Let's Hear Your Opinion

@antonioioio Wise words.

@antonioioioYes; but not necessarily the last or only port worth calling in at. Often nature vs nurture will be remain an unanswerable question.

@Mamapolo2016 It's an interesting question; If I have the 'strength of character' to overcome my upbringing, where did it come from? Was it part of my DNA at birth? If I don't have it, why not?

@Really It is interesting. I would guess the answer lies in peripheral but profound experiences and an ability to question.

I did not come from bigots but still, a foundation-shaking experience while on vacation in the deep South when I was sixteen changed me. A black boy, maybe sixteen as well, was walking along an unpopulated and unlit road when my Dad stopped to offer him a ride. The boy turned and saw five white faces and raced away like the hounds of hell were after him.

I have thought about that for many and many a year. We terrified him.

@Mamapolo2016 Interesting experience. At about that same period, when I was in college, I often hitch-hiked to and from Baton Rouge and would have been reluctant to extend my thumb for a car with 5 faces. At the age of 16, I would likely not accept a ride with anyone, even if I wasn't hitch hiking from anyone who wasn't a familiar face.

By comparison, Baton Rouge isn't and wasn't then as "deep south" as north Louisiana, non-coastal Mississippi or Alabama, but in-general, non familiar faces were responded to cautiously. Per my memory of "then" I lived in a familiar world where everyone had a place, and that brought both a sense of comfort and freedom as well as a cautionary filter for the unknown.

I'm in no way denying the harshness of segregation. But I think both sides had that sense of comfort with your own and caution with the unfamiliar. Maybe fright at times. But it wasn't just race.

:) if you were in the deep south in the 1950s with a Pennsylvania license tag .... hmmm????

@TheunderdogofNY Some parents pass their experiences onto their kids thinking it's normal and a cycle of brokenness begins.

@Really Thanks. In my opinion, yes. It can be in a limited sense, a broader sense, or a lifetime sense. Because the parents shape their children's outlook on life and how they should approach it. If the approach is half-assed or ignorant you get what you get.

@Disgustedman It would be bizarre to think our personalities were completely unaffected by our upbringing. I might have an issue with the word 'blame' though. I see it as emotional & accusatory; whereas our parents were products of their own upbringing and may have been subconsciously unable to change.

"[i]We were all born into the midst of a drama in progress and may spend our lives trying to figure out what went on in the previous acts[/i]." (probably somewhat misquoted) - Sylvia Fraser 'My Father's House'.

@Really it's true parents in the past did not have any guidebooks. So really it wasn't until the 50s 60s that psychology started to pick up on the childhood traumas but until the 1990s 2000 they really didn't intercede well and by then it was too late for a lot of kids.

But I will agree maybe it's not blame. But it could be even worse it could be indifference that would really be hell.

@SW-User

@SW-User Perhaps 🤭.

@Thandeka Does the cow know, I wonder 🧐

@Lyfis2live But what if they are rightly accused?

@Thandeka Move on. Better stuff to indulge in.

@deadgerbil I guess it's safe to say [b]it depends.[/b]

@Thandeka it really does depend, bc some parents out there think it's normal to physically, sexually, or mentally abuse a child and there's no excuse for that and they deserve all the blame that comes their way.

@Thandeka Haha, thanks; you've given a common sense answer by quoting what I refer to as
The Even More General Theory Of Relativity.
"It all depends"