Recently, while trolling through my latest Facebook page obsession, “Humans of New York,” I came across a picture of a man’s feet (to preserve his anonymity, I assume), and a story about how even though both his children were “raised in the same family,” they couldn’t have turned out more different. (One was a successful businesswoman and the other a near-homeless drug addict.) As is the case with anything that happens on the internet, the comments flew fast and furious, and while the vast majority of them condemned the man for talking about his grown children in public, even anonymously, quite a few took exception to his assertion that he had raised both his children the same. Clearly, the internet reasoned, he had not raised them the same, as they had turned out so very different.
This got me thinking. All debates about nature versus nurture aside, is it ever really possible to treat your children completely the same? I know we all try, if only to avoid the never-ending accusations of “You like him/her better!” (My favorite is when I get this accusation from both children within a five minute span. On those occasions my answer is always something along the lines of, “To be honest, I’m not particularly fond of either one of you right now.”) And yet, as much as we measure each piece of cake with a pair of calipers to make sure they are exactly the same, and as many times as we find ourselves putting an extra, unnecessary present under the Christmas tree “so it will be even,” it’s really never possible for them to grow up in the same environment. Not because we treat them differently, though, but because they grow up with each other.
My son Clyde, for example, is one of the most easy going kids you will ever meet, so much so that it has always been his lot in life to sit next to the known biters at school: it is a well-established fact that Clyde will not bite back. And while I’d like to take credit for his sanguine nature, the truth is that he is so good at ignoring abuse because he grew up with his own personal tormentress—his older sister, Clementine—who saw his sunny disposition as her own personal challenge. And Clementine? Well surely some of her cynical nature must come from the fact that after only five years as reigning princess her kingdom was cut in half by the arrival of the little prince.
I know from firsthand experience that something similar happened in my own family: my older sister never quite got over the betrayal of my arrival. For my part, I was able to avoid most punishments and chastisements because I had her going before me; it’s much easier to pick the right door when the person directly in front of you picks the wrong one time and time again.
Maybe something similar happened in “shoe guy”’s family. Or maybe he was a liar, or clueless, or he really did raise his children with two different sets of expectations. Or maybe he was telling the truth, and despite his best efforts, one kid was happy and the other was not.
I think that’s what probably stirred up the internet’s hornet nest the most: the idea that maybe this guy did everything right and still got an outcome that was “wrong.” Because that would mean that the same thing could happen to us, and that idea is, of course, frankly terrifying.
No wonder the poor guy only wanted to be seen by his shoes.
(If, like me, you are a fan of “Humans of New York,” check out Flagstaff’s version,“Flag Folk.” It’s pretty great.)