This has been an age old debate, nature vs nurture; do we inherit personality traits and thinking mannerisms or do we learn them over time? Recently I've been wondering this about my mom and I, since we have the same personality. We think the same way, we even talk the same way. Of course I know we look the same from genetics, but is it the same for everything else, considering how differently we grew up?
"I think therefore I am" - Descartes
"Tabula Rasa" - John Lock
My mom and I both grew up with different financial situations. Growing up my mom was poor, she lived in a one bedroom apartment with her mother and slept on the couch. Once my mom reached the age of eight, she was on her own, she still lived with her mother but she would never see her and had to fend for herself for dinner. My mom would have killed for her own bedroom. However for me its the opposite, I have been very lucky to have been provided with the material things that I have. Another thing is that she went to private school and I did not. My mom has twelve years of catholic school in her background and I go to public school. My mom let me choose public school or private school when we moved, and of course, with me being a child, I chose public school because that meant no uniforms. While my mom was in school she would have to walk to the bus stop to take the city bus there and back everyday, and I get picked up at my drive way by the school bus. When my mom was in grammar school she was bullied and in high school she put up a wall to guard herself. Throughout both, she had only one friend. I have not been bullied hard enough to say that I was bullied and I have had a few close friends since first, third, and seventh grade. Also my mom had strict parents. Her mom gave her a curfew until she was practically married and her father pushed her to get very good grades and would say, "If you could get a 95, why couldn't you get a 100? What's wrong with you?" However my mom doesn't push me when it comes to grades, she always says, "Just do your best." Lastly, my mom was always alone, so her mother was very strict. Like previously stated, instead of my mom being like that, she lets me make my own choices and explains to me why I can't do something or why she's doing something.
Despite all of these differences growing up, we still are practically the same person. We act the same, think the same, we have the same tastes and we have the same personality.
Our personality consists of loving, comedic, kind, intelligent and passionate people, while our tastes contain the same music, hobbies, tv shows, movies and more. Even when we aren't together there are times when I'm with my friends and think, "Wow, that's something my mom would say or do." Whether it is nature or nurture - or both - causing us to be so similar, it's evident that though we grew up with different life experiences, somehow and somewhere along the way, said experiences molded us into similar beings of habit.
