Several weeks ago someone at work was talking about one of the greatest advantages of adoption. I was shocked to hear that she thought the greatest advantage of adoption was and I quote,”when you adopt, you can blame behavior on the biological parents.” Her thought process seemed to follow along the lines of the nature verse nurture controversy.
My response to her was, “then why do parents even try to parent?” If children behave according to their nature it does not matter how you parent or nurture them because they will behave according to their ingrained DNA. I really do not understand the nature verses nurture argument because we all know families where children have the same DNA but turn out entirely different in their behavior and mannerisms. I even know adopted children who have the exact same mannerisms as their adopted parents. I really believe that the overall development of children is determined by the nurture they receive not their nature.
Sometimes it takes all I can do not to tell people what I really think.
Well said! Clearly, parenting does make a huge difference in how a child turns out. Otherwise, like you said, why even try to parent?