In chapter 2 of our textbook it states that if a baby
moves a lot in the womb, it will more than likely be an unhappy child growing
up. Does the child stay like this forever into adulthood? Is happiness not an
option for some kids? Or is it just more difficult to come by? Can we choose to
be happy as children? Can we choose to change our personalities? Family,
friends, culture, school, and economics will all play a part in how a child
grows up, but one important factor the
material we read didn’t touch on as much as I’d like is choice. Even as children,
we have a choice to take toys or share them. I suppose it’s just a matter of
which choices and behaviors are encouraged and reinforced, but I think the
human individual is far too complex to be put into categories. Our human brains
like things to have labels; everything in its place, everything organized. What
if there are aspects of ourselves we cannot label or identify? What do we do
then? Force that aspect to change? Pretend it doesn’t exist? Will we mislabel
it as something else? This is just another choice we have to make for
ourselves, and not let society or our culture make for us.
Are
there biological and psychosocial facets of the human that are random? Or is
that randomness pre-selected as well? Can choices be random? I do not have
answers for these questions, but I do believe that they exist, somewhere. Maybe
it is merely circumstantial: that, depending on the situation, our biological
patterns can be randomly chosen, or they can be pre-determined (such as with
sperm donors). And yet again, this is a
choice.
Say
a child grows up as the mediator, the neutral force in her family atom that
keeps the protons and electrons stable. Say this behavior is reinforced by her
family with their smiles and happy attitudes whenever this happens. She’s going
to stay the mediator, right? Arguments are quickly dispersed of because she
played her part. But then she grows up, and decides that it isn’t her responsibility.
She just made a choice. She doesn’t have to do anything her
culture/society/family tells her to do. She can choose to keep her toys and not
share them.
This
is all, of course, within limits. There should always be limits. We shouldn’t
become serial killers because society says we can’t do that. That’s not my
point. I’m saying that as children, nature-nurture factors aren’t the only
things in the human equation that makes us who we are as individuals. I
believe, whether anyone agrees or not, there’s more to us than our genetic
makeup and what situations and experiences we’re born in to. Life is far too
complicated. Yes, society molds us as children to influence our choices later
in life. But does that mean I have to do what they say? No. Does that mean I should
still make good choices and think on others when I make them? Yes.
