Being like your parents, when you don't want to be

[PoliticalBiscuit]

I had a difficult day with my mother yesterday, and was lamenting to my husband on the way home about how I can see her trauma, and her thought processes. I can see similarities but I remarked that I don't feel like her, and I don't feel similar to her but I have started to realise in my 30s that we have similar instincts and reactions.

My husband commented "It's like you both have the same controls but are driving different machines"

And I thought that was a really nice way of looking at it.

That's a great way of looking at it and actually tremendously helpful to me. Thanks for posting this

Blood memory is a complex thing but worth reading up on if you don't already know about it.

I've had so many revelations since thinking more about my ancestors and their fears...what drove them.

I've always had a horrific fear of any kind of institution....schools, colleges, government buildings...the architecture alone fills me with horror.

Found out my Grandmother (born 1910) grew up dirt poor in Liverpool literally in the shadow of the Workhouse.
It must have been a constant fear for them...her Dad was a docker...often out of work etc.

That fear was passed down.

In many ways I am turning into my mother, and have come to realise it's not such a bad thing. In the few ways that I really don't want to be like her, I think carefully about why not, whether I have those tendencies, and how I can consciously decide to be different.

What has made me think about this recently is seeing my traits emerging in DS (4). I used to be very tabula rasa, but it is both reassuring and terrifying to see how personality and attitude are fixed early. He has given me some horrible insights into my own tendency to argue and question everything, and how tedious that can be for others.

Basically I think we can learn a lot from these similarities, if we can bear to acknowledge them.

"Basically I think we can learn a lot from these similarities, if we can bear to acknowledge them."

So true