Separated Genes

Genes are passed from parent to child, but does that mean that we turn out like our parents?  Even though we inherit many things from our parents, that does not have a huge impact on how we turn out.  The environment that you grow up in and the conditions you were raised in ultimately determines what type of person you will become; genes do not determine personality.  The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls explores the idea of how children and their parents are different.  After suffering through a painful childhood, where she was loved but neglected Walls expresses her anxiety in raising her daughter the way her parents raised her.  Walls constantly moved her whole childhood and when her family settled down it was never in a nice place and it was never permanent.  In one of the chapters near the end of her novel, Walls shows her concern of becoming like her parents while talking about how she does not want to raise her daughter the way she was raised.  Just because Jeannette Walls shares her genes with her parents, it does not mean that she is the same as them or that she shares her parents personalities.  Unlike the constant moving she faced when she was a kid, her daughter doesn't have this problem because they live in a more permanent home with little to no troubles, proving that she is a better parent.  The link between Walls and her parents stops at physical properties.  Since the late 1980's the APA (American Psychological Association) has yet to determine whether genes can carry important personality traits or whether they develop during childhood.  This is another reason proving that heritage has little effect on the type of person one becomes.