The older I have gotten, and more importantly the older my children have gotten, the more it has dawned on me that we parents take way too much credit (and give ourselves way too much grief) for the way our kids have turned out. Maybe it’s just me, but have you ever noticed that the vast majority of the character traits our children possess were more or less right there for anyone with a perceptive eye to see within the first year or two of their birth? In other words, if you really think back on it, whether your child turned out to be loud or quiet, funny or serious, out-going or introspective, a great joy to be around or a pain in the butt, he or she was pretty much born that way, and our abundance of parenting skills, or complete lack of them, didn’t really have all that much to do with it.
So I have come to believe – rather reluctantly actually — that whether it’s us or our children, who we are as persons is greatly determined by the genes that are passed down to us, and not by our environment and the way we are raised. Now that doesn’t mean parents don’t have any responsibility for how their children turn out, because we can certainly have a lot of influence on the edges, especially when it comes to teaching the difference between right and wrong, and what’s important and what isn’t in this life. But when push comes to shove, for better or worse, I truly think the genes usually win out.
Now, taking my little theory a step further, it has also dawned on me that these powerful genes we inherit like to skip generations, maybe even a few generations. But be that as it may, I can attest from my own experience that genes can most definitely skip at least one generation. For instance, I have often been told that I look and act a lot like my mother’s father, who I never actually met because he died the year I was born. And my twin sister has often been compared to my father’s mother, in both appearance and character traits. And although none of my four kids look or act much like me (with the possible exception of my daughter), my youngest son is very much like his mother’s father, and my oldest son is almost exactly like my father. In fact, he is the same height and weight, has the same nose, mouth, complexion and hair color, and is also very much like him in temperament, especially when it comes to what makes him happy and what makes him sad – which finally brings me to my little story.
For Father’s Day, my very thoughtful son-in-law set up a golfing-foursome that included him, me, my younger brother, and my oldest son. Now you would have to know my younger brother and oldest son to know how difficult that was to pull off, so I’m impressed that my son-in-law even made the attempt. They are both what my mother used to call home-bodies, not to mention that golf is not their favorite sport. But once we all got out on the golf course, the day was so pretty and the company so good that everyone quickly started enjoying themselves. In fact, it even had me remembering the long ago day my brother and I took my father golfing for the one and only time, with him finally asking us, “So why in the world does anyone in their right mind want to spent the better part of a perfectly good day hitting a little golf ball and then walking all over hell’s half-acre trying to find it?” And the more I thought about that decades-ago day, the more I wished my father was still on this earth.
On about the 9th or 10th hole, my oldest son suddenly found himself confronted with a winding, downhill putt that had to be at least 50 feet long. So, knowing he didn’t have a chance in heaven of making that putt, I yelled out to him that I would give him $20 if he did. Now $20 may not mean all that much to most people, but to my oldest son, who still has the first dollar he ever earned, it was a pretty big deal, and he definitely wanted that $20 transferred from my wallet to his! So he took plenty of time lining up his putt as the rest of us watched with smiles on our faces, knowing that my money was perfectly safe.
I was standing right behind the hole when my oldest son finally struck his golf ball and I had a really good look at it as it slowly began twisting and turning on its long descent towards me. Wow, I thought to myself, I think he actually has it on the right line. Then, to my amazement, I could tell that his putt also had about the right speed.
“Are you kidding me, that thing has a chance,” yelled out my shocked son-in-law.
“It’s going to go in!” hollered my brother.
“Oh, no!” I screamed, knowing that I might soon be $20 poorer.
And sure enough, that truly impossible-to-make 50-foot putt (or longer) somehow rolled right into the very heart of the cup and everyone (including me) starting yelling and laughing. And then, when I looked over at my over-joyed son, there, on his face, was the very rarest of all my childhood memories — the same exact smile that would take over my father’s entire face when he was truly happy about something. And for that one very brief and special moment, on a golf course of all places, my dad was alive again on Father’s Day.