breaking patterns

Digging into generational patterns to unlearn some behaviors, I need to travel 5,000 miles and head back to the 1990s.

I grew up in a boozy town in the North of England. The small market town of Garstang has a thriving pub trade with seven pubs, four of which I worked in over the years. Back then, there was The Farmers Arms, The Crown, The Eagle and Child, The King’s Arms, The Royal Oak, The Wheatsheaf, Th’Owd Tithe Barn, The Checkered Flag and Crofters Tavern (all oh so very British).

And I grew up in a boozy house. My Mum and Dad were regulars at these pubs and on Friday nights would do their pub crawls around the little town. As I got older I would join them, drinking underage with my pals in these pubs. And when I was 17 my parents took on a pub of their own as landlord and landlady. They moved our family out of our ‘normal’ family home to go and live above the pub. This was a wild and ultimately unsuccessful move which broke our family in more ways than one.

generational patterns

You can see that as a family we have deeply engrained behaviors firmly linked to drinking alcohol. For me and my sisters, breaking down these patterns would take a lot of unlearning and retraining. It goes beyond just my immediate family also. To hear my Dad talk, he would speak of how my grandfather and great grandfather also liked a drink. Our penchant for drinking went back generations and ran deep. It is not uncommon for families to have a cycle of inherited behaviors from parents, ancestors, and/or childhood environments. These generational patterns are behaviors that have been passed down. For us it was drinking but for other families it could be abusive natures, addictions, or lying/cheating. People go to great lengths to break their generational patterns. I have friends who have sought out shamanic healers in Peru or went on psilocybin retreats in the wilderness.

Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.

W. E. B. Du Bois, American Sociologist, Activist, Historian (1868-1963)

breaking the pattern

So, imagine my delight this weekend when I saw a sign that generational patterns were being broken in our family. When my nine year old daughter declared that she would not drink when she grew up. That she wanted to be like her Mummy.

We all know that many things can happen on the road ahead that may change my daughter’s mind. From the kind of friends she hangs out with in her teens, the industry she works in and the partner she chooses – it will all have an influence over whether she becomes a drinker. But I will keep working hard to break these generational patterns. As they get older, I will talk with my children about alcohol facts, reasons not to drink, and ways to avoid drinking in difficult or pressured situations.

For right now though, the fact that my nine year old daughter aspires to be a sober furious badass just like her Mummy is good enough for me.

(Side note: My six year old son also doesn’t remember Boozy Mummy. But he is currently suffering from ice-cream addiction so we don’t yet know what the future holds for him.)

My daughter recommends this Digestion Lemonade from Sunwink. A sparkling superfood tonic, it claims to support gut health with ingredients such as chicory, lemon balm and dandelion.