Provenance: a place or source of origin

As parents, most of us wonder how to help our children develop into strong, confident people. I don’t mean the inflated self-esteem that comes with unlimited baseless praise, and I’m not talking about a sense of entitlement. I’m talking about the kind of confidence where my sons can think about what they’d like to do and will believe that they’ve got as good a chance as anybody to do that, as long as they come up with a plan and put in the work necessary to accomplish the goal. And, the kind of confidence that will give them the resilience that even if things don’t always work out, that they still believe that they can meet other goals and don’t let their failures defeat them.

My husband and I do our best to instill these traits in our kids. We talk to our boys about the importance of hard work and setting goals. We try to give them tasks that might seem challenging to them, but that they can do and hopefully feel a sense of accomplishment for afterwards. We try to teach them with examples from our own lives. But, I have long wondered about what effect one’s ancestors can have on one’s sense of purpose and place in the world.

My questions arise from my own family histories, which at times are sad, utterly banal, or tragic, but rarely if ever noble. My maternal grandfather was an alcoholic cab driver who did little other than sit in a chair and smoke cigarettes. His wife, my grandmother, was a vicious gossip and so unpleasant few could tolerate her company, and the two together had a disastrous marriage. My paternal grandfather was also a cab driver and a sometime petty criminal who was hauled away in the paddy wagon more than once (you can read about a painting robbery he was involved in here: Gallery of Fools, by Jerome Tuccille, and married my father’s mother because he thought she had money. My grandmother, it turns out, did not have money and was a miserable woman as a result of this loveless marriage. All of these grandparents made for emotionally abusive parents for my own parents. If we go back another generation, the stories are yet more colorful. My paternal grandmother’s father owned a speakeasy in the Bronx during prohibition and was a snappy dresser (he is by far the biggest success story among my ancestors). Other than that, all I know was that he was a tyrant as a father. I don’t know much about his wife, my great grandmother. My paternal grandfather’s father was–this is priceless–the town lunatic, who was married off to the town cripple, my great grandmother. I don’t use these terms to be callous, that’s how the story has been passed down in the family. My maternal grandfather was physically and emotionally abused by his father, and his mother sounded like a long-suffering woman from what I know. My maternal grandmother’s parents were farmers. The mother is always described as cruel, but the children all seemed to have some affection for the father, although the stories are mixed. All my great grandparents were immigrants from either Italy or Germany, and poor. And there, more or less, you have it.

Despite their different backgrounds in terms of country of origin, they all shared one trait in common, and that is an inferiority complex. Each of them, from the stories I’ve heard, would respond to their children’s expression of their goals with a comment along the lines of, “oh, you think you’re better than us? You think you’re fancy?” Or, my grandfather’s now legendary line, “oh, they think they’re the ultra ultra.” My mother desperately wanted to go to college, but her dreams were thwarted by her mother, who did not want her daughter to leave, or surpass, her. My father’s educational goals were more or less supported by his family, but his father never respected him as a person, and would have been happier with a son who was clever in terms of organized crime instead of with a pen and paper, and consequently he frequently put my father down, calling him “little puke.” The negative messages sent by these fiercely unhappy parents constrict a child as tightly as shackles around the ankles.

I have listened to these stories over the years, told by my parents who wanted my brother and I to feel very separate from them. The stories were sometimes told as outrageous tales, sometimes as horror stories. We were never encouraged to identify with any of these people.

Despite my parents’ rough roots, my mother climbed her way to a good career in advertising in New York and my father became an author published many times over, and a stockbroker. They moved us to a nice suburb with good schools, and we learned to ski and traveled to Europe as a family. They were determined to give my brother and I good educations, and they did.

Probably around the time I was in college, I became very aware of other people talking about the earlier generations in their families. However, the stories I heard were about very different kinds of people. Everyone’s parents, grandparents or great-grandparents seemed to be founders of well-known companies, partners in successful law firms, or people that almost qualified for the olympics. They were world-travelers or women professors or activists that really made a difference. My friends have wonderful stories of visits with loving grandparents that taught them to make clothing, build boats or ride horses. My friends have fond memories of sailing on grandpa’s boat or visiting some beautiful beach house that was built by hand by family members only, using post and beam construction. At times I’ve wondered if people think I’m lying when I tell stories about my ancestors, or if maybe my friends just feel sorry for me. Still, having such a motley crew of unsavory characters for ancestors produces it’s own weird kind of pride and has its benefits. For example, I’m hardly tied to generations of family traditions for anything, which has created a sort of freedom that many people never experience. But, I digress.

When I wonder what traits I might have inherited from previous generations, you can forgive me for hoping that genetics don’t necessarily play a big role in how people turn out. There are a few positive things I know about my direct ancestors: My paternal grandmother was apparently good at refinishing furniture, though no samples of her work remain. My maternal grandmother was a registered nurse, having received an education through a program for poor girls, and a good cook. I think my maternal grandfather was mechanically inclined and worked on war ships during WWII. My paternal grandfather was, he said, a good dancer, though I never saw him dance.

But maybe you can see what I’m getting at here. I wonder how much belief in one’s own DNA contributes to success in life. I’ve always imagined that if someone looks to their ancestors and sees captains and presidents and stars and innovators that they may subconsciously believe that that’s what they are too, and that there’s no reason they can’t experience similar successes in life. If that’s true, then the descendants of drunks, criminals, wise guys and generally nasty people may feel it’s in their genes.

I’ve informally researched this topic by wondering about it and living life, and have found that the people who seem the most confident in a deep way come from some very fine stock. They are not arrogant, they are just solid, confident people who truly believe in themselves to their core. On the other hand, many people from difficult backgrounds seem to have very low general self esteem, probably because they don’t come from much and nobody gave them any reason to believe in themselves.

All that said, since I can’t change what I come from, I want to focus on what messages these parents of good stock are sending to their children, because I think that may play a significant role in how kids turn out. It makes sense that confident parents will produce confident children. But they must also be good parents that take an interest in and encourage their children in the first place. For every wonder child I know born to a wonder family, I know the curious examples of individuals born to families of abundantly successful people who turn into adults that can hardly make one good choice in life. What happened there? Were the kids too blinded growing up in the dazzling glow of a wildly successful parent? Was the parent too narcissistic to pay any attention to the kids? Or, do some kids naturally have low self-esteem and rebel against their successful parents out of fear of failure?

Sometimes in parenting, I feel I am playing a little game. I’m not naturally confident. However, over the years I’ve learned to take the attitude of what the hell, I may as well try to do the things I want to do because if I don’t, what else will I do? That attitude helped me travel, go to grad school and take fiddle lessons. When I really hit my limitations, I have learned to try to compete against myself, going for my own personal bests instead of comparing myself to others. I learn these tricks from my more confident friends, from books, from learning about famous people I admire. This is all hard work for me, but then, if I don’t do the work, what else will I do? As a parent I’m hyper-conscious of how I react to my own challenges and those of my children. At ages 5 and 8 both kids have already exhibited natural talents and weaknesses. How I react to their accomplishments and struggles is, I think, one of the most important tasks I have as a parent and one I find difficult. What is the right way to deal with a child who knows he isn’t good at something? How can I make sure I’m not sending an “our people can’t do that kind of thing” message? What is the appropriate way to react to a child when something comes very easily?

Parenting is a hard job and no matter how hard I try to send the right messages to my kids, I will make mistakes. I remain open to learning. However, I find myself playing up the talents of my parents, cousins, and any family members I can find any good information about, just because if my hunch about core confidence comes from one’s provenance, I want my kids to think they are descended from great genes too. Just in case.

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