Nature vs. nurture

Do you ever worry you’re going to mess your kids up for life?

My husband and I recently took a four-week Love & Logic class at Parents Place in Waukesha (a non-profit resource for parents that I initially learned about through a few Mothers & More members). As our son Tyler is not quite 2, most of the discipline techniques we learned in the class will be more applicable for the future, rather than right now. However, as I listened to the other class participants talk about their unique challenges with their children, I couldn’t help but wonder (yes, I’m channeling Carrie Bradshaw): At what point are our parenting challenges “our issues,” and at what point are they simply about the luck of the draw?

Or, put another way, how do we know whether our children’s issues are more nature or nurture?

The repeating refrain of virtually all baby books is that all babies are different; we must remember that what works for one child may not work for the next. Except, I’ve always wondered when the “shift” from nature to nurture occurs. Is it when they become a toddler? Or when they begin talking in sentences? What about when they begin school and suddenly become subject to the influence of other adults and children?

Love & Logic is all about encouraging children to make good choices. But what happens when you have a child who seems predisposed to make bad choices? Is that the parent’s fault? Is there a point at which a parent throws his or her hands in the air and declares that a child is simply a “bad egg?” I hope not.

I honestly don’t know the answers to any of these questions. I do know that since I joined Mothers & More, I’ve had exposure to a wide, wide variety of parenting techniques, and I’m grateful for it. I feel like I’m doing my son a disservice if I choose just one parenting philosophy such as Love & Logic, SuperNanny, or any of the other parenting “experts.” My parenting, I think, is going to be a hodge-podge of a variety of sources.

Will I mess Tyler up? Or will my husband and I be the ones responsible for turning him into the most upstanding citizen this country has ever seen? Neither, I’m thinking. It’s probably best for me to just worry about each day as it comes and let the future work itself out.

--Beth