Parents and Influences

Western society places enormous weight on the ability of a parent to influence their child through the use of proper parenting skills. Buying into genetic distribution as the exclusive agent for our intellectual spark is to turn our fates over to the biological lottery. This establishes an external focal point for change and often results in the conclusion that we can not change our lives.

The better practice is to establish a set of intellectual parents or influences. Intellectual fire is typically sparked by a person, place, or thing combined with experience. That need not come from a parent, exclusively. Unlike with the biological lottery, you can change your intellectual parents or influences.

We often mistakenly come to believe our parents are the only influences that “nurture” us as infants and into adolescence but when we talk about the idea of “nurture” we actually mean a process that involves the transfer of many traits from culture and society as a whole as opposed to traits transferred exclusively from our parents. This process continues into adulthood and begins to be called “socialization” around the time we become adults.

The challenge is to take control of this process and direct it consistent with how you wish to be in five years.