View from the North 40: The ancient cry of my people, or just my mother's voice

Language is both a science and a mystery. I am not here today to bring some kind of resolution to the issue, but I do want to add my perspective to the mix.

Plenty of studies have been published to tell us that language is both inherited and learned. Basically the findings boil down to this:

1) Human brains are genetically predisposed to language and human bodies are genetically influenced through traits like voice tone and how our bone and muscle structure create pronunciation. Think humans vs. cats or dogs.

2) On the other hand, children who were read to, starting at birth, learn language earlier, faster and better than kids who weren’t read to. Also, if we were raised by wolves or prairie dogs, we wouldn’t one day start speaking human because our human DNA told us to.

In a heretofore completely unrelated field of study, scientist are now looking at what is called epigenetic imprinting. It started in the 1960s with research into transgenerational trauma after data showed that profound trauma doesn’t just affect the victim, but potentially, multiple generations into the future.

Recently researchers started seeing evidence that is not just a behavioral issue, but rather might have some basis in actual genetic makeup. In other words, profound trauma actually alters the victims’ genetic fabric — epigenetic imprinting.

I know you must be wondering what all this serious stuff has to do with a humor column, but let me assure you that nothing is above joking about and trivializing.

Here it goes.

I write about my pets a lot. My pets are family, and I take that seriously, but I don’t consider them to be my children. In fact, I think children are scary, especially the little ones, the new ones, so I don’t have children, and very few of my friends have children. I didn’t even babysit as a teen.

Basically, I am pretty detached from the concept of momhood and I have virtually zero experience with human children, and yet … I caught myself last week while dealing with my pets, sounding just like my mother.

The morning it happened, I needed to get to work early, but our senior-citizen dog, Cooper, needed his scheduled shot and feeding, and the quarter-feral cat, Tony, who had a wound that required cleaning the night before, needed to start on his antibiotics that morning.

It should’ve been a no-brainer because they were used to Cooper’s twice-a-day shot and feeding schedule. They gobble everything down, and I go. It’s a beautiful fantasy.

But the dog, who was already jealous that the cat always gets a spoonful of canned dog food (the cat’s choice over all kitty treats offered), was even more jealous that I was stirring and stirring and stirring it together to make it special (hopefully mask the antibiotic flavor). And the cat was being extra skittish because he was worried about getting doctored again, and his “special” cat food was bitter with medicine.

The rest of the scene was just a slapstick comedy of me trying to wrangle the pair into their respective corners to eat their food.

It sounded something like: “Cooper, buddy, eat your breakfast.” “Hold on, Tony, I’ll be right there.” “Coop, eat up, c’mon. There’s your bowl. Eat. I don’t hear you eating.” “C’mon, Tony, here’s your — urrrrg. Coop, get back in the kitchen. Keep eating. Tony, eat up, you need — no, get back here. You gotta eat your medicines. C’mo— Coop!” “Good kitty. Four bites. Keep it up, Tony. Hey, no, stay there. You can’t go out. C’mon, eat. Uuugh! You can’t start an antibiotic and not finish it. Coop, did you finish your food? Stop scratching the door. Aaargh, fine!”

And then here came the big my-mother’s-mouth finish.

“I don’t have time for this. John can deal with you, and if you two get in a fight or die from this morning, don’t come to me about it.”

I’ve pondered this all week: Where did that particular mom approach come from?

Obviously, I heard that as a child. I would guess my mother heard it from both her parents, but did they from there’s and they from there’s? How far back? Did some ancestral mother of mine — her DNA altered by the hardships of the Dark Ages — tell her children, her whelps and wee bairn to “break thine fast o’ the morn with yonder hearth bread, and halt thee wet snivelings o’er the meager feed-stuffs or I nor your pater shall give ye so’ethin’ to whinge and wail about wi’ a good stroppin’.”

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A good stroppin’ was preferred over coffee. I guess that’s why I don’t drink the stuff at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40 .