Author: Sharron Burnett

Does birth order actually mold an individual’s personality or is all the hype simply a grand way of stereotyping? Does the sex of children have more to do with personality than where they are in the pecking order? What about only children? Is it nature or nurture or both that ultimately makes us who we are?

I was a first born child. My mother ecstatically and carefully recorded every milestone of my infancy in a baby book filled with photographs and intricate details of my life. She saved birthday cards from my first three years and made baby blankets by hand to swaddle me. She was quite obviously determined to be a fabulous mom and the evidence that she was totally enthralled with her role is found in that carefully crafted book and the detailed stories that she told over and over. 

When my brother was born three years later the focus of her attention widened. She did not neglect me but she had to set me on a more independent course because my brother was often quite sick, She spent hours nursing him back to health. She had far less time to dote on me even though she did her best to continue sending me signs that she loved me very much. I suppose that I actually enjoyed the freedom that came with having a new brother and even though no words were spoken I sensed that my parents expected me to be more responsible than I had previously been. 

When I was five years old my youngest brother was born. With that event my mother’s time and duties were stretched. She purchased a baby book for him but simply tossed photos the pages to be arranged and narrated at a later date that never seemed to come. She certainly loved each of us to the fullest, but I sensed that I had been the recipient of the most focused amount of her adoration simply by being born first. I suppose that experience left a mark on me of some kind but she ferociously doted on each of us in her own way.

I can’t say that I was a particularly sharing and caring sibling until after my father died. In fact I lived in a kind of bubble of egoism in which my brothers existed but received little of my notice. As the only girl I receive a different kind of attention from my parents that I greatly enjoyed. As fate would have it my father just happened to speak of my lackadaisical tendencies shortly before his death. He urged me to be better, so when he was gone I took it upon my self to be a kind of adjunct parent to my brothers and a helpmate to my mother. 

I don’t think that birth order had as much to do with my becoming hyper-dutiful as much as the new circumstances of my life. An inner voice seemed to command me to rise to the occasions when my mother and brothers needed my help. Somehow being responsible became second nature to me. My brothers eventually carried their fair share of keeping our family intact as they grew old enough to be of assistance. Nonetheless we each developed our own personalities that might be described as fitting the stereotypes of birth order theories.

I have been the serious and often anxious planner. My middle brother is easy going and adaptive. The youngest brother is gregarious, jovial and always ready to take risks. I see a bit of both my father and my mother in each of us. I suspect that nature has much to do with how we each became but nurture and our shared experiences no doubt mattered more. 

I never felt the resentment of the so called eldest daughter syndrome. I have often longed for a sister but my brothers are wonderful and loving even as their maleness sometimes does not truly understand my feelings. Mine are uniquely female experiences that only another woman truly comprehends. Nonetheless my brothers have partnered with me over the years in sharing all of the family joys and disappointments and tragedies. I would never have been able to care for our mother all alone during her bouts with mental illness. We were a team that worked as a unit and for that I will always be grateful. 

I would posit that my experience disproves the idea that birth order somehow defines us for life. Perhaps having a single parent eliminated all of the familial stereotypes or maybe both of my parents were ahead of the times in seeing me and my brothers as equals. Whatever shaped us turned out to be quite wonderful. 

I treasure my brothers and our partnership. I revel in our differences and the characteristics that we each bring to the table. There is joy in our solidarity and also in our perfect mix of personalities. We admire and love each other just as we are, birth order or not. 

When I am angry I cry. Right now I am sobbing because the Supreme Court has just delivered a ruling that I am certain will end badly. By a vote of six to three they determined that the Trump era ban on bump stocks did not satisfy the test of whether or not such a mechanism creates a machine gun and should therefore be legal to own. The executive order arose after one of the worst mass shootings occurred at a concert in Las Vegas where fifty eight people were killed and five hundred were injured. The bloodbath was accomplished by a killer with an AR-15 adjusted with a bump stock that allowed him to keep shooting without pulling the trigger over and over again. 

