RUNNING HEAD: DEVELOPMENT OF ME

Development of Me: Entry One

Oct. 14/15
Bree Quan
CFCS Lifespan and Development

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Reading this chapter of the text book took me back to high school biology and

made me remember things that I completely forgot about, such as classical

conditioning, the process of conducting an experiment and the theories of nature and

nurture. Putting these into perspective of lifespan and how we develop as human beings

got me thinking about how I have developed myself between epigenetics, where I grew

up, how I have changed and the certain environmental things around me during my

lifespan. Nature and nurture make up a large part of who we are and many of us take it

for granted. Nature will always be there and there is not much we can do to control that.

Humans here in North America are known to rely on medications to make them better

instead of taking care of themselves in the beginning. To be mindful of the nurture would

benefit themselves and also for the generations of the future. In this reflective paper, I

am going to talk about what I have learned from this topic of nature and nurture. I will

include what I think mankind could be heading towards, my own experiences of how I

grew up in a smaller city along with Christianity, how my travels to twenty different

countries overtly influenced my development and changed my outlook on life.

Epigenetics is simply your genetic inheritance and what you acquire from your

parents and grandparents. It is interesting to read examples from the text book and

watch the videos and how certain events, like the holocaust, can influence a persons

genes two generations later. For example, a person starving for food in a concentration

camp is adapting to their environment by their body retaining food and energy as much

as possible because the body does not know when it will eat again. This can influence

the epigenetics of a great grandchild seventy years later. The genes in the great

grandchild could still have this same influence of needing to retain food and energy,

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therefore setting this child up for obesity and the consequences that come with that. In

developed countries, like North America, we are subjected to food portions well beyond

what our bodies actually need. What could people of the same cohort living in a society

of overeating and use of technology be doing for their grand children? The human body

is a forever adapting piece of work. Are people overweight and obese because our older

generation did not have as much access to food as we do now and feel the need to eat

more because we may run out in the long run? It is interesting to think about because

who knows what our world has in store for us in the future. Maybe we need to be more

mindful of not only the nurture and taking care of our environment, but our genes as

well.

I grew up in Lethbridge, Alberta, where the population was no more than sixty

thousand and was predominantly white and Christian. I grew up thinking that the rest of

the world was the same as the tiny box that I lived in. After my first two years of college,

I took off travelling and by the time I was twenty three years old I had been to eighteen

different countries. I did not own a house, have a degree, nor was I married or had

children. This was very shocking to people of my cohort. They were amused of the

amount of travel I had done but were confused as to why I had no plans to get my life

together. What does that mean in society? Does being married, having children,

owning a house and having a career mean you have your life together? I think the time

a person graduates high school is a sensitive period for realizing how a person wants to

identify as an adult, whether it is their career choice, sport choice, who they marry or to

have children. I struggled with this sensitive period because I did not believe in the

religion I grew up in. I am gay and did not want to out myself nor did I want to be

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married to someone of the opposite sex or have children. This is the culture of a small,

conservative city where ninety percent of the population is white. I could not out myself

for the purpose of being ostracized so I decided to take off travelling.

I experienced acculturation in countries in south east Asia like Cambodia, Laos,

Vietnam and Thailand. Also in Africa, like Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Namibia. When

I was in Laos I went to this tiny village in the north. We were warned by the locals that

we must stay on the beaten path when travelling through the fields because there were

still unexploded mines and bombs that were dropped by the Americans after the

Vietnam War. In the village, the adults told us a man was working in his rice field not far

from there died from his machine running over a cluster bomb. In Tanzania, people

yelled and cussed at us for being white and visiting their country. People in Malawi

came up to us shaking our hands because we were tourists. After all of my travels, I

learned that we all have different experiences, upbringing and perspectives on ways of

life, but in my understanding we are all after one thing and that is survival. How we

choose to go about this has an impeccable amount of variables through different

cultures, economic statuses and accessibility. How we expose ourselves to these

differences is how we can be mindful of the nurture and be more open-minded to

change and differences. I grew up thinking that my inner feelings were a sin, I had to

marry a man and have his children. Being gay was not an option. The nurture of religion

was a big part of my life going to church every weekend and going to a Catholic school

from kindergarten to grade twelve. I had a priest tell me that God loves all his children,

but not homosexuals and atheists. I shoved these feelings down so deep that I actually

believed myself to be straight. My first trip, I learned some of the best lessons that I

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continue to preach to this day. This lesson I learned through my experience of travelling

by myself made me realize that I had nobody else to please but myself and from that, I

knew that is how my life should be. I surrounded myself with people who respected me

for who I am and not where I am from. That first trip opened up my entire world.

I think that our ancestors have put this epigenetic in us that we need to follow in a

certain path like the one they went on. I did not want to be part of that path. Erik

Eriksons theory about development talks about identity and role confusion. I learned

my true identity at the age of twenty-two because I had some role confusion and have

felt that there was a slight delay in my development as a young adult. Now, at twenty

seven years old, I feel like I am re-living my early twenties with being in my first real

relationship of two and a half years and also being a student again.

In summary, I have done a lot of growing in my late twenties and it is great to

reflect upon what we learn and how experiences change us. Now, learning more about

lifespan, epigenetics and nature and nurture broadened my capacity to see what the

future holds. Not only for me, but for human beings in general. I think we can all learn

from each other by seeing each others differences as positives and opportunities to

learn instead of negatives and deciphering who is better or worse.