It is often the case that no matter who hurts us in our lives, it is our families that have the ability to hurt or give us happiness more readily than that which we can imbibe and feel from other people. It is our families after all that know all our ‘buttons’ and press them without even thinking about it.

They say familiarity breeds contempt but it also creates our synaptic pathways; for it is as we grow up and it is with the people we grow up with that we lay down how we think. It is of course not pleasant for people who are taught they are free to believe they have a way of thinking, when that way has not been chosen but the more research done the more it appears to be the case. The reason seems to be that the emotional response  of a child, and the social connectivity of a child, are laid down (unbelievably) before the age of three.

This is of course in the normal course of family events. Since this can hardly we called the most intellectual or rational period in a human life, it explains that much of the reaction to family is on a par with instinctive. A place where we react to habit, sounds, smells in such a way as they propel us to particular thoughts and actions.

Our families have a huge hold on our imagination.

I know this isn’t usually an Autumn subject, though Shelley once famously said that ‘If Winter Comes can Spring be far behind?’, but having now been accepted by my friend’s two year old son to the extent I have been cuddled and then had a mouthful of juice spat in my face (Oh how I pity his girlfriends), and watched my friends two month old daughter intensely looking at coloured plastic and returning my smile with her gummy grim, the ideas of birth are in my mind.

I cannot recapture my own youngest years mainly because most of the toys I had I broke in an effort to see what was inside them, or how they worked I am not sure which, but having two children to buy Christmas presents for is an eye opener. The shops are strewn with them of course, and the offers pop out at you as soon as you enter. Some of these toys are larger than the children and the whole idea of gender is very much in evidence. I wonder what would be wrong with a pink truck for a boy aged three or a rocket ship for a girl aged five?

It is interesting to me though that this age of wonder of which they are only vaguely aware themselves is, for me, a whole new age of wonder of which I am only too aware. The pre-fives are definitely the ages for adults:)

My close friend has now had a second child and one month old she is adorable. And completes a family of a two and a half year old son. I spend happy house with the son going through his books and being shown trucks and figures and lots of cars. I have to build the occasional wooden railway track and the occasional lego house.

The carpets becomes  a car park, the veranda a football field, the hallway a racetrack. Tables are for climbing, chairs are not always useful for sitting and sisters are not always the greatest joy in the house. Books are of course always to be shared, there cannot be a happier moment than a child bringing you a book to share are you have to repeat his or her mispronounced words and explain the picture to their questioning fingers.

I try to remember if I was like this and of course I must have been. I am told I was feral sometimes. All this energy and learning comes to fruition sometime, somewhere. One hopes by the age of ten but usually I think by the age of fifty.

🙂