One of my former students attended that concert and it has left a traumatic mark on her that is never going to heal completely. She spoke of lying in the blood of people who had been shot around her where she lay hoping that none of the shots would hit her. While she was trying to be as still as possible people were screaming and wailing in pain while some were dying. It was an horrendous event that left her in a state of PTSD. Only after attending months of counseling while living with her family was she even able to work or think of being independent once again.

I have written over and over about the consequences of our nation’s obsession with gun culture. It is one thing for someone to have a rifle for hunting but no ordinary citizen needs an AR-15 much less one with a bump stock. I will never understand why those in positions of power bow to the gun lobby over and over again rather than considering the safety of our citizens. Guns have become a kind of false god for so many people who seem to think that the more they have the more secure they will be. In the meantime the laws are so lax that weapons all too often find themselves in the hands of people who are dangerously disturbed. Any efforts to make it more difficult to own a gun or to ban certain types of guns and accessories is shunned over and over again even as we watch one mass shooting after another. 

I do not think that the second amendment was meant to include much of the modern day weaponry. I don’t believe that the Founding Fathers imagined people walking around in stores and public places with guns. The times have changed since that amendment was written and we don’t need paramilitary private citizens anymore. We have National Guards, police, sheriffs and all sorts of law enforcement officers not to mention the different branches of our military. Hunters only need a good rifle, not a weapon that utterly destroys the very essence of humans or animals. The reticence of our lawmakers to face the reality of their deadly decisions is unbelievable. 

How many times do I have to cry for innocents killed because we can’t get control over the flow of weapons in our nation? How many times do I have to write about this only to be ignored? I am not advocating taking away a pistol or a rifle from anyone but I think that we have to reach an agreement that speaks to common sense or the killings will continue. 

I know people who live in other countries who are fearful of even visiting the United States. They do not understand why guns are so plentiful here.  I can’t say that I blame them for thinking this way because I don’t understand it either. 

I find it ironic that a jury just found a man guilty of three felonies because he lied on a gun permit when he was actively taking illegal drugs. I do not forgive him for his misdeeds but the fact that he may go to prison for as much as twenty five years for doing this seems quite hypocritical given that we seem to actually encourage people to buy guns and no doubt many of them are lying about their physical and mental states. Most of the time nobody bothers to even check the accuracy of such things and even if they do, law enforcement often only gives a slap on the wrist. 

I will never give up advocating for the safety of the people around me. Our gun laws must be overhauled in favor of public safety. I don’t want to see Christmas cards of families, including the children, holding rifles. Our worship and fascination with guns is sick. 

I had to scour my ninety-five year old father-in-law’s home for guns. I was shocked at how many there were but happy that I found them and locked them away. Then I learned that he was keeping one surreptitiously in his room in our house. I had to all but pry it away from him. He has severe tremors and is often confused. There is no way that he is protecting himself with a gun. He is a danger with one in his hands as I suspect many gun owners also are. 

I will keep praying about this and harping on our need for gun control laws until my last breath. It is something that we must be willing to do to stop the unnecessary bloodshed. If we don’t do something someone we love may find themselves in the next mass shooting situation. It has to stop!

I was eight years when I came down with measles. My first symptoms appeared on a frigid day in February. My throat hurt and I felt warm and headachy. When a rash appeared on my chest my mother knew that I had somehow caught the measles, a highly infectious disease. Mama quickly isolated me from my brothers in a darkened room with the blinds closed tightly against the cold that had left a frost on the windows. 

My symptoms intensified over the next days. My fever spiked and my cough became more painful and frequent. As I fell in and out of sleep I felt so weak that I wondered if I was going to die. My mother ministered to me with chicken soup and the kind of love that only a parent can give. I lost track of days and nights for what seemed like an eternity. I heard the sounds of life from my brothers while I wondered if I was slowly slipping away from the good health that I had always enjoyed. The days and my fever lingered for well over ten days as I lay weakly in my bed with a headache so intense that it was difficult to lift my head. 

