discouraging rejection July 31, 2006
When I go home to Colorado, I often look at pictures of my brother when we were young. He was the cutest kid I’ve ever seen, with a giddy smile and a dimple in his right cheek. He was so full of life, so quick to laugh, so eager to please our parents, so willing to go on whatever adventures would come his way.
I’ve had to learn through a ton of thought and tearful reflection about my failures as an elder brother. My brother was in many ways a contradiction – at once fiercely defiant of authority and desperately looking for someone to lead him. For many years, that person was me. But on too many occasions to mention (and likely a great many more that I fail to remember,) his desire to be with his older brother, to go where I went, was rejected.
In grade school we were in day care, and I’d start some spy club or ninja club and recruit other kids. He’d do his best to try and win my approval, wanting to be a part of something together, to be the Robin to my Batman. And for no apparent reason, I’d reject him. I’d cast him to the outside, force him to go find someone else to hang out with.
I don’t like to think of myself as an evil person, but then I imagine this 6 year old kid with knee high socks and shorts and light brown hair, small for his age but big in heart, eyes wide open to the world, looking to learn from someone. I think about my friends and I running around obstacle courses and giving ourselves pats on the back for being so cool, too busy trying to be accepted by my peers to notice (or care) that there was someone out there who already accepted me, who thought that I was pretty much perfect. I think about the intense sadness that must have been a big part of my younger brother’s life, as he tried to follow me around, tried to win my approval, tried to be loved the same way he loved. I think about that sadness, and how he eventually learned to deaden it as he attached himself to other kids who were happy to lead him into a great many adventures, often of a questionable nature.
The past few years, I’d sometimes hear stories about what my brother was up to, how he was trying to figure out where to take his life, trying to answer questions about what it means to be a man, about how a life is meant to be lived. My brother has always looked for the answers to his most important questions by finding other strong people, folks who seem to have life figured out. Makes sense – after all, he learned long ago that he couldn’t ask me – I wouldn’t be interested. I’d probably call him a loser, tell him to stop wasting my time. And so he does the best he can, making decisions on his own or looking to his circle of friends. Often those decisions are ill-timed or poorly judged in my opinion, but it doesn’t matter – I lost the right to tell him how to live his life a long long time ago.
I’ve thought about this often lately because I’m about to become a husband. Some day after that, I’ll likely become a father. And just as I did when I was a young seven year old, I’ll possess the power to tremendously influence a small, fragile person’s life in a dramatic way.
I know it’s an altogether different situation, being a dad versus a young older brother. But I’ve learned that we carry a great many of our character flaws with us as we age – they sometimes shift and permute and become more subtle, but they’re very difficult to eradicate.
How do I make sure that my young son or daughter knows every single day that their love is valued and appreciated? How do I go out of my way to make sure they never ever ever feel the sense of rejection that my brother felt when we were so young?
If I have multiple kids, how in the world do I convey to a 7 year old how powerful their opinion and attitude towards their younger sibling can be? How do I make it clear to them that the young kid tagging along, following them wherever they go, desperately seeking their approval will someday represent one of the most important people in their lives? How do I teach them to suppress the childish selfishness and insecurity that so often marks a young person’s life? How do I teach them to exchange those feelings and the actions they create with a heart that is loving and accepting of those who look up to them?
How do I make sure they don’t screw it up the way I did?
