How much alike are you to your parents? How many times have you caught yourself behaving exactly like they do? How many times have you caught yourself making the same mistakes they made, even after they had warned you about it?
This is something I’m constantly reminded of.
My parents divorced before I was five. And while my father was present in my life for the most part in my early years, my mother had the greatest influence on me. I ate the food she cooked, listened to the music she listened to, and learned how to be self-sufficient at a very young age. I’d be left home alone sometimes and she wouldn’t have to worry because I could take care of myself. But despite being raised by my mother, and therefore being socially conditioned to be more like her, I could never truly shake off genetics.
To start off with, I look exactly like my dad. I don’t mean that figuratively, I mean that literally. My family is always joking with me about how having me around is like having my dad around. The way I eat, sit, move my hands, laugh, what I laugh at, react, talk, joke … everything is exactly the way he does it. I kid you not, there have been times where I’ve glanced at the mirror and could swear that I had seen my father’s face in the mirror and have had to double-take to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind. But as funny or astonishing as our similarities may be, I’m not laughing.
You see, the problem isn’t so much people bringing up the fact that I’m so similar to my father. To me, the biggest insult is the assumption that I am like him in every way. And although there are many personal, emotional reasons, I don’t want to be like him, this isn’t an appropriate forum to do so. But there are many practical reasons why I’m bothered by the comparisons.
To be compared to someone almost every single day makes you feel invisible. I never felt that people were looking at me. It was as if they were looking at me as if I was my father’s “mini-me.” Nothing I did was something I wanted to do out of my own volition, but some genetic predisposition that guided me towards things my father did. Kevin never did anything because Kevin wanted. Kevin did things because his father would have done that, or did do that.
Now I’m not taking away from the fact that I may be very similar to him in many ways, but psychologically it’s tiresome. You’re not taken seriously. You’re not you. I basically felt that what these people, my family, were telling me was that my personality and life was predestined to be just like my father’s. I have no free will. Nothing I say or do is my own choice but an echo of my father’s existence. That’s infuriating.
I struggled through life trying to navigate the nuances of a “non-traditional” family structure. Add on top of that an erasure of identity and you’re with a kid genuinely believing he’s destined to become his father.
Who I am is in large part genetics. Maybe all of my quirks are the same ones my father had. Maybe we look eerily similar. But I also have a lot of acquired traits from my mother. She was the main socializing force in my life. As a college senior, I’m trying to figure out what exactly I want to do with my life. I’m trying to find my place in this world. I’m trying to establish myself as a competent and responsible young adult. And I’m trying to find “me.”
The issue then is reconciling facts with who I want to become. For many who may have similar experiences, you know how hard it is to come to terms with the fact that you are the spitting image of someone else, and that for the rest of your life you will be connected to that person, for better or worse. That’s where I’m at. I’m struggling to be okay with being hardwired to be like my father. I try to fight it as best as I can, but I don’t always win.
But I’m not giving up. I’ll stay fighting. I will die an ignorant and stupid man if I have to, but I will continue to fight it. I don’t want his complacence. I don’t want his ability to have been okay not contacting me for long periods of time. I don’t want his deceitful character that made promises that could not be kept. I don’t want his lack of autonomy from a spouse. I don’t want his blinding, religious zeal. But most of all, I don’t want the inability to emotionally connect with your child.
I want my kids to know I love them. I want them to feel it. I want them to know that I would die a million lives before I let a tear from their eyes fall. I want them to know my faults. I want them to know I’m human and that I will make mistakes. But that mistakes help build character and teach us many life lessons. I want my children to know that I can admit to making mistakes, and not only until they’ve brought it up. And if I too should end up separated from their mother, I want them to know that they are still the only thing that I worry and care for.
Maybe I did get too personal, but I hope that any of you who have struggled with not wanting to become your parents, for whatever reason, have gained the will to fight on. We are not predestined to turn out like them. We are not predestined to make the same mistakes they made. We are autonomous individuals, responsible for our own actions. You don’t have to follow in their footsteps. You don’t have to turn out like they did. You have to fight to find yourself and stick to it. Whatever your parents did is irrelevant. Don’t let that be an excuse for you to settle.
This isn’t me bashing on my father. This is simply me telling my story, and hoping that others in a similar situation can relate and learn from this. We are who we are. But that doesn’t mean you can’t change. You learn something new every single day. Aspire to be your own person. Do what you think is best for you. Fight to be different and to not make the same mistakes. Be true to yourself and eventually you’ll step out of their shadow and bask in the light of your own success.
