#aunt

My sister had her baby in the middle of May and I. am. in. love!  My niece is only 6 weeks old and I think I have taken like 800 pictures and videos of her.  I am clearly biased, but she is the sweetest, most beautiful baby ever.  Luckily, my sister only lives 2 miles from me, so I have seen her almost every day since she was born.

My boyfriend has been very stressed out lately with work and has also been struggling with bad depression.  I am so happy that he is very taken with the baby too and is a great uncle to her.  Last week, after a particularly crazy work day for him, he saw the baby at night and was holding her and made a comment that he felt so much less stressed out just watching her sleep in his arms.  It was such a sweet thing to say, but it made me think about the effect that having her around has had on all of us.  I look at this little baby and I just want her to have the best life possible.  I teach The Great Gatsby to my 11th graders and in one scene Daisy says about her young daughter, “I hope she’ll be a fool- that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”  I always thought this was a cruel wish for a mother to make, but now I sort of understand more what Daisy meant.  I certainly want my niece to be very smart and very well-educated, but what Daisy really meant is that she wanted her daughter’s life to be EASY.  I know things will not always be “easy” for my niece, that is unrealistic, but I want things to be better for her than they were for my sister and me growing up.  We suffered through so much trauma and I want my niece to have a wonderful, happy childhood.

A super embarrassing thing about me is that I still suck my thumb.  I am 38 years old.  It is my one true vice and I have done it all my life.  I saw my baby niece put her thumb in her mouth the other day and I was like, “noooooo!”  I know babies do that when they are hungry or for self-soothing, but I don’t want her to have that- or any- bad habit.

It will be amazing to watch her grow and learn and see the person she becomes and I hope to be a very positive influence in her life.  I don’t want her to be afraid of things the way I am.  I want her to be confident and strong…and maybe someday be a teacher (lol!).

Nature v. Nurture

During my therapy appointment on Monday, we discussed the concept of nature versus nurture.  I was curious about where she stood professionally on the topic.  She believes that it is a 60/40 split (60% nature/40% nurture), although she emphasized that an individual’s personality is a makeup of multiple factors.  I agree with this, but I think I have been affected more by “nurture” in my life, rather than “nature”.

My family moved to NJ from TX when I was in the 6th grade.  Shortly after settling into our new home, it quickly became apparent that something was different about my father.  My dad actually moved almost a year before we did so that he could begin his new job and supervise our home being built.  During that time alone, my father’s social drinking became full-blown alcoholism.  Once our family was reunited, things seemed to change overnight…for the worse.  My fun, easygoing dad had turned into a monster.  I would get into bed at night and wish that we never moved.  In my mind, if we had stayed in Texas, nothing would have changed.

I have wondered a few times in my adult years what my life would be like if we had not moved.  Would my dad be an alcoholic? Would my sister and I be as close as we are now? Would my parents be happily married? These are questions I will never have answers to.  I do believe I would probably be a very different person, though, had we not moved.  I am a type A personality.  I like things organized.  I am task-oriented.  I prefer things to be done a certain way (aka my way).  Those aspects of my personality, the “nature”, would most likely remain the same.  But my anxiety, my desire to please people, my need for control, my inability to make decisions…I know that is all “nurture”.  I am a pretty textbook case of a child of an alcoholic.  I have never wanted to blame things on the fact that I was raised in an alcoholic family, but there is no way to deny that it affected me very deeply.

Where do you stand when it comes to Nature versus Nurture??