Ask the Kids
By
Gerry Niskern
NOTE: In my Memoir Writing Workshop this week we wrote about how our personalities had changed since childhood. Lots of interesting essays. Here’s mine.

I was almost three when my dad lifted me up to stand beside the pulpit of our church and announced, “Gerry is going to recite the Methodist’s Creed.” And I did!
I wasn’t shy because that wasn’t the only time I was encouraged to recite from memory. My uncles in my mother’s family were all coal miners and they delighted in standing me on a chair when my Republic dad came to pick me up and getting me to shout “ Yea, Roosevelt!” or “Vote FDR”, back in l935.
Then for some reason, I became extremely, painfully shy the rest of my childhood. Even thru high school, I remember taking a lower grade in classes that required giving a report in front of the class. I worked hard to overcome that personality trait. Even as a stay-at-mom I volunteered to give the program in organizations I joined, even though I dreaded it. I pushed myself to overcome the trait.
Eventually I took some drawing classes and also became interested in painting. I concentrated on design and composition in watercolor and created unusually large pieces. I worked hard building a successful career dealing with gallery owners. After many one -man shows and Art Expos I realized I had dropped the shyness somewhere along the way. Of course, many experiences over the years as a mother had helped, but I’m sure it was the personal achievements in the art world that boosted my self- esteem.
As I wrote this chapter and tried to pin point the changes in my personality I realized something. I would ask the people who knew me best, my kids. I asked them to tell me in a sentence or two what change they had noticed in my personality over the years.
My younger son said, “That’s easy. You became more liberal.”
My older son said, “ You haven’t changed. You’ve just become more of what you were.”
Then I asked my daughter, the oldest, to give me a comment or two. She said, “Oh, you’ve changed so many times.” She said she would get back to me. As time was getting short to write something I reminded her a couple of times and she finally said, “I don’t think I have 400 words but here goes. I think you were born to be a mom. When I was younger I didn’t think so, but now I know you really were. Then when you started selling your paintings I saw a big change in how you acted. You were so assertive!”
When I asked her why she wrote 400 words, she said she thought she was supposed to, like my writing group. We had the best laugh we’ve had together in a long time over that mistake!
But this oldest child, a woman, had been paying attention over the years. She went on to say “I remember one change, after you began writing your column for the Arizona Republic. You came home one day, got out of the car and marched over to the For Sale sign in our yard, yanked it out and flung it into the garbage can. Then you announced, ‘We are not moving anymore.’
Dad didn’t know what hit him!” she laughed.
Little girls always pay more attention to the family dynamics.