What Makes a Person
Born under the same roof, how do siblings turn out different?
She’s here! In case you missed it, Alex and Jen had their baby! Welcome to the world, Harper. With that being said, Alex is enjoying some time at home with the family, so this week you get me. If we haven’t met, I’m Diana Holder. Alex and I have known each other since college and have worked together in three different places over the years. If you don’t like what I have to say here, no fret, Alex will be back soon 😉.
On the timely topic of having kids, I have three of my own and I’ve noticed something you may have too: if you have kids or even a sibling, they’re all quite different, right? Raised in the same home, by the same people, with mainly the same ingredients and environment, it’s likely they turned out worlds apart.
Why is that?
One might say their unique mix of DNA is what separates them, but I think there are other factors at play as well.
Birth Order
You may have seen funny Reels or TikToks about stereotypical kids’ birth order, but I think there’s something to this. If you have an older sibling or a firstborn, more than likely you treated them (or were treated) with caution. Unsure what they were capable of in the beginning, and high expectations to be helpful as they grew up are pretty typical for firstborns. As kids grow, they either lean into this “I am depended upon” or grow weary of it and settle into a “I want to do what I want to do” mindset.
You might be thinking, “Well yes, everyone is aware of that.” But really think about it. If you were born with exact same DNA but in a different order in the lineup or even as an only child, do you think you would be a different person now as an adult?
Core Moments
If you’ve seen Pixar’s, Inside Out, you might be having a mental image of the memory orbs or “islands” of personality. If you haven’t, it might sound like I’m losing my mind. Watch this short clip to get caught up (and also you should go watch the whole movie—it’s great even if you aren’t watching with kids).
Think of something you really enjoy. Now start to trace it back. For me, it’s nature. My dad was a camp director until I was eight years old and I spent my days barefoot in the grass. To me, those were fun memories, things I enjoyed. What about a favorite sports team? I’d imagine you can trace that back to your childhood and memories watching games growing up.
On a more serious note, maybe you grew up in a large family and reading became your escape from the chaos. Where has that led you today? Maybe a teacher or coach made a statement that deeply impacted you—for better or worse—and altered your trajectory or at the very least shaped your personality.
Friend Choice
This last one, I think, as a parent worries me the most. It’s something I can’t necessarily change but something I can impact as they grow. We want our kids to have good friends, right? But how far do we go to affect that? Do we put them in private school so they’re surrounded by what we might consider “the more elite”? Of course the negatives of that, as we’ve gone over in previous Content & Context articles, if we only surround ourselves with like-minded, our minds will never change.
Consider your friends growing up and how they impacted you. What if you’d been zoned for a different school or decided to sit at a different lunch table that first week of school. How might your life be different now?
So why even contemplate all this? It sounds like half is left to the roll of the dice and half seems to be “playing God” if we intervene too much. Where does that leave us?
I think there’s a few key takeaways from all this:
Have grace on other’s stories. You might know their upbringing or be familiar with their family but we don’t always know what’s going on under the surface.
Cultivate good in your children (or your friends or even coworkers). If you see something positive in them, help them lean into that. Be that teacher that made an impactful comment. If you see something about them that could have negative affects later, support them however you can safely rather than trying to tell them what to do or not to do.
Know there’s always time to change. Maybe your upbringing wasn’t the greatest. That cycle doesn’t have to continue. You really can be the change you want to see and all that jazz.
Thanks for listening and back to your regularly scheduled programming.