what makes you, you?

i have always had a natural curiosity about most everything. science, plants, animals, rocks, buildings, cars, music, movement,  people. while i understand most things on a fairly high level, people continue to be the topic that both fascinates me yet the understanding eludes me. i understand the tenets of being human: emotional, physical needs; growth, development. but what i'm really interested in knowing more is this--how is it that we are all the same species of animal, have the same needs,  look so similar, live in the same place, yet are so vastly different? legit, what makes you, YOU? 

i think about kids in my classroom. i see over 600 kids a week. you can't put any two kids in the same group or category unless they are biological siblings. no two kids have grown up the same; their families work differently, are made up of different people with different experiences, education, personalities, trauma, joys. there aren't two kids who celebrate the same way at home, live in the same kind of dwelling in the same area of the county, have parents together or divorced, same socio-economic status, education.  how is it that we all seem the same, yet obviously are not? i tell them all the time that their experiences are theirs and are all different and that is ok. (because it is.)

i know there's books and research about this that have already been done. i don't want to read about other people's insights. i'd like to explore it myself and offer my own thoughts. 

i think, or i propose rather, that each way you can categorize groups of people has a certain set of shared values or experiences that shape who they become. this may be some researcher's work already, idk, but it is the closest i can come to understanding it in my own terms. of course there is always an outlier. someone who for whatever reason is the break or kink in the chain, if you will. 

the study of sociology tells us that human beings are inherently comforted by sameness, routine, and known expectations. i can't quote the information, because it was over 25 years ago that i took that class and learned that shit. but we all know it to be a commonality betwixt humans. this is something that is shared by many groups within a society; it's something that binds us. 

people can be sorted by many means and these can be broken into a spectrum as well. it's what really binds us and creates these unique individuals that roam our great planet. i think of it as a sliding scale really--to what degree you identify with some of these helps you to relate more to one group over another. that said, i think that people can be sorted thusly: 

• age/generation
• gender
• race
• socioeconomic status
• family structure
• marital status
• education
• religion
• health
• hometowns/places you grew up
• trauma/loss
• politics
• sexuality

a lot of these overlap and circle back to one another. there is not one individual that matches exactly to another. there are ones who are extremely close, yet are divergent.

think about the small town grown, white, gen x female, with at least a bachelor's degree, who is generally healthy, who grew up with both parents, siblings,  modest means with no strong religious background. then compare that person to someone who has all of those same attributes, but identifies as an evangelical christian. those two people are inherently very different.  the perceived values of those two households changes everything for that person. not change bad or good per se, but it definitely has some bearing on how they will proceed through life. how those two people will process and handle stress, trauma, joy, and life will be different, based solely on their upbringing. 

you could also consider the two groups again with the same criterion and add another: race. two people, raised very similarly, but the biggest difference being race. i don't know from personal experience, but i know enough from watching my friends and acquaintances and considering the history of forever that people of different races have inherently different challenges. you can be the same all the way around, but as soon as you look at one white person next to a black person, you know that one of those people struggled more to get to the same exact place. that forever changed that person and made them who they are. if you can't see that as a human being, you really need to take a long hard look at what is right fucking in front of you. 

we call it privilege.

troy and i talk about it all the time, especially in our current climate. he knows that he is in the ultimate privileged group: white, cisgendered men. who questions educated, white, cisgender, heterosexual men? nobody. therein lies the problem. the difference for him is that he knows his privilege. he understands that his life is inherently easier than our son's life. our son, who is obviously white and educated, is trans. he uses different pronouns. he loves a little differently. he has friends all over the gender and sexuality spectrum. he is at a disadvantage, just based on being himself. can you imagine if he was black, poor, uneducated, with no family in a small town? i would hate to see what would happen to a kid trapped in that situation.

this is quite the uncomfortable conversation for the majority of people to have. but it is a needed one, especially when every news story talks about a minority group being stripped of protections, benefits, or rights. it is one of the things that led me down the rabbit hole of this whole post. honestly, i could do several posts on the subject. 

i have lots of questions and wonderments: 

• how is it that a family can have three siblings who land in such totally different places in terms of education, religion or political affiliation?
• how is it that one kid from a poor family with no education find their way into college and particularly into prestigious fields?
• how is it that one kid from a wealthy family can become much like their parents while a different kid from the same family abandons that particular lifestyle for a different one? 
• how do families find their traditions? how do families break with tradition?
• how do people find their way into fringe groups that tend to be considered taboo but are part of human nature?

my hope is to explore that more and write my thoughts as i move along. to say i'm fascinated by people and their foundations is an understatement. i would love to do more research on families i know and how those folks got to where they are. 

if you ever want to talk about it, holla at your girl. 

until next time, love you, mean it. 💙💙💙💙