Are We Doomed To Become Our Parents
How values transfer between generations — for better or worse.
My childhood was unique in that my father was away for roughly 50% of it, deployed to myriad wars in Europe and the Middle East. I was often asked if it was difficult, but I never felt like it was. Not because I didn’t miss dad, but because it was all I ever knew.
Dad worked as a SEAL, also called the “quiet warriors”, which is a name that holds well: they don’t talk about what they do. Yet this SEAL thing became a dominant theme in my childhood. On the playground, boys asked me inane and repetitive questions about my dad killing foes with one finger. I got asked incessantly if I would join the military like dad (and today I’m still asked why I didn’t).
I’m more of a make-love-not-war type, and never felt the calling to go to the military, and ended up becoming a writer.
In society, this gap is often seen with alarm, as child similarity to their mother and father is seen as a hallmark of successful parenting, a testament to the presence and influence of parents on their children.
And it brings forward the questions: How far do we fall from the tree? And should parents aim to raise children as a reflection of themselves? We can find answers by looking to science, and our own experiences.
The science behind how we
Psychology professor Anat Bardi from the University of London, ran an study examining how similar children were to their parents in values, by assessing 418 Swiss and German families. They found that parents who taught children self-transcendence (caring for and helping others) tended to be more similar to their parents than children of parents who pushed kids to be achievement oriented, and to pursue power. The researchers also found that selfishness was less contagious than other values.
Specifically, they found that some “power parents” don’t live by the same rules they apply to their children, which limited their transcendence. It harkens to the parenting phrase I’ve always found most problematic, “Do as I say, not as I do.”
A limiting factor is that these studies are not absolute descriptions of people’s upbringings. I know many children of successful parents who instilled work ethic and success orientation in their children, and did so in healthy ways. Every family is a case study with its own behavioral story, coming with its own cost and benefits.
My grandfather, for example, grew up in abject poverty in the great depression. He was far too hard on my mother and uncle during their childhood, seeing this country as grounds for opportunity and wanting them to be as far from poverty as possible. The approach wasn’t unlike what many children of first generation immigrants experience. He passed along the work ethic he carried but it caused turbulence for his children.
Moreover — if your goal is for children to inherit your best values, research shows that promoting pro-social behaviors (kindness, charity, friendship, encouragement) is often an indicator of good parenting in and of itself — which leads to better bonds the parent-child, enabling the transfer of other desired values.
It isn’t failure to be radically different from your parents
Even if there’s a night and day gap between you and your mother and father, that doesn’t mean there can’t be mutual respect and love.
My parents and I have a great relationship. They respect that I took my own path in life, creating something without anyone’s help. Individuality can be its own expression of love and success.
The reality is that parents don’t have full control over their children and who they become. The teachers and schools we attend play a massive role in our development. For example, my parents are both fairly conservative but the schools I attended were more liberal oriented, teaching us to have environmental values, celebrating Earth Day and cleaning up litter, which perhaps contributed to my divergence from them.
A study at The University of Hamburg showed that the feedback and labels given to a child by teachers and peers plays an enormous role in their personality development, ability to socialize, and control of their impulses. And specifically, this leads to the Pygmalion effect, where the expectations placed by others on a child produces that exact result in many cases. If you treat a child like they are a dishonest and unruly child by nature, expect to have a dishonest child.
Personality traits also transfer as a function of how much time you spend around your children. For many of us, the mother is the one we spend far more time around, though those dynamics have changed in recent years with stay-at-home dads become less stigmatized.
Around 80% of my time was with my mother. She was a musician and artist, and very creative. Which may well be where I get some of the instinct to write from. Would it have been different if I’d spent 80% of my time with dad? It’s hard to say. But you can generally look to your parents and see parts of you staring back.
The bigger message to think through
Per psychologist, Dr. Assael Romanelli, we are given behavioral scripts that transcend all of these things. At home, we see behaviors, ways of resolving conflict, how to express emotion, how to manage stress, all the little things that shape who we are — all through our parents.
Years ago, my then-spouse and I flew out to meet her brother. I’d become close with her parents and spent tons of time around them over the years, and this moment was long overdue.
After getting to the brother-in-laws house, and sitting and talking for only five minutes, I was completely surprised by how similar his mannerisms were to his father’s. His gestures, pauses when speaking, tone of voice, body language, were all a mirror of his father. It was a striking example of modeling — that was still present in a thirty-year-old man.
And fortunately, we have the ability to change these scripts if we don’t want our children to learn toxic traits we brought down from the family tree.
If you don’t want your children to end up in toxic relationships, don’t be in a toxic relationship in front of them. If you don’t want your children to shout, don’t shout when you argue with your spouse.
It’s painfully simple and feels self-evident. But so many people still miss it on this point. I’ve seen this cycle repeat itself with longtime friends, who fell into the same patterns their parents were in — with disastrous results.
Rolling the apple back up the tree
No matter how different we are, no matter how far the apple falls from the tree, there will always be overlapping parts of us that come along. Despite our differences, I still get my dad’s assertiveness and forgetfulness at times, and the instinct to exercise regularly.
Even as adult children, it’s on us to reflect on what values and behaviors we’ve subconsciously inherited — and decide if they are good to keep in our lives. Meanwhile, parents should hone in and ensure they’re acting true to the values they’re teaching.
One of my childhood friends, James, had parents who fit directly into Dr. Badri's finding on the gap between parents and children when ambition was taught. James’s parents used to shout at him to study and work hard, while they sat on the couch, watching TV and smoking cigarettes. In the end, the behavior backfired on them as the kids saw the contradiction.
Ultimately, it’s on us to control who we are and who we become. The “apple not falling far from the tree” as an expression, removes agency. Parents play a role in shaping who we are. But it eventually becomes our duty to decide whether to roll the apple away from, or towards that tree even further.
I'm a former financial analyst turned writer out of Tampa, Florida. I write story-driven content to help us live better and maximize our potential.