In Part 1 we talked about how we are all in relationship with various people in our life. Part of the call of parents is to mold children. We also spoke about how children and parents are called to evolve and grow. In order to do so, we want to first establish a starting point. In this entry, we will be looking at the nature part of the nature vs. nurture conversation.
Looking at the picture above, believe it or not it is an actual father and son who dressed up for Halloween as one other. I’ll admit I was a little creeped out by it - still am, but there is a point to be made. Our children are not mirror images of us, so why do we as parents often expect children to fully align to our way of being? Especially, when we, as children, didn’t fully align to our parents way of being. The quick answer is, life would be a whole lot easier if they were. No drama, no fuss, no headaches. It would be eutopia! Or perhaps a bit dangerous…think Dr. Evil and Mini-Me.
CLIP (2 mins) Of when Dr. Evil and Mini-me meet for the first time, from Austin Powers (1997)
Nurture is what you do as a parent. Nature is our innate God given way of being. The idea started way back with Hippocrates, when he called them “humors”. Within this article, we learn that Hippocrates theorized that our personality traits and human behaviors are based on four separate temperaments associated with four fluids (“humors”) of the body: choleric temperament (yellow bile from the liver), melancholic temperament (black bile from the kidneys), sanguine temperament (red blood from the heart), and phlegmatic temperament (white phlegm from the lungs). His worked was continued by others and the below illustrates a more present day view of four temperaments developed over the years. I would encourage you to look through the chart below to determine which traits you most identify with.
DISCLAIMER…Don’t go rushing to put all your eggs in one basket! Think of the above illustration as a pallet of (four different) paint colors. While you may see bits of yourself (your child, spouse, family, friends) in each, there are certain colors that are more predominant. Thus your piece of art may contain more green or yellow while your loved one(s) is more blue or red. I would ask you, which of the four temperaments above is the correct or ideal temperament? Trick question: their isn’t one. Yes, you might like to think yours is though! If no one is ‘the one’, then life becomes a journey of discovering how to celebrate strengths as well as growing in our weaknesses.
“A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. It’s beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want.”
This is where virtues come in to guide us along right paths. This is also where deepening your understanding of your own, as well as your child’s, individual makeup plays into cultivating harmony and connection within your relationship with each other. Being able to learn to strike a balance, rather then just saying
How two individuals interact in any given situation is determined by more than just temperament. A combination of additional factors including current disposition, stress level, past experiences, sleep, the last time you ate - so how ‘hangry’ (hungry, angry) you might be, and much more adds to the context of the situation and influences how things play out. That said, temperament is at the foundation and most often our true colors show forth. One might suggest that when we have like temperaments we may align and get along more. There are temperaments whose traits naturally oppose one another. Two much of one temperament could also be a recipe for disaster. So when you think about the potential conflict between you and your child (spouse, is it truly because they are trying to disrespect you, or do you both simply have different innate styles or ways of being?
Four temperaments is a proto-psychological theory that suggests that there are four fundamental personality types, sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholic.
In our last entry we will look into how we nurture or cultivate love with others when we are different.
