I was spending time with our son and his 2 year old daughter over a meal a few weeks ago and was a little taken aback to hear him use the same words and phrases that we used with him when he was being a little fussy with his meal. I then had the exact same experience with our daughter and her 20-month-old daughter.
It was as if someone had recorded our attempts to get our children to eat at least some of their meal. I’m sure most parents remember the old “just three big bites and you don’t have to eat any more” or “that’s a baby bite, take a big bite”. These are things that I’m pretty sure every parent has used at one time or another.
That got me thinking about other things in our lives that are the same as our parents and grandparents as well as our own children and grandchildren. For example, when I look down at my hands on this keyboard, I see my grandmother’s hands and my father’s hands. I am a little disappointed because my mother always had such delicate hands and I had hoped that mine would be the same.
I remember my grandmother on her knees weeding the garden and how much we thought her backside looked like an elephant. I have a very strong suspicion that if someone were to take a picture of my backside while I was weeding I would see the same thing. My daughter really looks like my grandmother while apparently I walk just like my mother’s sister. I even do something funny with my toes and the bed sheet that came as a complete shock to my Mom when I was around 12 because again, I was doing something that her sister had always done. My son’s daughter sometimes looks like a carbon copy of him, sometimes of her mom and more recently she is looking a lot like the daughter of my sister-in-law.
I find it fascinating how things like looks, habits, walks etc. seem to be passed down through families. What I find most interesting though is that these characteristics do not always come from the parents alone but can be the same as a distant relative on either side of the family.
Have you ever really watched your children, taken good look at yourself or watched friends you’ve known two or three generations. It may just prove to be an interesting exercise.
It reminds me a little of something that happened to me around Grade 2. One day we were all given a reading book called The Little Red Reading Book. On the front of the book was a drawing of a little girl reading a book with the same name and a picture on the front of a little girl reading a book with the same name and a picture on the front…… I’m sure you get the idea. Then I wondered if someone was looking at the same book as me but I was the little girl reading the book on the front cover.
While each picture was essentially the same, there were bound to be little differences. Just like us, our children and other family members.
Deb Huntley is the new Pipestone Flyer sales representative for the Leduc area.