Mother’s Day – The Ovarian Lottery
If one googles “ovarian lottery,” one will be directed to an article in buesinessinside.com by Joe Weisenthal in which he quotes a portion of a speech which Warren Buffett gave to MBA students. Mr. Buffett says:
“My political views were formed by this process. Just imagine that it is 24 hours before you are born. A genie comes and says to you in the womb, “You look like an extraordinarily responsible, intelligent, potential human being. [You're] going to emerge in 24 hours and it is an enormous responsibility I am going to assign to you — determination of the political, economic and social system into which you are going to emerge. You set the rules, any political system, democracy, parliamentary, anything you wish — you can set the economic structure, communistic, capitalistic, set anything in motion and I guarantee you that when you emerge this world will exist for you, your children and grandchildren.
What’s the catch? One catch — just before you emerge you have to go through a huge bucket with 7 billion slips, one for each human. Dip your hand in and that is what you get — you could be born intelligent or not intelligent, born healthy or disabled, born black or white, born in the US or in Bangladesh, etc. You have no idea which slip you will get. Not knowing which slip you are going to get, how would you design the world? Do you want men to push around females? It’s a 50/50 chance you get female. If you think about the political world, you want a system that gets what people want. You want more and more output because you’ll have more wealth to share around.”
On this Mother’s Day I think it would behoove all of us to consider what Mr. Buffett calls the ovarian lottery. I do think it was brilliant of Mr. Buffett to preclude his statement about political and economic systems with a restatement of what all of us know but which most of us act as if we do not know.
On this Mother’s Day there will be families gathering in real time around in a real, as opposed to virtual, setting. Some of these families will consist of those who are appreciative of and delighted with each other. Some of these families will have found ways of dealing with the results of the ovarian lottery in a way which embraced cooperation, acceptance, forgiveness and unconditional love. Whether rich or poor they were able to join together to create a home which fostered a focus on what was possible. Many other families will, however, gather in virtual time, often only in the memory or imagination of individuals. Many of these families will be overlaid with anger and resentment that they are not the models for the Normal Rockwell photo featured in the Saturday Evening Post or the modern television or internet equivalent. Perhaps parents died early, perhaps mental illness, addiction, war or some other disease insured that life was a daily struggle. Perhaps they are will waiting for the God of their understanding to right this terrible injustice.
Some of us may believe on this Mother’s Day that our mother deliberately looked for that slip which said “terrible parent” and subsequently spent their childhood preparing to fill this “terrible parent” role. They, therefore, deserve our disdainful judgment thus “forcing” us to withhold understanding and forgiveness.
Holding on to the anger and resentment, foregoing humility and forgiveness, will insure that we carry on that legacy of misery and, if we are parents, inflicting it on our children.
I happen to agree with Mr. Buffett. Birth is an ovarian lottery. I do not believe that anyone intentionally decided to be an unloving, distant or even absent parent. It is true that some parents may decide that they can only parent the way they were parented; that it was unsafe to trust love, or that it is was their responsibility to instill the fear of the God of their understanding. Some parents may have a mental illness for which treatment was unavailable or unsuccessful. Some may have an addiction which, for whatever reason, is resistant to all intervention or treatment attempts. Some may have abandoned through death or by doing something which resulted in them being locked up in prison and, thus were unavailable.
A mentally ill mother of a person I know recently told law enforcement officials that her son and his wife were dealing cocaine and other drugs, had assault weapons and were dangerous. An entire contingent of law enforcement people arrived at their house wielding guns and treating them as dangerous criminals. They found nothing. Mother was angry and unable to let go of her anger that the son and his wife were not supporting her unhealthy behavior. Her action not only resulted in significant trauma but also meant that they had to spend money which was already owed to others.
It is easy to understand why some people find it difficult to celebrate their mother. Mother may have little to give emotionally or otherwise. Yet, as so many have reminded us, humility and forgiveness is good for the health of the individual and the larger community.
Humility and forgiveness does not require the suspension of rational thought. If a person, who happens to be a mother (if only by virtue of birth), is not a safe person to have in one’s home or even to meet in a public place, then one may want to avoid direct contact. Yet, there is nothing preventing us from realizing that we too could be that dysfunctional or unable to perform a role or job which nature has assigned us. We too could me desperately in need of love and forgiveness.
Perhaps, as some people believe, we chose our parents before we were born so as to learn certain spiritual lessons (humility perhaps?). Perhaps it is not an ovarian (and sperm) lottery after all. Whatever the truth, today, if we are mentally and physically healthy enough we might practice what all of us want. We want to be loved for who we are and not judged because of one act or a way of being over which we had no control. It may feel strange or frightening to let ourselves grieve while letting go of anger, resentment, and blame. Yet, I promise that if we can allow this we will feel a new sense of freedom. We will also be able to allow those who are able to love unconditionally into our lives.
We can all then say, “Thanks mom. You gave all you had to give.” See, that was not that difficult.
