From Wikipedia free encyclopedia
Nature versus nurture:
 The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual’s innate qualities (“nature,” i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences (“nurture,” i.e. empiricism or behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.

There is a continuous discussion in the adoption community of which nature vs nurture is observed from a child who was adopted as they grow into adulthood.

We joke around with each of our girl’s birth mothers when we all witness an action and no one wants to take responsibility whether it is an effect of our parenting-nurture or their genetics nature.  In the end we all agree there is so much intermixed nature with our nurture that somehow we all should take responsibility.

With that said, nature does play a significant role in our girls lives … we look at them daily and see the strong resemblance to each of their birth mothers’ and birth fathers’ … although out in the world people try to make us fit and always comment on the resemblance of our girls to us … some of them coming from well-meaning strangers who do not know our family’s history, we do know who they look like and appreciate that. I look forward to the day when my girls and I can share a look knowing our history and their deciding if they want to share the story or not. In most cases now, our standard response is yes it runs in the family ~ not completely untrue, right?

Nature not only plays a part in appearance, but it does play a role in the girls mannerisms, we sometimes see/hear it … in our older daughter’s  giggle which is an exact duplicate to C and we have pointed this out to her which makes her smile even more! These days we see our younger daughter shares a passion for dance that S has and with that she is a natural to it too!

Because we chose to pursue open adoptions when we were on our journey to parenthood it is easy for us to recognize the nature part of our girls lives … we can see the resemblance to their birth families and they can too! We can compare their mannerisms, giggles or whatever to their birth families. Even more importantly as our girls begin to understand our family story, they too will see independently that they share these qualities and looks too.

We do see the nurture side in the equation too… we see the way we nurture our girls in their stories, the openness we have created for them with each of their birth families, the way we feel that it is normal, the way they can always ask questions of us and we can sit and listen to their point of view, it can also be the way my husband or  I say something and they say it back, we nurture them in what they give and participate in with our family; whether it is helping set the table or feeding our dogs, or the manners we are raising them with … there are other things we do together and the memories we have created, the way we are as a family …but then there are times like taking our girls to music together classes … is their appreciation and singing along to music just our influence? or does it come from a deeper source?

We see no matter what, Nurture and Nature are intertwined … no matter what they get from their genetics we will have an influence on them in our daily lives and this is intertwined in influencing them as they grow to be independent strong courageous women … both sides influencing who they will become and we embrace that!!

Day 6 sharing a post that means a lot to me as part of #NaBloPoMo, please read many of the other bloggers participating at BlogHer NaBloPoMo, Enjoy!