Easily influenced

Posted by amy on August 22nd, 2008 filed in family

I think it’s really important to have your own identity. I find it difficult to tolerate people who’s interests gravitate towards those of others as they meet new people.  It’s NICE to get involved in what your friends are doing, but it’s not nice to lose your self identity all together.  There’s a person like this in my life, and it seems that this person has a different hobby every time they meet someone new, and every time you realize that the person has changed interests again, you can clearly see who that change was molded after and it’s obvious that that person is just picking up what the new person in their life is doing. When hanging out with a certain group of friends the chosen activity one thing…  And that will last until they no longer hang out with those people.  When those people get dumped and the person gets wrapped up in another person who has a different interest and they adopt those interests and there’s not a trace of the old interest to be found. It’s almost like this person is incapable of having any original thought of their own… It seems like they only do the things that the other people in their life do and then when that is no longer a novelty, they pick up whatever else someone else is doing.
The thing that sucks about this is how easy this influences kids. My step-daughter is easily influenced by whatever the people closest to her in her life are doing. When she stays with Mr. Man and I, she’s totally in to music and likes to be on the computer and downloading things. She plays tons of video games and chooses to write and express herself (which are things I like to do). I find it flattering that she tries to do things that I enjoy doing, but I also encourage her to find out what it is that SHE wants to do and what SHE enjoys doing instead of just doing the things that all the people around her like to do.

Right now her dad struggles with the fact that she has been influenced in to hunting. I don’t think her dad or her mom ever intended to raise her as an animal killer. I know that Mr. Man is the furthest thing from a hunter and has no desire to see his daughter move in that direction. I don’t’ think her mom ever had much interest in hunting either, until she met the guy she’s dating now. He seems to be big in to hunting… And in turn, her mom is now big in to hunting (see what I was saying above?) and because of that, I think my Step Daughter now “thinks” she wants to try it out.

I fear the moment that she kills something and then has to look it in the face. I FEAR the moment she strings that animal up and is forced to watch it be skinned and de-limbed. I fear it, because I know her, and I know those images will terrify her. I can’t imagine living with myself (at any age) knowing I had killed another living thing. I have guilt sometimes over killing spiders… And spiders scare the hell out of me. I couldn’t imagine going outside and hunting down an innocent animal and ending it’s life. Not only is it archaic and horrifying to me, but it isn’t necessary. And for the record, yes… I do eat meat. But I get my meat from a grocery store.

This isn’t by any means a post that’s meant to be anti-hunter. I think hunting is fine. I understand a need for it in some situations and I’m not going to try to stop people from doing it that actually are in to the “sport” of it. But the situation my step daughter is in doesn’t warrant her having to kill to eat and honestly, if I had any say in it I would stop her from pursuing it. But I don’t, and I respect that.

I’m just watching her turn in to (forgive me for saying this) a hillbilly and it breaks my heart that she’s so easily influenced by things in her life that she feels are necessary to do just because others are interested in them. I think it is a genetic flaw. Luckily for this side of the family, it’s not a Filipino trait. ;)

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