After writing about Garbhsanskar, I have had numerous discussions with Dakshata, parents, friends and relatives and this thought provoking topic kept on stimulating me. During the time I have read quite a few articles, blogs and books around this topic. A friend passed on a wonderfully written book The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker. Its a master piece, very well researched and equally well written book. Its a highly recommended and must read book. Below I am reproducing some content from the book.

The three laws of behavioral genetics may be the most important discoveries in the history of psychology. Yet most psychologist have not come to grips with them, and most intellectuals do not understand them, even when they have been explained in the cover stories of newsmagazins. It is not because the laws are abstuse: each can be stated in a sentence, without mathematical paraphernalia. Rather, it is because the laws run roughshod over the Blank Slate, and the Blank Slate is so ebthrenched that many intellectuals cannot comprehend an alternative to it, let alone argue about whether it is right or wrong.

• The First Law: All human behavioral traits are heritable.
• The Second Law: The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of the genes.
• The Third Law: A substantial portion of the variation is complex human behavioral traits is not accounted for the effects of genes or families

He has provided lots of arguments, studies and references to prove above three laws. Essentially what these three laws means is, genes determines a fair bit of our personality, parenting or family environment has almost negligible effect on our personality and remaining of our personality is determined by our peers. (thats a scary thought for a father in waiting … )

So does this mean that there is no point in teaching our children good values, having good environment at home and treating them well. Steven has a very good answer for that as well “We may not hold their tomorrows in our hand but we surely hold their todays, and we have the power to make their todays very miserable”.

My learning from the book is, don’t be extremists either way. Try to provide your children with good environment at home and outside and help them pick good peers. They will turn out to be good human beings. Do not over do on parenting.