~ What do teenagers and pregnant women have in common?
God instilled in both of them hormones that cause them to question everything their parents ever did with and to them....
Teenagers
Teenagers are in the process of becoming independent from their parents. They no longer believe everything Mom and Dad say just because their parents said it. They insist on seeing the logic for themselves and persistently ask, "Why?"
Unfortunately, young people often remember the bad more than the good as they make a long list of everything they're going to do differently from their parents. See my article "Taming Raging Teenage Hormones" for an idea on how to make this passage easier on both the parents and the teens.
Pregnant Women
These hormones surface again when a woman becomes pregnant. She has nine months to remember the good and the bad as she mulls over how her parents raised her. It's a time for discussing with her husband what she wants them to do differently than what her own mother and father did.
And every time a woman gets pregnant, her hormones will make her reexamine and reassess her home of origin and her own parenting successes and failures. Ideally, she'll bring her husband into the process of reevaluation.
These protective teenage and pregnancy hormones are a gift from God to help each new generation improve upon the past one.
Dating Couples
If you're not in your teenage years or your pregnant months, God wants you to use your intellect instead of relying on your hormones to examine how your parents raised you. In fact, God wants you to look at both yours and your boyfriend's or girlfriend's home of origin before you ever get married and start having babies.
The Shulammite maiden in the Song of Solomon teaches us the importance of looking at both your own and your date's home of origin:
Song of Solomon 8:1a:
“Oh that you were like a brother to me
Who nursed at my mother’s breasts…”
In this true dramatic story, Solomon offered the young virgin only sensuous love, but she expected to experience real love for a lifetime with her Shepherd boyfriend. Why? Because she had examined both of their homes. She readily saw that they both grew up in affectionate families, so similar, the Shepherd could pass for one of her brothers who nursed at her mother’s breasts.
Additionally, the maiden credited her mother with teaching her that lovemaking was for women as much as for men:
Song of Solomon 8:2a:
“I would lead you and bring you
Into the house of my mother, who used to instruct me.”
God’s plan has always been for sex education to take place in the home in the context of the mother’s and the father’s open love for each other. Then their instruction is not hypocritical words, but a way of life for the whole family. The Maiden credits her mother with giving her such a thorough sex education that she easily saw the differences between Solomon's sensuous and the Shepherd's true love.
Older Couples
God wants adult children to question their own life and the bad habits and sins they observed in their parents:
Leviticus 26:40-42: “If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also in their acting with hostility against Me—I also was acting with hostility against them, to bring them into the land of their enemies—or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled so that they then make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land.”
In this verse, God acknowledges that generally children grow up to be a narcissist like the unloving parent or an enabler like the codependent parent if they don’t stop to examine their home of origin with the intelligence of an adult. Regardless of how dysfunctional a child’s home was, the adult child has a choice. God holds children responsible for doing what is right regardless of how their parents raised them.
Many parental iniquities can be traced back several generations. Here is a partial list of parental sins that need to be confessed and rejected:
- Narcissism
- Histrionic sexual seductiveness
- Unnatural affection and sexless marriages—failure to love the other parent and children
- Spouse emotional and physical abuse
- Child emotional and physical abuse
- Financial neglect
- Enabling or codependency
- Alcoholism and drug abuse
- Sexual addiction
- Adulteries
- Incest
Everyone has a personal responsibility for the kind of adult he or she becomes regardless of what they learned from their parents.
From Your Teenage Years On
God wants you to examine your home of origin and what you learned about how to love others. He expects you to reject and overcome bad parenting so you can be your most loving self for your children and future generations. God expects the generational dysfunctional homes of origin to stop with the home you create for your own children.
Two Kinds of Masking
If you grew up in an unloving dysfunctional home, you probably masked your genetic personality. Fortunately, you can unmask at any age and change your future. Embracing your genetic personality helps you cope with the normal trials of family life. It helps you become your most loving self. In working with clients, I've observed two common types of masking.
1. Trying to Be Someone You're Not
Growing up, children are powerless and don't have the mental abilities to solve adult problems. They must do what they can to survive if they're born into a dysfunctional home. Many adopt a perfectionist personality as they walk on eggshells to try to stay out of trouble. Others shut down emotionally to stop feeling the pain. Trying to be someone you're not takes a lot of mental energy and is emotionally exhausting.
2. Not Living Fully in Your Strengths
Other people stay passively in their genetic personality. They fail to develop all their talents and vibrancy that normally occurs when someone is functioning well. They're just half a person. Sometimes they know something is missing, but they don't know what it is. Other times they accept that's just how they are and don't realize how much more rewarding life could be if they knew who they really were.
We Don't Have Generations of Loving Families to Teach Us How to Parent
Sadly we live in an age when the family dynamics of past generations wasn't always the most loving. And while teenagers, pregnant women, dating couples, and older couples often recognize that their family growing up wasn't loving, they seldom know how to make it better.
