Inheriting More than Mom’s Genes
Pg. 19 The Female Brain, Louann Brizendine, M.D.
Because of her ability to observe and feel emotional cues, a girl actually incorporates her mother’s nervous system into her own. Sheila came to me wanting some help dealing with her kids. With her first husband she had two daughters, Lisa and Jennifer. When Lisa was born, Sheila was still happy and content in her first marriage. She was an able and highly nurturing mother. By the time Jennifer was born, eighteen months later, circumstances had changed considerably. Her husband had become a flagrant philanderer. Sheila was being harassed by the husband of the woman he was having an affair with. And things got worse. Sheila’s unfaithful husband had a powerful and rich father, who threatened to have the children kidnapped if she tried to leave the state to be with her own family for support.It was in this stressful environment that Jennifer spent her infancy. Jennifer became suspicious of everyone and by age six started telling her older sister that their kind and beloved new stepfather was certainly cheating on their mother. Jennifer was sure of it and repeated her suspicions frequently. Lisa, finally went to their mom and asked if it were true. Their new stepfather was one of those men who just didn’t have it in him to cheat, and Sheila knew it. She couldn’t figure out why her younger daughter had become so anxiously fixated on the imagined infidelity of her new husband. But Jennifer’s nervous system had imprinted the unsafe perceptual reality of her earliest years, so even good people seemed unreliable and threatening. The two sisters were raised by the same mother but under different circumstances, so one daughter’s brain circuits had incorporated a nurturing, safe mom and the other’s a fearful, anxious one.The “nervous system environment” a girl absorbs during her first two years becomes a view of reality that will affect her for the rest of her life. Studies in mammals now show that this early stress versus calm incorporation- called epigenetic imprinting- can be passed down through several generations. Research in mammals by Michael Meaney’s group has shown that female offspring are highly affected by how calm and nurturing their mothers are.
Motherhood. Wow.
Categories: General
Would not the same hold true for sons?
Good question Lee. Actually males have a different system for handling emotional cues. This is fairly complex science, but the way I understand it after all the reading I’ve done is: In processing and reading other human being’s emotions, men and male children need clear and definitive information of a visible, or linguistic nature- something that their main senses can calculate, measure and interpret.
This is very different from women. Women, while processing and reading a fellow human’s emotions, actually PHYSICALLY MIMIC the emotions of the person in their company. How’s that for empathy? This is the reason women cry more at movie theaters. Their body is actually interpreting and mimicking the actors’, up to 70% intensity.
I really recommend Louann’s book. So amazing.
Well that might explain how a little boy has his mother’s heart strings wrapped around his finger and not even realize it while a little girl has the same situation with her father but does realize it!
I will have to give the book a read. Thanks Alana!