The Importance of Being Different

FIRST OF ALL, WHEN you think about it, we're all stuck here on this planet while it hurtles through space in its orbit. If you imagine yourself free of gravity and floating off in the distance, you get a whole different perspective on us. I imagine us all looking exactly the same -- like little ants, but full of self-importance. We're pretty good at dividing. And we're not bad at multiplying, either. (Sorry, I couldn't resist that. I am Ellen's mom, after all.)

How laughable we would seem from that far-off vantage point -- self-obsessed busy-bodies divided by turf and custom and color and you name it. We're divided by everything from what we eat to whom we worship as God and what name we call Him/Her. We're not just divided by our religious differences: we've gone to war because of them; we've actually killed in the name of God. I'm certain that's not what He/She intended when we were first created and put on this good earth to live and thrive together.

When it comes to embracing diversity, I tend to think of myself as a relatively "average," "regular" person, not endowed with traits that would make me any more accepting than you or your neighbors. There wasn't anything in my upbringing that caused me to be more tolerant than the next person. If anything shaped that inclination, it is the fact that I became a mother. But I'm certainly not supermom. Rather, I'm probably more of an Everymom, with the same dream that most parents have for their kids -- a live-and-let-live world where all the ants can celebrate individuality and diversity, yet still recognize each other as part of a larger family.

There's nothing new or radical about this image of ants. In fact, it's really just a spin on what is more commonly called the golden rule, something I was taught at the beginning of my education as Everygirl.

That part of my story starts in the depths of the Great Depression: on May 20, 1930, when I was born Betty Jane Pfeffer at home in a rented half of a double house on Dante Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. Despite the Depression and their own poverty, my parents -- my father, William Dick Pfeffer, of German descent; and my mother, Mildred Morrill Pfeffer, of Irish descent -- were happily anticipating my arrival and were planning for me to be the first of their three children to be born in a hospital. But I came too soon, and Mother gave birth at home, as she had with my sister Helen, seven years my senior, and my sister Audrey, five years my senior. So much for that plan. I've often wondered if it was my early entrance into the world that set the pattern of impulsiveness in my life, a pattern that has persisted to this day.

In any event, I am quite sure that being the third-born and the baby of the family shaped my early personality. Where Helen, the eldest, was serious, intelligent, and always thoughtful, and Audrey in the middle was fun-loving and vivacious, I was known as the "littlest," and -- with my thick golden curls and my apple-red cheeks -- I was spoiled rotten, and notorious for never taking no for an answer. I was tenacious. Still am. I consider tenacity one of my great strengths and one of my great weaknesses.

My earliest memories are from about the age of four. What I remember most about myself was how irrepressibly curious I was about everything. By now we were living in a slightly larger rental, not far from where I was born, a raised half of a double on Apricot Street. This house had a tiny backyard with a dirt plot maybe three feet by six feet. To this day, I can still see myself planting nasturtium seeds there and -- with time passing ever so slowly, as it does for the very young -- watching the green stalks inch from the ground, the flowers eventually bursting into bloom.

Some years later, being an impulsive and curious child, when I saw an ad on a bus for cotton seeds, I wrote down the address and sent for them.

A month later, as we were sitting down to dinner one night, Helen and Audrey began to laugh. Mother and Daddy asked them what was so funny.Audrey began, "Have you seen the backyard? She..."

"She? Who is she?" Mother said sternly. Mother thought it was extremely rude to refer to someone present as "she" or "her." Otherwise, Mother said, Audrey could have been referring to the cat or the cat's grandmother. We were taught to refer to company present by name.

Audrey continued, "Betty Jane is growing cotton in the backyard."

That was correct. When the seeds arrived I had planted them on my own, per instructions, and I soon had a small but nice cotton crop.

Mother and Daddy must have thought it a little unusual. But they acted proud. That's how they were whenever I tried new things. The lesson was simple -- it's OK to be curious. Over the years, this quality has endured and may be why I've always had quite a collection of hobbies and creative pursuits. And, even more relevant to the work I do now, being naturally curious has always made me open to meeting different kinds of people.

Copyright 1999 by Betty DeGeneres