When we began writing “Here’s the Thing” in October 2019, our goal was to write a weekly column for a few months; the column’s topics, we hoped, would encourage any reader to think and talk about them with others. Well, we will soon reach the 3-year mark; although the “cast” has changed because of circumstances beyond our control, our intent remains unchanged. We receive responses by phone, text, email, and even “snail mail” about the articles, so at least a few people are reading our thoughts. Every article causes me to pause in my day and think about how it pertains to me.
That is true every week, but last week Ken’s article about “nature vs. nurture” has stayed with me for more than a few days. I found myself observing, remembering, reading, thinking about situations, both current and in the past. With each one I asked, “Was that attributable to nature or nurturing?”
Sometimes the correct response, or what I perceived as the correct response, was quite easily ascertained. Take, for instance, when a child shares physical characteristics of one or both parents. First to come to my mind is red hair. Or I have said to a parent that her child “has her eyes” meaning color, shape, and maybe even the intensity of the look. We can see the nature influence also in height, body structure, skin color, and maybe even in inclination toward certain subjects or interests like musical ability. For sure, nature determines genetic diseases.
Complicating the whole debate of nature vs. nurture is that several aspects of our lives determined by nature are simultaneously influenced by nurturing. The one that comes most quickly to me as an example is life expectancy. Take a moment and consider all of the consequences of our environment and lifestyle on our life expectancy. How and what we eat, whether we smoke or not, our sleeping habits, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the way we drive, the risks in daily life we take (either knowingly or unknowingly) … all of these greatly affect our immediate and long-term lives.
Then take into consideration the significance of the nurturing which occurred when we had absolutely no control or any input whatsoever. Food quality when we were infants and small children, whether the physical environment was clean, healthy, safe, or whether we were even physically held by another person. Yep, research shows that a baby’s body temperature, heart rate, and breathing are directly affected by a parent’s holding him … and get this, these directly impact weight gain and rate of growth in all infants, especially those born prematurely. Obviously babies have zero control over who attends to their needs or indeed if anyone does, how their care is given or not given, and what amount or kind of attention they receive. Nope, they are totally at the mercy of their caregivers.
It does not matter much what potential height, brain, or body structure is given to you by nature, if you do not receive the basic essentials as an infant or during childhood. Until you are old enough and capable of taking care of yourself, what you receive and how it influences you are not in your control.
Now consider this, even when you reach a time when you are capable of taking care of yourself, much of how you do those very things depends on what you experienced and learned during your earliest months and years.
None of us picked our parents. None of us had a vote in where we were born, who would care for us, what kind of house we would be raised in, what country, what religion, what skin color, what food we would be fed, what values or beliefs those around us held … heck, we did not even have a say in if anyone ever read to us or said “I love you.” It is no wonder then that some people carry “baggage” from their infancy and early childhood unlike perhaps our own. Those of us who grew up with strong nurturing, I guess we just lucked out.
I think of the 18-year-old male who recently staked out a neighborhood in Buffalo, N.Y., returned heavily armed with semi-automatic weaponry and plated armor, entered a market congested with other humans grocery shopping, and opened fire killing 10 people. Eleven of the 13 people shot were Black. The white suspect planned far enough ahead to attach a camera to his helmet, livestreaming his actions online. This was not an accident; it was a designed attack. The details, the theories, the facts, and information are available if you’re interested. My question: is this a result primarily of nature or nurture?
I cannot think that he was born with a gene to hate and want to kill people with a different skin tone than his. Hate cannot be a trait with which we are born. Sorry, just does not work for me. What could possibly exist in his DNA that would make such an action remotely possible or plausible? In statements made by the alleged shooter to law enforcement officials following his surrender, his motivation was his “hatred of the Black community.” He had previously posted online a lengthy, disjointed discourse espousing his supremacist ideals and intent. Nature or nurture?
Here’s the Thing: I do not have many answers, for sure not about how and why people do what they do for the most part. It does seem clear that we are born with much of who we are or will become already embedded in our DNA. These result primarily from our parents and ancestry. We can agree that there are things that happen in infancy and childhood which have lasting, even permanent, effects on who we become. It is a delicate equation to consider. The first we have no control of. But the things we do have some control of, what are our responsibilities for those? From whom, when, and what do we learn? More importantly, what do we teach? I refer back to the title; let’s proceed from there to our answers.
Editor’s Note: This is one of a series of articles written by a group of retired and current teachers — Ken Ballinger, Billy Kreigh, Marianne Darr-Norman, and Anna Spalding. Their intent is to spur discussions at the dinner table and elsewhere. You may also voice your thoughts and reactions via The News-Banner’s letters to the editor.
