Grandma's Revenge

The story of kid karma is pretty well-known. You drive your parents nuts being X kind of child, and you get X kind of child when you become a parent. As one comedian put it, the goal of parenthood is to live long enough to see your grandchildren get revenge on your kids.

My brother's firstborn is stubborn as a mule, much like his dad. Our dad loves to tell the anecdote of how my brother, at around 6 or 7 years old, refused to eat his dinner and sat at the table and made himself sick rather than eat a couple of bites of something he'd probably eaten before and has probably eaten since. This is the kid who later declared he wanted to slurp a raw egg, and mom went along with it just to see if he'd actually do it, so it's not about food grossing him out. He just wasn't going to eat his dinner, and nobody was darn well going to tell him otherwise.

The nephew is now exacting Grandma's Revenge on him, and thus all is well with the universe as I understand it.

I recently started thinking of what I was like as a kid. Of course, I only have my perspective to go on, but I remember being pretty closed off, content to lose myself in a book rather than engage with anyone (including or perhaps especially family). I also preferred to learn things "the hard way". I remember distinctly being told about this or that, and why you do something this way and not the other way. I also remember thinking in each of those circumstances, "maybe someone just hasn't really given the other way a fair shot". And then I'd go off and do it "the hard way", just to find out if what I'd been told was correct.

Most of the time, it was. But I was rewarded in my endeavors often enough that I kept up the pattern of behavior well into adulthood.

I don't know if my parents ever realized that I was doing things this way consciously and deliberately, but that's the way I learn. I have a visceral need to experience the failure of "the wrong way" first-hand. For me, learning is an iterative process, and that's probably why I love what I do for a living. Granted, my wife's patience doesn't allow for as much iteration as I'd prefer, especially when it comes to doing stuff around the house.

("Why can't we just leave it like that for a while? I'll eventually get tired of looking at the crooked board and figure out how to fix it.")

But I still learn best when I have time to discover and contemplate my mistakes rather than having someone point them out to me, or worse, try to anticipate my mistakes beforehand.

We're adopting, so maybe none of this applies at all, but I can't help thinking that more than likely I'll wind up with a kid who needs to learn experientially, who doesn't process criticism (even the constructive kind) gracefully, and who would rather be left alone with a book or computer than dragged to a family function, even something as entertaining as the Christmas get-together. I could also end up with a kid who's a little too smart and a little too anti-social for his own good. I think I'm up to the challenge, but only time will tell.

I know my parents are waiting to be entertained.