Are we really our parents' children?

Are we really our parents’ children?

This week’s discussion in class was highly informative, not to mention entertaining… It was a complex discussion for me because I really couldn’t offer much input. I know that must be a shock to anyone who knows me because I usually always have something to say. Our discussion was on habits, sayings, and beliefs passed down from one generation to the next, particularly from parents but also from the mass media and world around us.

I didn’t have much to offer for the discussion because I grew up quite differently than most ‘traditional’ children. I never knew my father whom my mother had divorced when I was only six months old. My mother was highly protective of me and I was not allowed to mingle with other children outside of the classroom. We didn’t have a lot of financial resources to make extracurricular activities possible regardless. I spent a lot of time around adults and grew up with the saying tattooed to my mind: “As long as you live in my house, you live under my rules.”

Despite all of this, I think I turned out ok. I matured much more quickly than my counterparts in school and adapted quite well to the adult world. The only problem was that I didn’t develop any real social skills or social life until I became a freshman in college at West Virginia University. I quickly learned that I didn’t really identify with others in my age group, not yet anyway. I came from a highly functional dysfunctional family. There are plenty of examples of this in the programs we see in the mass media.

Stewie Griffin comes from a family in which he is well cared for, but is always attempting to find new methods to exterminate his mother: Lois Griffin. He always fails but I think his presence demonstrates a highly disgruntled portion of American society. So many people are displeased with their family lives, among all of the other roles we play. So I must ask the question: Are we really our parents’ children? Does history repeat itself and do we conform to the standards our parents have set for us? Do we embrace nonconformity though, and form our own?

I believe that despite the high influx of information technology into American culture, and the continuing rise of the information superhighway, we are a generation that is a combination of both. We all tend to cling to our upbringing, but society has changed, even though it remains the same. It has changed in the sense that we spend less time with our families as we grow. The economic trend of yesterday and today require both parents to work often times… That’s assuming though that both parents are together and are involved in the family’s life. That’s an assumption we just can’t make. Families tend not to be traditional anymore. There are families with only a single parent, both parents, same-sex parents, or grandparents at the ‘helm’ among many other combinations I’m sure I’ve failed to mention.

We all take these numerous cues differently than those around us. This is what makes us unique. Even though we receive conditioning from our families as we grow, our world around us also gives us clues to draw from about the way life is supposed to be. Children have less time with their families, and more time with high availability of information in its many forms. So, are we truly our parents’ children, or have we evolved into something more complex? Perhaps time will tell as we raise our own children and continue to travel faster on the information superhighway.