Where does the influence of my parents show in my life?

Based on my knowledge from what my parents have shown me, my mindset and the ways I think will be branched off from what they have shown me from a young age. We often hear this phrasing of, “You sound or act just like your mother!” which in some instances can be very uncanny. My thought of this is that your whole life, day in and day out, you are with two people who have been with you your entire life. Our brains are like sponges, what we hear around us and see within our lives will soak into our brains and form the way we see things or act in a certain way.

Biologically there has to be a reason for this mindset formation. What is it that is continually molding our actions based on the lessons we learn through our parents? From an outsider’s interpretation of my acts, what is implicitly derived from my parents that I am now sharing with the rest of the world? Why is it that I may not even realize I am acting in a manner like my parents? Why is it that sometimes I do realize my behaviors resemble theirs?

“Child Development found that the type of emotional support that a child receives during the first three and a half years has an effect on education, social life and romantic relationships even 20 or 30 years later.”

“While tallying up the results, the researchers accounted for the participants’ socioeconomic status and the environment in which they grew up” –Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk

“Ultimately, they found that about 10 percent of someone’s academic achievement was correlated with the quality of their home life at age three. Later experiences, genetic factors, and even chance explain the other 90 percent”, Raby says.

“Central to a concept of culture, therefore, is the expectation that different cultural groups possess distinct beliefs and behave in unique ways with respect to their parenting.” –Cultural Approaches to Parenting

“Children’s experiences with their parents within a cultural context consequently scaffold them to become culturally competent members of their society.” –Cultural Approaches to Parenting

My basis of saying our brains are like sponges was completely accurate. The thing I now know and did not before is that before we even have a recollection or memory or really even before we know what is truly going on, the way our parents talk to us and show us the world was being engraved into our mind as the way things are meant to be executed. So the culture you grow up in and the nature versus nurture aspects encompassed in our life are what truly mold us. Your parents’ role with the first three years after your birth is so extremely crucial that psychologists are still doing research to the day to figure out why this all happens and how we can manipulate it.

Photo by gagilas

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