Genetic History, Parental Influence & Agency

Way back to my second year of college when I was in the middle of my confused, what-do-I-want-to-do-with-my-life phase, I changed my major and minor 3 or 4 times. One of these choices was a short-lived, two-semester stint with a child development minor. I took nearly all the requirements for the minor in two semesters, and dozens of child psychology assignments, university day care hours and preschool lesson plans later, I realized I was being trained to be a day care professional, which was (and is) definitely NOT the life I wanted to live.

A few things still irk me about the mentality of the training, one of which was the approach to the "nature vs. nurture" argument. I had a child psychology teacher who either didn't communicate effectively to help us understand what she was talking about, or didn't completely care about what she was required to discuss in the class. Probably both. Regardless, I remember reading about and discussing nature vs. nurture and thinking the whole time, "something is seriously missing in this discussion. It's not one way or the other..."

Although I haven't kept up on the latest studies, I believe the consensus among scholars, sociologists and child psychologists is: it's a combination of both. No, I am not among the list of three aforementioned groups of brain lovers, but I can tell you something I've seen out of anecdotal observation and a little bit of pondering. I propose that the "nature vs. nurture" argument isn't two sided, it's three dimensional:

1) Family Genetic History
2) Parental Influence / Rearing
3) Agency / Personal Choice

Anecdote 1 - NATURE:  I have a dear friend whom I've known since their first daughter was toddling in diapers. That little toddler is now 16 years old and she has 5 siblings for a total of, yes, 6 children in the family. The friend (mother) is an intelligent, witty woman with an uncanny ability to write frustrating situations humorously. Knowing what I know about her and her husband's exceptional parenting, I laughed and was fascinated by this particular blog post of hers: Measure of a Mom.

Anecdote 2 - NURTURE:  I have a sister with 5 daughters, the eldest being 11 years. With a house full of 6 emotional, dramatic females, you'd think their home was a mad house. It is not. I have several memories of arriving at their home on a random afternoon to find the two oldest quietly sitting on the couch reading books, one on the floor doing a puzzle, one at the kitchen table drawing or painting and the youngest down for a nap. It was quiet, peaceful and in order. Of course their house gets cluttered and lived in, of course my sister and her husband lose their patience at times, and of course there are sister disagreements. But overall, their girls do not bicker or call each other names, they do not wail in grocery stores for treats, and they know how to behave themselves in church and concerts.

Yes, concerts. My parents tell a story of sitting with the little girls while their mother (my sister) played the violin in a symphony concert performance. The girls are used to attending these concerts from a very young age, paying attention to pieces they know or like (since the music is played in their home) or drawing pictures on notepads when they are not interested in the music. At the close of a particular concert a few older ladies turned around to leave when they saw the 4 little girls (I think their daddy had the youngest in his arms asleep elsewhere), and were visibly startled. They commented to my parents how beautiful they were, but particularly, that they "had no idea they were enjoying a concert sitting in front of a family of small children."

One would certainly say my sister and her husband's parenting and nurturing have everything to do with all five little girls growing up so peacefully.

NEUROSCIENTIST'S STUDY - The Three Ingredients: This is an article from NPR about the brains of psychopaths and a neuroscientist's discovery in his own family history. The writer says there are three "ingredients" to making a psychopath: brain patterns, genetic makeup and abuse and/or violence in childhood.

The article clearly states it's generalized and oversimplified, but it's fascinating nonetheless. Here, this neuroscientist has all the family history and the brain patterns to make him a psychopath (nature), yet he is not. They say it's because he was loved and doted upon as a child (nurture).


I appreciate this article's direction and how it caused me to think about it all deeper. But I believe it's missing one key ingredient in the reasoning this particular man is not a psychopath: agency, or personal choice. I think we could combine the first two ingredients, brain patterns and genetic makeup, and label them both as "genetic tendencies" or nature. Then the second ingredient would be how a child is reared, which includes parenting, education, and the opportunities the child has for full emotional and social development. And the third, agency and accountability, comes in at older childhood (about 8 years). It's not just about nature vs. nurture why a person turns out the way he or she does. It has to do with how the person chooses to use his or her genetics makeup and childhood rearing to be a good, hardworking person or a psychopath.

Oh sure, there are definite genetic diseases that limit a person's ability of understanding and choice such as Down's Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome and the like. A person with one of those may never know the full power of agency with their genes limiting their bodies in certain ways. They were definitely "born that way." But do they stand on the same level as obesity, alcoholism, sexual orientation, and, as the NPR article above introduces, psychopathy? All of the latter categories have used the same "I was born this way" argument.

I would contest that genetics (nature) and childhood development (nurture) do have a great deal of influence on a person to be a certain way. And the choice to do a particular act or another may be extremely more difficult for a person in one of those latter categories. However, we may underestimate the power of the third dimension: choice. We may just be able to choose more in our lives that we give ourselves credit for.