Nature vs Nurture

I always think that my girls are beautiful, and sometimes I can just sit and stare at them...typical parent, right? And definitely more beautiful than I could have created myself.  But today, at Devon's first grade concert, with her hair pulled back tightly away from her face, I noticed a definite family resemblance - she has the Herbach ears.....didn't think you could "inherit" stuff like that from nurture, only nature!  Devon's concert

Anyway, I have always found the discussion of nature vs nurture so interesting.  If I had had the brains for it, I could have happily pursued genetics as a field....of course, I would have had to actually take some science classes!  The most I took was a couple earth science classes.  I remember taking biology for a couple of weeks in 9th grade, but the day Mr. Cunningham (the BEST biology teacher) bounced a frog eyeball I dropped the class.  Never took any other type of science class after that either.

I wish I had inherited more of my mother's personality traits than I did.  She never met a stranger - I always admired that about her.  And Aubrey is the same way and always has been. But I am definitely more of my Dad than I am my Mom.  Except of course that I look like her more now that I'm heavy.  Must be partly the rounder face.  When I was thin I looked more like my Dad....not that he's thin anymore, but he's not fat either. And, of course, plastic surgery helped me look a little less like Dad also.  Hard to believe that that surgery was so long ago!  And the funny thing is, a couple of years ago, we were going through some old papers and found some scrapbook pages from my surgery - the date was April 8, 1980.  Guess I consider April 8th (subconsciously anyway) a good day, my wedding date was April 8th also.  If I had known at the time, we could have had a special happy anniversary announcement for my nose!

Anyhow, when it comes to arguing nature vs nurture, I'm amazed at some of the things that just must be nature....like the girls' love of tattoos.  They certainly didn't get that from Ron and me!  But their birth mother has quite a few, with plans to get more.  Of course, there are some things that you could argue either way....like stubbornness....and of course, where does bad parenting fall into this equation?  Can we take credit for the positive traits, the things we're happy about (nurture) and blame all the stuff we are unhappy about on genetics (nature)?  I wish!  It's so interesting, though, to see how similar in so many ways Aubrey is to her birth mother - and even more interesting is to watch them together. Devon is not quite so similar to her, although some people think there is a physical resemblance.  I don't see it, but that doesn't mean it's not there.

And how do you explain people who overcome all sorts of obstacles to achieve great things?  People who had no nurture to speak of and when you look at family history you don't see a whole lot of inspirational nature.  I wonder.  I wish it was easier to change one's nature.  I would love to be more outgoing, naturally friendly, easily make friends.  I so envy people like that!  And at times I try to push myself to be more outgoing, but it so unnatural and uncomfortable.  I'm working on becoming a more interesting person, though.  I've been listening to NPR in the morning  (is there anything going on in the world anywhere besides the Ukraine?), and reading books....I love to read!  Devon is a reader, and a jigsaw puzzle doer, too.  She got a prize at after-care for putting together their hardest puzzle.  She gets that from me.  :) and I got it from my mother, who also loved jigsaw puzzles.  Some of my best childhood memories are of the times we had a puzzle set up in the (at the time unfurnished) living room and you could go in and just put a piece in and walk on or sit for hours.  My Dad was more of the one-piece kind of puzzler.  When I was sick while we were living in NY, I had a puzzle set up on our dining room table and it made me feel better to work on it - and even just to see it there.  Ron used to mostly enjoy doing the fly-by, putting a piece in and walking away.   And he, too, likes to read, but Ron also really enjoys reading out loud, which is good, because Aubrey loves being read to.  Nice symbiotic relationship there.

So, how do you develop certain interests and talents and not others?  I know introversion in a born characteristic, but reading and jigsaw puzzles?  Is it because our parents read and did puzzles that we now enjoy reading and doing puzzles? And how can kids born to the same parents and raised in the same house be so different? I love reading those studies of twins separated at birth and how similarly they turn out - sometimes even married to people with the same name!  And for people who haven't been separated at birth, it can't all come down to first child, second child, etc.    You know, most people meeting me think I'm the baby of the family...I know, it's partly because I'm spoiled :)  but there has to be more to it, doesn't there? Say yes...... But it's no wonder that I'm a little nuts - I'm a first child and a third child all at the same time.....Like I said, I find the whole subject of nature vs nurture to be interesting...