Written May 8, 2016
If one googles “ovarian lottery,” one will be directed to an article in buesinessinside.com by Joe Weisenthal in which he quotes a portion of a speech which Warren Buffett gave to MBA students. Mr. Buffett says:
“My political views were formed by this process. Just imagine that it is 24 hours before you are born. A genie comes and says to you in the womb, “You look like an extraordinarily responsible, intelligent, potential human being. [You're] going to emerge in 24 hours and it is an enormous responsibility I am going to assign to you — determination of the political, economic and social system into which you are going to emerge. You set the rules, any political system, democracy, parliamentary, anything you wish — you can set the economic structure, communistic, capitalistic, set anything in motion and I guarantee you that when you emerge this world will exist for you, your children and grandchildren.
What’s the catch? One catch — just before you emerge you have to go through a huge bucket with 7 billion slips, one for each human. Dip your hand in and that is what you get — you could be born intelligent or not intelligent, born healthy or disabled, born black or white, born in the US or in Bangladesh, etc. You have no idea which slip you will get. Not knowing which slip you are going to get, how would you design the world? Do you want men to push around females? It’s a 50/50 chance you get female. If you think about the political world, you want a system that gets what people want. You want more and more output because you’ll have more wealth to share around.”
On this Mother’s Day I think it would behoove all of us to consider what Mr. Buffett calls the ovarian lottery. I do think it was brilliant of Mr. Buffett to preclude his statement about political and economic systems with a restatement of what all of us know but which most of us act as if we do not know.
On this Mother’s Day there will be families gathering in real time around in a real, as opposed to virtual, setting. Some of these families will consist of those who are appreciative of and delighted with each other. Some of these families will have found ways of dealing with the results of the ovarian lottery in a way which embraced cooperation, acceptance, forgiveness and unconditional love. Whether rich or poor they were able to join together to create a home which fostered a focus on what was possible. Many other families will, however, gather in virtual time, often only in the memory or imagination of individuals. Many of these families will be overlaid with anger and resentment that they are not the models for the Normal Rockwell photo featured in the Saturday Evening Post or the modern television or internet equivalent. Perhaps parents died early, perhaps mental illness, addiction, war or some other disease insured that life was a daily struggle. Perhaps they are will waiting for the God of their understanding to right this terrible injustice.
Some of us may believe on this Mother’s Day that our mother deliberately looked for that slip which said “terrible parent” and subsequently spent their childhood preparing to fill this “terrible parent” role. They, therefore, deserve our disdainful judgment thus “forcing” us to withhold understanding and forgiveness.
Holding on to the anger and resentment, foregoing humility and forgiveness, will insure that we carry on that legacy of misery and, if we are parents, inflicting it on our children.
I happen to agree with Mr. Buffett. Birth is an ovarian lottery. I do not believe that anyone intentionally decided to be an unloving, distant or even absent parent. It is true that some parents may decide that they can only parent the way they were parented; that it was unsafe to trust love, or that it is was their responsibility to instill the fear of the God of their understanding. Some parents may have a mental illness for which treatment was unavailable or unsuccessful. Some may have an addiction which, for whatever reason, is resistant to all intervention or treatment attempts. Some may have abandoned through death or by doing something which resulted in them being locked up in prison and, thus were unavailable.
A mentally ill mother of a person I know recently told law enforcement officials that her son and his wife were dealing cocaine and other drugs, had assault weapons and were dangerous. An entire contingent of law enforcement people arrived at their house wielding guns and treating them as dangerous criminals. They found nothing. Mother was angry and unable to let go of her anger that the son and his wife were not supporting her unhealthy behavior. Her action not only resulted in significant trauma but also meant that they had to spend money which was already owed to others.
It is easy to understand why some people find it difficult to celebrate their mother. Mother may have little to give emotionally or otherwise. Yet, as so many have reminded us, humility and forgiveness is good for the health of the individual and the larger community.
Humility and forgiveness does not require the suspension of rational thought. If a person, who happens to be a mother (if only by virtue of birth), is not a safe person to have in one’s home or even to meet in a public place, then one may want to avoid direct contact. Yet, there is nothing preventing us from realizing that we too could be that dysfunctional or unable to perform a role or job which nature has assigned us. We too could me desperately in need of love and forgiveness.
Perhaps, as some people believe, we chose our parents before we were born so as to learn certain spiritual lessons (humility perhaps?). Perhaps it is not an ovarian (and sperm) lottery after all. Whatever the truth, today, if we are mentally and physically healthy enough we might practice what all of us want. We want to be loved for who we are and not judged because of one act or a way of being over which we had no control. It may feel strange or frightening to let ourselves grieve while letting go of anger, resentment, and blame. Yet, I promise that if we can allow this we will feel a new sense of freedom. We will also be able to allow those who are able to love unconditionally into our lives.
We can all then say, “Thanks mom. You gave all you had to give.” See, that was not that difficult.
Written May 8, 2016
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