Mirror Image

Recently, I can't help but feel that I'm looking at a splitting image of myself when I see my daughter. Not only is her disposition, her habits and even her response, they are just like her dad, me! I have heard that kids mimic the behavior of adults but the level which she does it, it's uncanny.

Let me give an example. Mom tells me that when I was young, I used to come back from school and finish my homework even before I had lunch. I was the kind of kid that couldn't relax when there is a job at hand. Even now, I think I act the same. Somehow, this must have rubbed-on Phoebe. She would come back from school and pull out her unfinished origami and work on that when we are all at the table having our meal. Nothing could pull her away, unless it was a threat about not giving her ice-cream after lunch. Not that this is a good thing at all. I am trying to shake this bad habit of mine so that hopefully she will do the same. Come to think of it, all my bad habits like lazying on the bed in the morning, shyness, and a weakness for ice-cream, all has a little mirror image in my daughter. Wait a minute, a weakness for ice-cream. That, I think, we have her mom to thank for.

I think children are the best artificial learning machines in the world, if you see them from an engineering point of view. Mimicking their parents from birth, nothing tickles them more than making fun of mom and dad by talking like their parents. And they will beam with pride too, if anyone were to tell them they are just like their parents. It simply means that they are doing a good job trying to look like adults.

Me somewhere at Bellecour, Lyon (2007/6/13), and always thinking of Phoebe