Every time you dust and open the albums lying in your drawer, they take you back to the memories of your childhood. Class photographs, heavily dressed for dance competitions and holding the microphone fascinated by it leaves you in wonder about your growth. Pictures of family trips, wearing warm winter clothes cuddled up on the couch or crying on your mother’s shoulder with your father’s hand on your back. Every picture makes you shy, a little ashamed of how you look but never fails to make you slightly giggle about chubby cheeks. Each of these moments takes us back to our upbringing.
They say, ‘Childhood only comes once.’ Subjective to each of us is how we have lived it. Some are blessed with the most lavish ones, and others have humble content experiences. But for some, flipping childhood pages becomes traumatising.
Experiences of our childhood directly affect what becomes our future. Your personality will always be a debate between nature and nurture. Nature comprises everything that you gain from your genes while nurture refers to your personal experiences, upbringing and environment.
As you grow up, the experiences in your life teach you a lot but the foundation of your character rests in your upbringing. It is a manifestation of your closest and farthest times with your family, of your first-time making friends and of the most heart-shattering breakups.
In the earliest years of childhood, a child who is treated with compassionate ears gains a perspective of self-worth while a child whose words fell on deaf ears might not attach significance to their participation in anything. This could also work the other way, a child who has been ignored might grow up to be an avid listener for those who are unheard.
With vulnerable exploring eyes and blushing puffed cheeks, every child expects a sense of attention from their parents. They look forward to their parents fulfilling their promises of spending time with them. Be it building legos, playing with cars or in a doll house, a child eagerly waits for when their parents will share the same enjoyment as them. A well-attended child will pursue a caring nature for those around them or sometimes might take so much attention for granted.
As for the parent, single parenting weighs adversely on the child as well. A similar situation happens with distant upbringing, when neither the mother nor father don’t fairly contribute to a child’s growth.
Your behavioural responses to anything, be it verbal or physical are highly a blueprint of your parents’ conduct. If their temperament leans towards an easily irritable or angry nature, you might develop the same. If you have been treated a certain way, you’re likely to give the same treatment to others. However, if your parents have a relaxed and forgiving attitude, you’re less likely to make situations harsh for someone else.
An unforgettable part of childhood and teenage is friends. Successful, accepting friendships, rare to find the first time turn out to be a blessing. But going through tough and backbiting friendships can shape into one of the most sensitive but cold times for an individual. It leads you to become closed off, you’re comfortable with not trusting anyone and eventually ties with your family begin to decay. Friendships can either add to your upbringing in the most colourful way or could turn it into loneliness.
An individual’s career is highly motivated by how much they were exposed to environments of academics, creativity and learning. If a child at a young age is acquainted with habits of reading or learning in a rather fun way, he/she might grow up to be an independent learner. Exploration in a child is also a result of parents making their child visit different places in order to understand and experience other cultures and backgrounds.
A scenario that is common to a lot of families is the generational passage of treatment. If parents are treated with rough times or even just mild frustration, they are likely to take that irritation out on their kids. While we are all humans and sometimes such behaviour can be justified, the repetition of such actions can lead to stress, negativity and fear in the child.
Modern parenting has struck a different path than conventional parenting. With lesser tolerance levels amongst parents, you’d find children as young as six months with phones in their hands exposed to YouTube. To keep the child engaged or shut them up while crying, phones have become a consolation. Earlier, mothers and fathers would spend time with their children and enjoy the process of raising a child but these days it is the technology that has become so vital in upbringing.
Childhood is one of the most beautiful parts of one’s life. It reclines in our albums, in the old CDs, our favourite memories and most importantly in ourselves. We are a product of the most cherishing phase of our life. To each one of us, there is one person, one place, one toy and one smile that we celebrate the most from our childhood but we often forget that every day that we live we celebrate every bit of our upbringing by just being ourselves.
