Determining your Siblings

Determinism is something that I have often thought about in relationship to my own life. This relates to how my parents have always functioned concerning my siblings and I. To give a little back story I am the youngest of five children. My parents had three boys and then two girls. My oldest brother is 16 years older than me and moved out when I was a year old. My closest sibling is my sister who is 4 years older than me. Because of this my brothers were always grouped together as were my sister and I. My oldest brother is a doctor who is currently doing a fellowship at NIH, my second brother works for a company called LifeCell and sells skin for skin grafts and such, and my last brother is a project manager for a major construction company. Needless to say all three of my brothers have done extremely well for themselves in life and have strived hard to get there.

                Now I’ll skip down to my sister. Unlike my brothers she flunked out of her first semester in college and never went back. She hasn’t discerned any sort of career path and sort of floats through life. Her final goal in life is to be a missionary like my father, but does very poorly at pursing that goal. Next in line is me. Although I got in some trouble in high school, I always did well in school and continue to now that I’m pursing higher education. I’ve always had a plan for my life and visualized how to get there. I went straight to college after high school and have made all the necessary steps for a hopefully productive future.

                Now that you’ve read about all my siblings it’s clear to see who sticks out there.  I have often wondered why 4 of us are so similar, including personality and interests, and my sister could be so starkly different. On some level we had the same basics of childhood, even though some situations were different for each of us. This is where determinism comes in to play. What was it that made her so different? Was it pre-destined genetics? Was she born to be a dreamer and an artist while we were born with more responsible traits and logical? Or could it be cultural determinism? While my sister and I were younger my parents got divorced. Did something in that situation set her off in a different direction than my brothers? And if that is so, why wasn’t I set off in the same direction?

                Not that my brothers and I are right or my sister is wrong, but there are blatantly obvious differences between us. It makes me intensely curious to know what was different with her. Obviously we are all are own people with personality traits and quirks, but she is a mold of her own. I think that a big part of determinism is filters that we all go through while growing up. Every moral we’re taught and situation we go through sets up filters for how we will react to things as adults. Something in my sister’s past changed her filters from those of ours.