Absolutely agreeing with you on this!
At the same time as people and children are unique, and one can't behave the same way with everyone or expect that what worked with the first child, works exactly the same with the second one, there are few basic things that parents should know and do right, in order to give a loving, safe and stable life for their children. And with that, most children do grow up right and do know how to behave. And after saying that I should add that behaving badly is not the same thing as being bad. It's bad behavior models that are learnt from someone or somewhere. So at this point that parent should look to the mirror. Not necessarily saying that the parents would have behaved badly, but to question, why that child or a young adult is behaving that way. Where does the anger or frustration come from?
There might be few exceptions. Few children that grow up right, even if their parents are the worst parents in the world. And few children might grow up to be terrible adults, although their parents truly did their best. Might be. In most cases, not.
Being a parent is a full time work, sometimes really hard work, so luck has nothing to do with the fact how a child grows up and what becomes of them. Meaning their personality.
And as you said, that "Oh how lucky you are" mentality goes to other areas of life too. Working, money and abilities.
Luck is, if someone wins in a lottery. After they decided to participate in it.
Bad luck is if someone happens to be in an accident that they truly had nothing to do with. Meaning they didn't cause it.
It might be that because of where someone is born, what genes they have, is their family rich or poor, do they have supporting family and friends, what gender they are or are they beautiful looking by modern day standards, not anyone can be a world famous politician, a haute couture model, scientist or a horse whisperer. But most of us can go pretty far if given loving and understandable parent(s) who know how to bring up kids and if that person as an adult is willing to work hard for their dreams.
I'm with you on everything there.
I read somewhere once that children's characters are about 50% genetic and 50% environment. Of course there are sometimes mental issues that will put a child on another track altogether. Even in those cases, the guidance receive early on goes a long way towards helping that child stay on track as they move into adulthood.
It's exhausting work raising children, but if you don't get on top of issues early on, they'll only get worse and harder to deal with later, as that woman discovered, yet still never seemed to acknowledge.
There are, of course, those extremely rare circumstances in life where everything has fallen into place well for someone and they have never had to put in much effort for what they have and there is the opposite extreme. However, there can be no arguing that if you never do anything to try and improve your lot then you're pretty much guaranteed to stay as you are. Like you say, you can be the luckiest person in the world, but if you don't get a lottery ticket, you can't win the lottery. Even if a winning lottery ticket lands at your feet, you still have to pick it up and take it in to get any winnings.
Posted using Partiko Android
This is a bit side track but apparently trauma can pas down to generations as the trauma changes the DNA. So what has happened to you and your parents and to their parents and so on, has an effect on your children. I found this from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenerational_trauma
But of course before we go there, the thing we talked about, parenting and what are the living conditions at home, should always be examined first.
Makes me wonder thou. I just recently learned that my mothers father and his sister were orphaned when they were young children, about 5 to 7 years old. That was during the Finnish civil war. Their parents were both send to a concentration camp for reds (that's what the different sides were called: reds and whites and whites won), executed there and both children waited outside the fences for few days for their mother to come and see them daily, until she was executed and their neighbor came for the children. My grandfather and his sister.
Really makes me wonder about all the wars and terrible things that have happened in the world. To individuals and to whole nations. Genetic memory of trauma.
But before I blame the Finnish civil war for my present actions, I really should always first look to the mirror for the person responsible for my actions. Because I have, and had good parents and they knew what they were doing. And if they didn't know, they sure hid it well and I was convinced. :D
Oh, and back to the topic, I didn't even get started with the stretching fact. People saying to me, and being serious, that they can not reach their toes with knees straight because they have short arms or because they have always been not that flexible. My answer has always been something like: "Well, there are some extreme cases when someones joints or muscles are for some reason so short or not mobile enough that certain stretches may be impossible. But for the rest of us, it's all about not doing it enough. Daily. Not drinking enough so that the body remains flexible." But that's not what they want to hear, so they remain thinking and repeating the same mantra to themselves and to others: "I was built this way, there's nothing I can do about it, to be more flexible."
Funnily enough my father's father and sister were also orphaned and sent to separate orphanages. For many years my grandfather didn't even know he had a sister. It wasn't as traumatic as for your grandparents, I don't think my grandfather was old enough to remember his parents anyway, but the orphanage probably did a number on him... and now I'm starting to see some rather disconcerting patterns with his offspring. My dad's oldest sister wasn't the biological child of his father and she's the most stable of them all!
I wasn't aware there was a Finnish civil war. Something else to learn something about.
You were quick to answer, I just finished editing my post as I had "one more thing" to say. As always. :D
I have no idea if it was traumatic to my grandfather. But it sure makes one think about things. And the world. People in it.
Oh no. :)
Finnish civil was was about the same time as the first world war.
So Finns concentrated on killing each other. Like in civil wars usually. Families torn apart because thinking a bit differently and forced to take black and white sides. Or in this case, red and white sides.
Well that's an interesting addition to the world war. A civil war on the side! You've made me feel old too, if your grandparents were children during the war! ;D Mine were adults and their children born just after the war.
Does 'red' refer to those on the Russian thinking side? I know the Soviet was referred to as the 'red army.'
Fortunately, what counts is the mental age, and as we know, we are all just small children who wonder all the time what is this adult outer shell that we suddenly now happen to have. "Just yesterday I was a child and what is this!" :D
One word and definition for the Finnish civil war has been the Class war. Poor vs. rich. Or work force and the others. So in a way, you could think that reds had more Russian thinking in their mind. But as always, things are not that simple. So were communists, some just wanted better wages and living conditions. Some, like my great grandfather, were involved in a union (or a society). He was the chairman of the local union and although her wife, my great grandmother, according to neighbors, didn't participate to that union, she was also executed because she stayed beside her husband or because people (reds especially) at that time just were executed on fairly lightly causes. That's what the historical records say.
Also whites got some of their weapons from Germany as reds got those from Russia. Finland announced itself independent from Russia 1907 and Russia did nothing to it because it had it's own problems, but as the whites won the civil war, Finland was properly independent not until Germany had lost at First wold war. Pretty confusing.
Don't let me get started about the second world war... :D Again between two evils, Russia and Germany.
So if Finland was a person, and thinking about Finlands history, one could think that Finland was pretty lucky and unlucky at the same time. Finns did their best and in an unlucky situation, got lucky and managed to get their independence (while killing each other) when Russia wasn't looking and after second world war, as Germany burned down Lapland when they left, stayed independent.
But of course there were several people making hard decisions at the time and because of their effort, we are here now. So not that much about the luck thing. :)
Sorry for rambling so much off topic, I did however sum it up to the: "Oh, how lucky you are!" mentality. :D
No apologies necessary. I've learnt so much, not least pay better attention whilst reading. You did say the first world war and I assumed second! Yet even in my jumping to conclusions I've gained another pearl of wisdom:
It also makes me realise that in many ways the first war was overshadowed by the second and many of us have learnt little about it. In a way that's a shame, because there should always be something to be learnt from these sorts of horrors.
My grandfather on my mother's side straddled both wars, but was too young to be sent to the fighting the first time and too old the second. And now I'm going way off topic! It certainly makes me feel lucky to have never experienced war, but I've often wondered if I will have to in my lifetime.
Posted using Partiko Android
Me too lucky and me too wondering. I think there are nations and leaders that seem to have learned very little from previous wars and history.
Transgenerational trauma
Transgenerational trauma is trauma that is transferred from the first generation of trauma survivors to the second and further generations of offspring of the survivors via complex post-traumatic stress disorder mechanisms.