Nature vs Nurture

Nature vs Nurture
GBE2 #25

I have small feet and hands because my genes aligned in such a way that I was given the hands and feet of a much smaller person than I turned out to be.  I have brown eyes because, or so my Dad told me, I am full of shit.  I suppose those are both 'nature' things.  Much like my mom, I have a love of home.  I like being here and I like making it look pleasing to my eye and clean enough to be healthy.  I believe that is 'nurture'.  I believe that because I was nurtured in that environment, I now feel at home when I create one similar to where I became me.

I love animals. Some of them I like to have roam freely inside my home and some of them I like to admire in their own natural habitats.  But I like them all. Is that in my genetic make-up or did I learn that?

I love to read and will literally spend hours lost in a book.  My sister reads, my brother reads and my mom reads. Nature?  Nurture?

It's all very confusing to my wandering mind, but I am clear about a few things.  I know that I was nurtured in a clean and organized home.  I was nurtured by people who liked having a dog roam around the house and didn't care for house cats.  Didn't care much for cats at all.  I have had many house cats over the years, but don't currently have one.  We do live with 2 dogs who let us live here.  I was nurtured by a woman who never mistreated an animal but wasn't attracted to them and didn't feel obligated to feed wild birds, though she enjoyed watching them flit around outside.  In later years, she did indeed hang finch feeders to keep those little ones feed during the cold hard winters. And now feeds the humming birds all summer.  I have always been drawn to animals.  Wild ones, tame ones, homeless ones or my friends and families pets.  I think this is a nurturing trait.  I think I just want to 'mother' every living creature because I was well mothered and the kids are grown.  Animals don't talk back and you can kennel them.  There are laws against kenneling children, or so I hear.

My children have some similar traits to each other and to me, as well.  My daughter enjoys the kitchen and the cooking and the entertaining of friends and family.  My son loves having people over to his house to feed and hang out.  They learned that from me, I suppose, but maybe some of that is genetic.  Maybe having a certain ability in the food preparation area is genetic or 'nature'. Either way, they share this affection for food and family and friends with their mom.  My daughter sometimes looks like me, a little and that is 'nature' and something I am sure she would change, if she could!  My son, always looks like me, but has the build of his uncle on his dad's side.  I would have made a great looking man, had I been much bigger, apparently.  I think they each have their own unique look and yet I see things about them that my gene pool contributed and things their dad's gene pool gave them.  But mostly, I see things that they have developed with their own particular desires and dreams and excellent work ethics.  I will take credit for some of that and give their step-dad credit for the rest.

Does it really matter, the Nature or Nurture question?  Maybe it does.  Maybe it does because if we don't teach and nurture correctly and continually, our children will grow into whatever other influences they run across living their lives and some of those could and would be harmful or fatal.  We need to be vigilant about our nurturing all the days of our lives.  Nurturing our children well into adulthood, nurturing our parents well into their golden years and nurturing ourselves forever.  Nurturing is what makes us succeed, it's what makes us love others, be grateful for our blessings, set goals and make a plan to achieve them, show up for work when we have a job and it's what makes us contribute to society.  Nurturing is teaching each other how to grow and blossom.  Nurturing is what we do here in these writers groups.  We encourage and we help and we make suggestions so that each of us will grow as writers and as people.

Does it matter?  Well, it certainly matters that we have both, I am sure of that.

Jo