's parents generally exert the greatest influence upon a person's developing worldview (and subsequent political leanings), and that seems reasonable to me, though other factors such as educational attainment, peer groups, foreign travel, and institutional affiliations also can hold some sway. The thing is, each of us was born into a family story and began patterning ourselves from Day One, intentionally or not, on others' models. It all dovetails with one of the themes of this family history blog, which is to illuminate how we've transmitted some attitudes and behaviors intergenerationally.
This stuff matters a lot to me, both personally and professionally. I worked really hard as a young mom to nip some of the gnarlier branches off my behavioral vine as well as encourage some more positive ones to develop and flourish. I wanted to provide a helpful role model for my daughters. For instance, that's partly what propelled me (a former high school dropout) back into school. When Daughter #3 was four years old, I attended, with a friend's encouragement, a community ed class, which led to a community college class, which led to an AA degree, and on to an art history and criticism major that ended up getting sidelined in the last year. After my migration north (described in Oregon Trail Mix), my dad was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. The thought of all the things he'd never be able to do spurred me back into action. No longer thinking of my kids, who were grown by this time, I completed a degree in sociology, and I'm just now embarking in a master's program in social work, which I hope will help me help other people prune their hedges with optimal creative intention. Now it seems kind of silly for me to have worked so hard to have set an example, since it happened, for better or worse, when I wasn't looking anyway.
Oh. Just this moment I had a minor insight. I don't know if this is something I want to talk about, but since I seem to drone on about all sorts of weird stuff, I guess I will.
Monday was my first day of school. I have to commute 100 miles to The Big City for classes. Actually, because parking is so limited and expensive downtown where campus is, AND because I most certainly don't conform to the profile of an early riser who might reliably make a 2-hour commute to arrive on time for an 8:00 class, I've decided to stay with my brother's family on Sunday nights and zip into town on the train Mondays. What a new and daunting trick for this old dog! So I went on line and spent at least an hour or two reading every scrap of information I could find relative to the various lines and stops and alternate routes I would be taking. I scoured maps and zoomed in and out and in again and ended up printing five pages -- in color -- of my trip plans. I bought tickets and counted stops. I drew circles and arrows and wrote instructions to myself about fares and zones and validators and time lines and anything else that wandered through my line of sight. Then I went and visited the park and ride (twice, just to make sure I remembered how to get there). And then the big day arrived... and it was kind of like breathing. Nothing to it. Later I confessed all of this to someone I know, brandishing my sheaf of instructions, and we had a good belly laugh over what a small-town girl I am.
Anyway, the insight, for what it's worth, had to do with my pattern of expending great thunderheads of energy doing what comes naturally. I'm sure if I thought about it, I could come up with a passel of examples. (Don't worry, I won't.) It's funny, though; I was just talking to Daughter #3 last week about different ways in which some of us manifest our insecurities and this never even remotely occurred to me.
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"I tell myself there is only one true thing in our world, to satisfy one's heart, to feel and go to the bottom of all one's feelings, to desire and go to the bottom of all one's desires; finally to live one's own life, one's sincere life, outside of all lies and all conventions." --Wallace Stevens
