Childhood typecasting

A few weeks ago, I had occasion to attend the Eucharist at a small church where I knew no one (it just happened to be in the vicinity of a place to which I was en route.) I smiled at the priest's brief sermon. He spoke of being from a rural area originally - in a close, loving family which sounded like a model from a very idealistic children's book. He is happy that he is soon going to pay a visit to his family, but mentioned how (despite his education, travels and the like), though they clearly loved him to bits, they remained vaguely uneasy with this 'stranger.' It was not that he never saw them or had not kept in touch regularly, but they still had an 'image' of him, formed in his childhood, and couldn't quite deal with any way that he had changed.

Heavens, could I identify with that! I've found that images which our family forms of us, even when we are just beginning to talk, endure forever (and this though they may be far from the truth.) I came from a huge extended family, and my mother and her sisters, in particular, were unusually close (they talked at least four times a day, usually saying nothing again and again.) Some of my cousins were like brothers and sisters to me. Yet both my parents were second youngest of large families - not only was my mother 'the baby' even at 80, but her children (very different, but independent probably from the times their umbilical cords were cut) were and are 'baby cousins.' Considering that my family tend to live to very advanced ages (nearly all pass 90), I (whose maturity exceeded my mother's around the time I was capable of rolling over) undoubtedly will find that, when I am 80, cousins of 90 will still be smirking at my 'precocious child' image. (Others will still be giving me unsolicited and condescending advice, which I always saw as the greatest trial depicted in the Book of Job. After all, there is a 'generation' - perhaps 5 years, or even 'two generations' which adds to ten - between us. Eighty years will not be a sufficient period for them to grasp that I care what they think about as much as I ever did... which is about as much as I care about what anyone else thinks... which is not at all.)

I'll spare you any painful or irritating examples, and stick to the 'safe and silly.' Anyone who has known me for a year would be fully aware that I loathe winter, and thrive on baking in sunlight - I'm unhappy at any time when I must wear a coat - yet my dad would insist, and family members believe, that I 'loved the cold weather.' I have travelled all over the continent, alone, using public transit, yet another family myth is that I'm afraid to go anywhere alone. I spent years as a cook back when I worked with the homeless (and was not present for family holiday gatherings because of this), yet another myth is that I didn't know how to cook because 'my mother did everything.'

What is unfortunate about the 'typecasting' is that, whether with family or friends who knew one from childhood, it can never be eliminated. When the priest I mentioned earlier was speaking, some of the details he mentioned reminded me of how very often, even if one is certainly not doing anything wrong or troubling, it can bother those around us if we aren't fitting the old image they assembled when we were children.

Looking back, and considering many people whom I've known over the course of my life, there's a bit of paradox involved in our development. In one sense, I believe all of us can see that 'the child is father to the man.' Nor can we pinpoint how certain traits or interests developed - whatever 'parenting' books might say today. For example, I had a strong interest in music, literature, and art even when I was a young child, though my parents had no knowledge of or interest in any of these areas. (I was exposed to literature at school, but the extent of my music training in youth was learning some hymns to Mary, dreadful in their execution, and folk songs in which everyone ended up dead, usually in a war or of TB. My 'art' instruction was of the calibre of drawing a falling leaf.) I taught myself to read music, use a typewriter (I also had a passion for writing then), and so forth - but there are no influences to explain any of this. I was very drawn to prayer from childhood, but it was quite private then (I wasn't the sodality prefect type, and doubt I would have been even had that been an option for someone with curly hair and a big nose.)

Still, if we look back on childhood, things are seldom so obviously 'cause and effect.' Now and then, we can see that someone was either outstanding in some sense (perhaps displayed a strong talent), or was 'real trouble' (when a few fellow pupils of mine, in later years, were arrested, or died in drug related circumstances, I cannot say I was surprised.) Yet the majority of boys I knew who were always up to mischief, always in trouble in school, ended up as police officers, priests, and judges. The girls who were the most trouble in school often ended up becoming teachers. As well, the pupils who were 'best in the class' tended to end up bagging groceries.

There is no 'moral' to the story this time. I'm smiling at some old memories - perhaps you'd enjoy doing the same, so here I am to give you a reminder. (All right... one inevitable example - if one looks over the character and early life of Francis of Assisi, with his radical tendencies, it seems he was destined from the beginning to end up being either a great saint or a candidate for the gallows...)