One of the quickest and easiest ways to bypass a lot of trial and error is to do your current family's personality profiles. Our personalities are 60% genetic and 40% nurturing. But the nurturing can be so bad that it totally overwhelms our genetic talents and unique characteristics.
Babies' Genetics Are Recognizable
Proverbs 20:11: "Even small children are known by their actions, so is their conduct really pure and upright?" (NIV)
When your babies come home from the hospital you can begin to recognize their genetic personality in the way they demand to be fed or are laid back and pleasant. Within a few months you'll discover if they've inherited one of the two humorous personalities by how easily you can make them laugh.
As your children age, their genetics will become more apparent. The more you understand your children's emotional and physical needs, the smoother parenting will be for you. And the more you are true to your genetics, the more your children will thrive by following your example.
Genetic Conflicts Occur When Opposites Attract
Opposites attract because you need the balance of someone who's fundamentally different than you are. The workaholic needs the peace and quiet of a more passive companion. The easygoing personality needs the push of the get-it-done yesterday spouse.
When you appreciate each other's differing strengths and honor whether the other is an introvert or extrovert, you'll be able to balance and support each other to make a powerful parenting team.
What the 8-Week Program Includes
This is a customization of the WHO ARE YOU? Discover Your Most Loving, Authentic Self By Releasing Your Genetic Personality. Learn more about the basic program here.
In this customization you'll do personality profiles for each of your growing children including baby, child, and teen. You'll discover keys for encouraging their talents and strengths. You'll recognize natural genetic conflicts and learn how to work around these differences.
If you have adult children, you'll discover ways to bridge the communication gap and heal past hurts.
You'll dig deeper by exploring yours and your mate's archetypes. The archetypes will help you discover parts of your genetics that you haven't developed and how you can grow into being a more loving, intuitive parent.
You'll reexamine your home of origin through adult eyes. Then you'll explore the report Everyone Is an Adult Child--God Doesn't Tell Children to Love Their Parents--God Tells Children to Leave Their Parents. If your home of origin was dysfunctional, you'll learn what your attitude should be toward your parents. You'll also learn what your responsibilities are toward your children to help you not repeat the failures of past generations.
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What are you waiting for? Your family life will never be the same when everyone takes their masks off and gets real.
It'll be a time of healing, forgiving, and releasing your more loving, authentic self for blessing your children for the rest of their lives.
Families Who Did Their Personality Profiles
I recently did the personality profiles for a family of five. Although the family didn't have a lot of problems, there was frustration between the husband and wife. The kids picked up on the tension and acted out. The parents' nerves were already frayed and they overreacted to the kids. And so an unpleasant cycle persisted.
When we did all their personalities, we discovered that the dad is a bossy workaholic extrovert while the mom and two of the kids are laid-back introverts. The third child is a sensitive, introverted perfectionist who cries easily.
In the past, the more the dad tried to move his family to get things done, the more they resented his pushiness. He became more exasperated with what he considered their laziness.
Once they understood everyone's genetics, it made it easier to appreciate each other's unique contribution to the family. The various personalities have different talents and are motivated by different tactics. None are superior to the other--they're just different. They needed each other's differences to balance and support their own style.
In another family of five the mother said, "The children understanding their personalities got rid of sibling rivalry and fighting. As they've grown into young adults, I'm amazed by how protective and loving they are of each other. Neither my husband nor I grew up this way."
A father who went through this process with his children learned how to turn getting-ready-for-school frustration into peaceful mornings. One daughter had the get-it-done-now extrovert while the other was the casual what's-the-hurry introvert. Consequently, the girls squabbled every morning with the father fussing at them to stop it.
They changed their routine so that the slower-moving daughter did a lot of school preparation the night before. Her energetic sister took over most of the morning duties. As a result, they no longer went off to school and work mad at each other.
One husband's wife continually criticized his parenting saying she resented being the bad parent while he was the good, fun parent. Consequently, he shut down his happy, stunt-loving genetics. The whole family became grouchy.
As he embraced his genetic personality he realized that his family, including his wife, needed his funny nature to help balance his wife's perfectionism. He began including his wife in his antics with their daughters and was able to help the whole family find laughter again instead of being so serious and sullen all the time.
Sometimes one parent's personality will overwhelm everyone in the family and cause the spouse and the children to mask. Just as the parents need to balance and support each other's differences, children need this same balance with their parents and siblings. Parents with the same genetics as a child will be able to help that child in ways the parent with the opposite genetics can't.
Yet the child benefits from both parents working as a team. We have parts of all four personality types in us. But two parts are dominant. Living with a genetically different parent allows us to develop those underused parts of our brain. Yet we need to keep our dominant genetics in harmony with our learned assesses for the greatest happiness and productivity.
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What are you waiting for? Get real now and love your children with all your heart!
May God bless you on your journey to discover your genetic self so you can love yourself, your mate, and your children,
Patsy Rae Dawson