I'm sure I've said in the past how kid #1, our son, is basically my Mini-Me. It's not a reference to how he looks, it's that he generally thinks and speaks and acts like just me. When I get frustrated with him a piece of it is frustration with myself, not for how I've raised him or anything, but because I had children and this is the way they were always going to be. Sometimes it can be humorous that I'm effectively annoying myself, other times, more often, the way he acts drives me a little crazy. I realized recently, however, that this can be instructive, if I let it. There's a lot to learn about myself, through watching my son.
Now he is a child and I am an adult. I've suppressed, due to my upbringing, and simply growing up, the unbridled emotion, among other things like pure selfishness, that comes with being a little kid. This is, obviously, how we're different. Our son, also obviously, isn't there yet. For an example, even if he has gotten everything he wants in a day, food, activities, constant attention from us, he cannot handle it when this stops. It's so fatalistic too. If I need to take care of something else and can't play with him anymore, it's the worst, more boring day ever. If I say no to giving him a treat, it's something like 'I'll never get a treat ever again.' There's a lot of throwing himself on the ground, moping, whining, complaining when he has to do something he doesn't want to do. Taking the dog for a walk has been a consistent one lately for whatever reason. And there are days where this behavior feels nonstop to us. It's not fun.
Here's the thing, I have these same thoughts all the time. I would also prefer to have unending, unconstrained fun (this is part and parcel of why I start up so late, it's my time to do what I want) and never hear a no to my desires. While I don't get to be a free spirit, running around outside or coloring much of the day like he does, I do have a fair amount of control over my day, even when taking care of the children. I'm not as efficient as I could be with my time and look at my phone too much. Yet internally I complain about not being able to work on house projects, or write, or read, or watch TV. I don't, often, say those things out loud (I think, I hope) but I do have the propensity to want to act like our son does. This feels far more nature than nurture.
That's the least of it too. He really doesn't like getting into something where he doesn't know how it's going to turn out, and this substantially impacts his inquisitiveness. Many of his questions are an attempt to know everything that's going to happen in advance, even silly things like the weather weeks down the road or who'd win in a hypothetical matchup between sports teams. I think I can partially blame this one on my wife, she's a planner, but our son does gets much of his apprehension of the unknown from me.
Deep down the fear of the unknown is related to a fear of failure, I think. He doesn't want to do things if he doubts he can do them well. He wants to skip the learning, developmental process and immediately have everything figured out, now. He beats himself up, puts his head down in his arms, crying and pouting, when a mistake is made, even if it's a thoroughly unimportant one. He does not handle losing board or card games well, at all. Winning is the point of it, you know.
All of this is (or was) me, I don't think I'm projecting it. Seeing it in him has helped me see it in myself and gain insight on how ridiculous I can be at times. There have been a few situations lately where I catch myself being unnecessarily miserable (like after I screwed something up and couldn't let it go) and pulled myself out of it more quickly than I would've in the past. The next step is to model better behavior, how to do this, to our son, and not just get mad at him for acting like his old man. That's the hope anyway.
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