Nature Nurture

I always wonder how kids born in the same house, from the same gene pool can be so different. Take my sister and I, for example – she's tidy and organized, I'm completely the opposite. She's very good at crafts and packing presents neatly. I'm a klutz at both, not to mention sadly lacking in patience. As our elder two are growing up, it's become clear that they are also quite disparate.

When Chubbocks was little, we had an infestation of ants in some of the woodwork. Every day hordes of big black ants would swarm through the house, which was quite disgusting. But I never wanted to kill them since I have a fondness for the industrious creatures, as opposed to cockroaches or flies. My mother-in-law started a game with Chubbocks of stomping on them and I found it extremely distressing so I told Chubbocks that at best we should sweep them away gently. I taught him to watch how each ant would manfully hoik 10 times its own body weight in a food item and laboriously wend its way home. We used to sit and watch as a group of ants, in a great display of teamwork, would pick up a bougainvillea leaf and wander off with it for some mysterious purpose.

Last night an unwary ant happened to wander onto the dining table. Puddi the boisterous unthinkingly reached out and crushed it before anyone could say anything. I got pretty upset with her and rebuked her that the poor thing must have been looking for food to take home to its family. She of course listened for about two minutes and promptly returned to her primary occupation of playing with her food. Chubbocks, meanwhile, sat silently. A couple of minutes later I looked across at him to find his eyes swimming with tears. He got so upset about the ant, that eventually he just broke down and sobbed inconsolably, distraught at the thought of the ant and the ant's family who would wait and wonder and worry. He was eventually so upset that not even the bribe of ice cream or chocolate worked. He just couldn't get any food down and finally had to be put to bed early.

His dad and I tenderly took the ant outside and laid it down in our garden, at his behest and A had to come up with a complicated story of how the ant had just become unconscious and had woken up later with a big headache, gone home and was now being looked after by his family. This morning as soon as he came down, Chubbocks wanted to go and look for his ant. He went out into the garden and came back beaming. "I saw it. It's fine!" "How do you know it's the same one?" we asked."I saw its face".

I don't know how many kids today are that tender-hearted. I hope Chubbocks remains like this…