I once heard a wise woman say that human beings are by nature imitators. At no other time in life is that more obvious than when you are raising children.
When babies are first born, everyone wants to know who they look like. For weeks it’s the biggest debate in the house. You half expect to turn on Fox News and hear Hannity and Colmes discussing whether your child has big ears like you do or a huge head like your husband. But after the excitement of a new baby has worn off, and real life starts to kick in, nobody really cares who the kid looks like. It’s all about how he acts.
As time passes, the “sleeping, eating, and pooping machine” (as my 12 year-old sister-in-law calls it) starts to develop into a real person. This is when we really start to see who the child resembles. Does he sit quietly for hours, perfectly content to play by himself? Or does he become easily frustrated when he can’t make his toys do what he wants them to do? From the way he raises his eyebrows when he is excited, to the wrinkling of his nose when he laughs, so many of our kids’ mannerisms can be traced back to us.
The older the child gets, the more we begin to see ourselves—or our spouses—in our kids’ actions. Children so often will give a surprisingly accurate reflection of the things we say, the things we don’t say, and the way we spend our time.
I’ve discovered the favored place for my kids to mimic these fun, family traits is during church services. When the baby picks up the checkbook at holds it to his ear like a telephone, or rummages through my purse to discover a calculator—which he instantly points to the pulpit in an attempt to mute the preacher—it is then that I know the kid has been watching our every move. Whether he is growling or grunting, I can tell by his inflected tone that he is trying to repeat exactly whatever it is that he has just heard. Of course we see this much more clearly in our oldest, who is extremely verbal. On a recent Sunday morning during the serving of the Lord’s Supper, for no apparent reason at all, he shouted in a deep, devilish voice, “Dadgumit!” (It’s at times like these, that a mother understands the real reason they call it a “cry room”.)
Children learn what they see; that’s a fact. The evidence is apparent from the time they are babes in our arms until the day they leave our homes, the respectable individuals we hope we have raised. And while some aspects of their personalities may be innate, it is clear that others are simply learned. Now there’s a lesson for us all.
And that’s "All in a day’s work. "
When babies are first born, everyone wants to know who they look like. For weeks it’s the biggest debate in the house. You half expect to turn on Fox News and hear Hannity and Colmes discussing whether your child has big ears like you do or a huge head like your husband. But after the excitement of a new baby has worn off, and real life starts to kick in, nobody really cares who the kid looks like. It’s all about how he acts.
As time passes, the “sleeping, eating, and pooping machine” (as my 12 year-old sister-in-law calls it) starts to develop into a real person. This is when we really start to see who the child resembles. Does he sit quietly for hours, perfectly content to play by himself? Or does he become easily frustrated when he can’t make his toys do what he wants them to do? From the way he raises his eyebrows when he is excited, to the wrinkling of his nose when he laughs, so many of our kids’ mannerisms can be traced back to us.
The older the child gets, the more we begin to see ourselves—or our spouses—in our kids’ actions. Children so often will give a surprisingly accurate reflection of the things we say, the things we don’t say, and the way we spend our time.
I’ve discovered the favored place for my kids to mimic these fun, family traits is during church services. When the baby picks up the checkbook at holds it to his ear like a telephone, or rummages through my purse to discover a calculator—which he instantly points to the pulpit in an attempt to mute the preacher—it is then that I know the kid has been watching our every move. Whether he is growling or grunting, I can tell by his inflected tone that he is trying to repeat exactly whatever it is that he has just heard. Of course we see this much more clearly in our oldest, who is extremely verbal. On a recent Sunday morning during the serving of the Lord’s Supper, for no apparent reason at all, he shouted in a deep, devilish voice, “Dadgumit!” (It’s at times like these, that a mother understands the real reason they call it a “cry room”.)
Children learn what they see; that’s a fact. The evidence is apparent from the time they are babes in our arms until the day they leave our homes, the respectable individuals we hope we have raised. And while some aspects of their personalities may be innate, it is clear that others are simply learned. Now there’s a lesson for us all.
And that’s "All in a day’s work. "
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