My mother told me not to turn on the lights in my room or look outside into the daylight. She worried that my eyes might be affected and that I would go blind just as a small number of people with measles sometimes do. Unlike the time when all of the neighbors came to catch my chicken pox I was all alone with the measles. Not even my brothers were allowed to be near me. I spent a very lonely ten days in bed listlessly fighting the virus naturally. It was an horrific experience that I would not want anyone to have to endure. 

I survived the experience but when I returned to school I had missed so much that I felt overwhelmed. It took weeks for me to feel strong and normal again. I had missed playing in one of the few snowy days that ever occurred in Houston but given how horrible I had felt during my battle against measles I was simply glad to know that I would now be immune for the rest of my life. The thought of encountering that sickness again was terrifying but I learned that I would never have to face it again. 

I remember being asked if I had ever had measles when I first visited a gynecologist. My doctor wanted to be certain that I would not contract the disease if I became pregnant. He was relieved to learn that I had successfully recovered from measles when I was a child as he outlined the dangers of having the virus while pregnant. He told me that if and when I had children of my own I would be able to protect them from the dreaded disease with a reliable vaccine. 

From a personal point of view I was excited to realize that my babies would never know the pain of measles that I had endured. For that matter they would be protected from the mumps as well which I still recall whenever my throat becomes sore and I have trouble swallowing. My girls would not have to fear polio or have friends confined to braces or iron lungs like I had witnessed. They would not know what smallpox was like except from the stories that my grandfather told about that horrific disease. The miracle of vaccines would eventually render many of the illnesses that had once plagued the population moot. 

Just as my doctor had predicted my children received vaccines and never became ill with many preventable diseases. In fact, so did most of the children across the globe to the extent that the World Heath Organization was one day able to declare that many of the diseases like smallpox and measles had been eradicated. Then a faulty study that was later decried by scientists suggested that vaccines were more dangerous to children than catching the actual illnesses that they had been created to prevent. Suddenly a backlash against any type of vaccine began to ripple through the world along with lurid stories about side effects that might occur. In spite of scientific proof that vaccines were not to blame for disorders like autism a new insistence on avoiding them gained steam.

Now we are once again facing outbreaks of measles across the world. it is a highly contagious disease that spreads quickly to anyone who is not immune either from enduring the illness or having the vaccine. This is a frightening situation because so many people have forgotten or never really knew how horrible and dangerous it is to actually be afflicted with measles. Indeed the impact of measles has been underestimated because it has been generally unknown since the nineteen sixties. 

Nobody should think of measles as being a relatively harmless and natural illness. As someone who spent ten fevered days slipping in and out of wakefulness I can attest to the fact that it is not something that I would want anyone to endure. The same might be said for the many other diseases that have been all but wiped from the face of the earth by the many vaccines that we now administer to both children and adults. The miracle of science has eliminated the suffering and death caused by infectious diseases that once killed or disabled humans with regularity. The odds of dangerous side effects are far less than the odds of deadly symptoms from the diseases themselves. We should not want to risk returning to the times before vaccines. 

I hope we can keep the herd immunity that vaccines have created as more and more parents insist on sending their children to school unprotected. As someone who has endured the illnesses and witnessed the heartache of those who did not do so well, I can’t imagine taking a pass on a tiny prick and injection of a life saving vaccine. I shudder at the thought of outbreaks that should be preventable. I hope that most of us are sensible enough to protect ourselves, our children and others. 

When I read Barack Obama’s inspiring autobiography, Dreams From My Father, I immediately felt a kinship with him. Much like the former President I have spent time wondering exactly what my father would have been like if he had not died and what he would have thought of the person that I have become. Losing my daddy was the most traumatic event in my life but I have preserved my memories of him through my own experiences and from the comments that others often made about him. I have spent a lifetime searching for a way to know him better and imagining what it would be like to have spent adult time with him. 

