During spring break, I had the opportunity to visit my son, my daughter-in-law and my new grandson. While there, my son asked me some questions about what my dad had done during his work career. I didn’t really know the answers. I already had a trip planned to visit my dad after I returned from seeing my son, so I told my son I would find out what he wanted to know.
I did ask my dad about his work experiences when I visited. While I knew my dad spent part of his career working with computers, I found out he helped develop a method of using computers to catalog chemical compounds, and that he ended up being in charge of the entire computer division. I enjoyed listening to my dad talk about aspects of his life I didn’t know much about. I passed the information along to my son and, hopefully, he will share it with his son, too.
Why do we like to find out about our parents, grandparents and other relatives? First, learning about our family members makes them more relatable. We can see them as people with worries and concerns just like us as opposed to these nebulous beings called parents. After my grandparents died, we found a whole collection of letters my mom had written to them. My niece compiled many of them into a book for a college project. Now we can read about what my mom and my family were doing through the years. I can see that my mom worried about the same kinds of things I do as a mother.
Second, we can learn from our family members’ experiences. When I was a teenager, I always wished that my mom had kept a journal when she was a teenager so I could get some insight into how to deal with teenage life. Did she worry about having friends, about boys, about school? How did she deal with these issues? I started regularly keeping a journal as a teenager hoping I could someday share my experiences when I had children. I have shared some of my experiences with my children, and rereading my journals has helped me to be more understanding of my children as I have remembered what it was like to be a teenager.
Learning about our ancestors also gives us a view of another time. My grandma and grandpa secretly eloped in 1931 because my grandma was in nursing school, and nursing students were not allowed to be married then. My other grandma lived in Mexico when Pancho Villa was leading rebels during the Mexican Revolution, and she had to leave with her family to escape the fighting.
One of my aunts has been sharing family stories and pictures which helps us to know more about what it was like to live in earlier times. She shared that my great-grandpa came to America from Denmark with his family in 1871 when he was just 5. His parents found him a job when he was 7 and when he was 11 he went to work in lumber and mining camps with his older brothers. The money he and his brothers earned was sent back to help their family. I can’t imagine getting a job when I was only 7, or leaving home at 11.
Additionally, learning about our families may help us understand ourselves. One of my grandmas was an avid hiker and met my grandpa in a hiking group. My oldest son is also an avid hiker. My other grandpa wanted to be an architect. Although he was accepted into a college architecture program, it was the beginning of the Depression, so there wasn’t money to pay for college. His daughter, my mom, was also interested in this field, but in the 1950s women didn’t become architects. Now, my youngest son is at college studying architecture. Are these interests genetic? I don’t know, but I find the similarities interesting.
Another good reason to share family stories is to increase resiliency in your children. As reported by The New York Times, a 2001 study by researchers at Emory University found that “the more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned.” When children know they are a part of something bigger than themselves, they gain a sense of identity through time and understand who they are in the world which helps them develop their self-confidence.
Take some time to share your family stories with your children. If you don’t know many stories, then ask your parents and grandparents about their lives and write down or record their stories. Scan and label old photos to share with your family. Label your own photos and put them in scrapbooks along with the stories that accompany the pictures. By doing any or all of these things, you and your children will feel more connected to your family members and gain the benefits that come from that connection.
Susan Cox is one of The Republic’s community columnists, and all opinions expressed are those of the writer. She is a mother, an adjunct instructor of English at Ivy Tech Community College-Columbus and a substitute teacher for Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. She can be reached at [email protected]. Send comments to [email protected].
