Luke.

Over the last couple months, I’ve been going to my elementary school to observe a kid for a child development class I’m taking.  I get to watch him through a one-way mirror and write down everything he does.  He’s four years old, and the cutest thing.  I’ve actually managed to become attached to him even though we’ve only had one interaction.  When he got to his classroom on Monday morning, his dad was carrying him.  He had his face buried in his dad’s neck and what looked like a death grip around his neck, and he let the rest of his body lay limp in his dad’s arms.  He finally let Dad put him down and, after a few minutes of father-son playtime around the room, he had forgotten he was homesick.  The Lego table called. 

I started thinking about this little guy, and I hope the rest of his life looks like that.  I hope his dad is around to make him feel better when he needs it, and push him out the door when he doesn’t know he needs it.  I hope he gets smarter than his parents one day, but I hope that day doesn’t come too soon.  I always get emotional when I think about the people in my life as babies, or in this case, children.  Shit, I get emotional when I think about myself as a baby.  I feel like that’s self-explanatory. 

A friend from my class comes to observe with me, and today we got talking about, more or less, how freaked out we are that we aren’t going to choose the right guy to spend our lives with, thus leading to us fucking up our own lives and eventually the lives of our kids in one way or another.  Totally cynical and depressing, I know.  I’m fascinated with family trends, and how people tend to choose a partner based off of what they experienced in their family of origin (their parents and siblings).  People tend to be attracted to other people based on what they’re used to.  Makes sense, and that’s totally cool if you’ve had nothing but loving relationships (not that you’re guaranteed to choose the right person because of that).  But then there’s the boy who started doing laundry and putting himself to bed at age 6 because his mom was too fucked up to do it herself.  He’s likely to choose someone he has to take care of, and he probably won’t let anyone close enough to take care of him, let alone think he deserves it. 

I’m going to bounce yet once more in this ramble, this time to Jersey Shore.  This season, one episode made me understand EVERYTHING about Ronnie and Sam’s relationship.  Ron’s mom calls the house plastered, and during their conversation, it seems pretty clear that this isn’t the first time it’s happened.  RINGALINGDING went the bell in my head.  Ronnie has a mom who has created some chaos in his life, and now he’s in a relationship with a chick who he fights with every day.  Family fucking trend, people, trickling on down.

I realize I’m coming off as saying that people will inevitably choose what they’re used to, good or bad.  I’m not that gloomy, I’m just saying that it makes sense.  I also realized I took “observing a cute kid” to “topics in psychology” to “Jersey Shore still explains everything.” Eh, it’s been a long week.