My grandmother always told me that my father was a good boy, a model child, a loving son. I know that he adored his mother and reveled in being with her. While she was never able to read or write she devoted herself to educating him and he in turn shared what he had learned with her. He once tried to teach her but she felt too much like an old dog attempting to master new tricks and she finally insisted that it was too late to even try. She said that it crushed him to be unable to help her to master those things.

My grandfather was an avid reader and his love of books and newspapers and magazines seemed to flow naturally to my father who was slowly but surely building an impressive library for himself and for me and my brothers. Daddy came home from work each evening and immediately read the evening newspaper from the front page to the very end. He seemed to have a photographic memory because he would quote entire paragraphs almost word for word. After dinner his favorite pastime was reading from one of his books and sharing his favorite passages out loud while classical music filled the air. He delighted in seeing our reactions, especially those of my mother.

My father liked everything. He was an engineer but he also loved poetry and fictional pieces. He had so many humorous books, but also scientific texts that often predicted the future. He enjoyed sports of every kind and was able to rattle off statistics without even thinking. In many ways I remember him as being a hybrid of me and my two brothers. He gave me the gift of reading and seemed to pass down his genes to a brother who is a quiet master mathematician and engineer. Our youngest brother is a people person who loves jokes and being outdoors and looks so much like him that it is remarkable. According to one of my aunts, our youngest sibling also sounds just like our father.

One of my older cousins often spoke of how interesting my father was. He would come to our home when he was a teenager and he and my father would sit together talking about every possible topic. My cousin often opined that he missed those intellectual gatherings with my dad which was quite a compliment because he himself turned out to be an incredibly deep thinker.

My father made friends easily and our home was always filled with his buddies and their families or neighbors from down the street. He was a devoted fan of the Texas A&M Aggies never missing a game or competition of any kind even if it meant just listening on the radio. He loved the humorous shows on television best and his laugh came from deep down in his belly and echoed delightfully through the house. I really enjoyed sitting near him when he tuned in to his favorite programs like Your Show of Shows. I didn’t always understand the jokes but when he guffawed I knew that I should as well.

My father loved my mother deeply and the feeling was mutual. They had been married for eleven years when he died but they still walked together holding hands like two lovebirds. My father took great joy in showing his affection for my mother and surprising her with lovely gifts that reflected her beauty. He was as affectionate with me and my brothers as he was with her and he often took great pains to show us how much he loved us. I loved how he would lift us up into the air and tell us how wonderful we were.

I have often supposed that because my father had so many talents he had a difficult time finding work that challenged him. In his final year of life he seemed to be searching for something that he was unable to find. I have surmised that the death of one of his best friends and his grief over that loss had affected him more deeply than anyone realized. He was different after his buddy was gone and seemed determined to create more meaning from his life and work rather than just earning a paycheck. I don’t know that he ever got over that loss because the two of them were like brothers.

I loved it whenever my father took me along with him when he was running his errands. We would visit bookstores and libraries or we might find ourselves listening to recordings of the classical music that he so loved. His face would light up with unbridled joy when he found a new rendering of Beethoven or when he saw a copy of a book that he had been wanting to read. He shared his thoughts with me as though I was his peer, seeming not to notice that I was only eight years old. I loved that about him as well!

None of us were ever quite the same after my father was gone. My grandmother seemed to slowly shrivel away. My mother shouldered her responsibilities with aplomb but her perennially impish joy was diminished. I silently suffered and went into a kind of cocoon for many years before I finally emerged hoping that I was the butterfly that he had always urged me to be. 

There have been many Father’s Days since his death and I have remembered him on each one of them. The impact he made on me in a few short years is immeasurable. I somehow feel his spirit inside of me telling me to be kind, to be my best, to seize the day. My biggest regret is that my husband and children never got to meet him. I am certain that they would have loved him as much as all of us did.

I suppose that most of us remember our fathers as being the best, but in my case I am certain that I am right. The dreams from my father have unfolded through me and my brothers and they have been so wonderful. I see him in each of us and know that somewhere, somehow he is still watching over us.

