Nature vs. Nurture

I recently made the trip to the greater Philadelphia region to visit the Pretty Boy and his family. OK, that's not true. I made the trip so that I could play some very bad golf with the Pretty Boy and another friend who lives in Connecticut. The visit was a fringe benefit. While I was there, I experienced what I can only call a stark example of instinct vs. learned behavior.

After arriving late on Friday night, I awoke Saturday to the normal activity of a house with two young children (a boy, age 2, and a girl, less than a year old). There were alternate periods of wailing and laughter, toys crashing to the floor and making their distinctive whirrs, chirps, and beeps, all of which eventually gave way to a Sesame Street-inspired quiet. Not being a morning person, I engaged the family only in passing, grunting a "Morning" to whomever required acknowledgement and avoiding those who didn't. I retreated into a Diet Coke and my book as I sat down in the living room where the PBIT (that's Pretty Boy In Training) was watching Sesame Street in such an enthralled state that one might think it was explaining the secrets of the universe. It might have been, too, but I had to concentrate on my soda and my book just then.

We existed in amiable silence for a while, enjoying our respectively chosen methods of coping with the morning, and all was good. Then, Mom/the Pretty Woman (it's a pretty family) came in with the Pretty Girl. Apparently, the Pretty Woman needed to do some things that would be more easily accomplished without the Pretty Girl in the crook of her arm, and deposited the child on the couch opposite her brother, explaining to me that she was just going to leave the Pretty Girl there for a few minutes and other words that never quite penetrated my Morning Brain. The PBIT took a second away from the show to give everyone in the room a perturbed look, conveying just how much he approved of all this interruption as the Pretty Woman started to leave the room. At that moment, for some unknown reason, I glanced at her retreat, then stole a glance at the newly-deposited Pretty Girl. On something close to the same page, she looked at her mother leaving, then looked straight at me, opened her eyes wide, her mouth even wider, and began to cry.

Some things in life are just instinct. I guess it really does come down to fight or flight. Or cry.