I am the youn…

I am the youngest of two girls. My mom was also the younger of her and her sister-Aunt Eileen- who lived with us from age five to age eleven. It was a house of women. Sometimes my dad would shoot out the door to go on a long walk because he used to get so fed up with “all the estrogen” (took me a while to grasp what that meant). Needless to say I was always curious about friends of mine with brothers. A brother?! What the hell would I do if I had a brother I used to wonder. Little boys are so different from little girls. I always had lots of girlfriends and didn’t really start forming true friendships with boys until after they had gone through puberty thankfully, so the life of a little boy was something I couldn’t conceptualize.

Anyway! I was thrilled when I found out a couple years ago that I was going to be an aunt- I was having a little nephew!! Kaiden came to us in November of 2007. And I’ve gotta say- I didn’t care he was a boy. He was so damn cute. Still is, always will be.

A few years prior to his birth, I took my first psychology class- Human Psych 101- at the city college. It was the first time I’d ever heard of Freud. I just thought I was cool because I was a 17 year old freshman who was taking psychology (so deep, dude) while my friends were still in pleated skirts and penny loafers. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing in that class let alone what I was doing in college, but one day I started paying attention. I started learning. It was the first class I’d taken that really made me do some self-reflection. I dove into my own life history when reading about his Stages. I started thinking about the inner workings of my mind, my sexuality, and my psychosocialization.

I got a C in that class but hey. It tickled my pickle, so to speak. So I took another psychology class, this time on women’s psychology. But then, about 6 months before I found out Terry was pregnant, I took a children’s psychology class. That was all too engrossing. The further I delved into Freud’s theories on infant sexuality, the possibilities of developing complexes towards your parents, the more I agreed with them; the more they made sense to me. And now? With all this knowledge fresh in my mind and Kaiden in the Phallic Stage, it’s like having access to a real live textbook! I feel as though I have a sneak peek into the past of every male friend and family member I know thanks to my little nephew. Terry still tells me “stop psychoanalyzing my four year old.”

The truth is- I’m sure one day sooner than I’d like to admit, Kaiden will be doing the psychoanalyzing!