Happy Father’s Day Everyone!   

There were times when students that I loved did bad things. It was always difficult to mete out the punishments that they had earned. I hated their thoughtless choices, behavior that was wrong, but I never hated them. I continued to love them and encourage them to start anew to attempt to be better. 

I remember one of my favorite students stealing laptops computers from the school. He was expelled for his actions. As he waited for his mother to pick him up and take him home he sat in an anteroom sobbing. When I went to talk with him he exclaimed with red eyes that he knew that I could no longer think well of him or like him. He was shocked when I told him that I disliked what he had done and agreed that he had to be disciplined, but that I would never stop caring for him. I expressed my hope that somehow he would be able to learn from what had happened and make changes in his life that would help him to follow a pathway of honesty. I hugged him and wished him well with tears in my own eyes. 

A few years later I saw this young man once again at his brother’s graduation. He was smiling and rushed over to give me a hug. He told me that he had worked hard to undo the harm he had done to others. He went to counseling and concentrated more on his schooling. He even got a job to earn the funds that he had once attempted to garner illegal by theft. His mother and brother were as proud of him as I was. He had paid for his crime and was ready to move on and live a good life. 

Each of us has no doubt encountered a situation in which someone for whom we care is found to be guilty of behaviors that appall us. For some it may be addiction to drugs or alcohol or both. For others it may be theft or physical violence. It hurts to know of their deception and criminal actions. We may never be able to forgive them for what they have done, but if they are our child it is difficult to turn away completely. It is normal to feel the bond of love and the abhorrence of their actions at one and the same time.

We have a President who has led a life filled with tragedy. His first wife died in a car accident along with his daughter. As someone who lost a parent when I was eight I know the emotional rollercoaster that overtakes the emotions. I have lived the depression and uncertainty of a child feeling so suddenly unmoored. I somehow made it through the darkness and found the light but I have seen many students whose lives were overturned with the loss of a parent. They went from happy children to morose and tortured souls who sometimes struck out at the world in their confusion. I suspect that Hunter Biden is one of those souls. His response to the trauma was to rely on drugs, to shatter his own life those around him hoping to kill the pain. 

I do not condone all that Hunter Biden has done, but I believe that I understand some of the impetus for his out of control lifestyle. He obviously hit rock bottom and hurt lots of people before he was able to pull himself out of the pit he had created. He has managed to get sober and remain there even though he would certainly know that each day has the potential to toss him back into the maelstrom.

Hunter’s father has no doubt spent many nights anxiously praying for his son, hoping that somehow he will change. He is certain to have asked himself if he is to blame for how Hunter became. This is what any loving parent does in such a situation. It is to the President’s credit that he has refused to give up on Hunter. He rightfully hates the bad things that Hunter has done but loves him with the deepest kind of love that parents have for their children, good or bad.

Hunter committed a crime when he purchased a gun under the influence of drugs. He lied on a document that everyone who makes such a purchase must sign. A jury has determined that Hunter is guilty of breaking the law and his father accepts the verdict even as he show his love for his prodigal son. This is what good parents do. 

There are people who are using this very personal family tragedy as a political cudgel. They are mocking the President for loving his ‘criminal” son. They seem not to understand that to do otherwise would demonstrate a lack of humanity. They hurl insults at Hunter and his entire family knowing that their darts might pierce his resolve to stay drug free. They show a total lack of sensitivity to a situation that would be heartbreaking to any parent who possesses an ounce of feeling. 

I think of my students who were saved when they learned that people cared about them in spite of their sins. I wonder how any of us can dare to judge a father who openly demonstrates his love for his son in spite of his transgressions. Most of us have witnessed similar situations in our own lives or in the families of people that we know. Such moments are always intensely difficult but there is always a small grain of hope as long as love prevails. I dislike what Hunter did and I agree that he must pay a price but then we should all cheer him if he continues to work to be a better man and we should respect our President for showing us how to love.