{"id":494,"date":"2016-12-07T15:11:42","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T15:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/?p=494"},"modified":"2016-12-07T15:11:42","modified_gmt":"2016-12-07T15:11:42","slug":"blaming-dna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/?p=494","title":{"rendered":"Blaming DNA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"naturenurture\"I blame my DNA a lot and I know I\u2019m not alone.\u00a0 Did you ever hear an older individual tell you as you were growing up that you were just like one of your relatives?\u00a0 I had a teacher tell me I was like my Uncle George and I was perplexed.\u00a0 How could I be like him?\u00a0 I was a girl and he was an adult.\u00a0 When I told my mom she laughed and replied that I liked to play with words like he did.\u00a0 Uncle George had a nickname for everyone.\u00a0 Barely five feet tall and needing to sit on a phone book to peer over the steering wheel, Uncle George called\u00a0my grandmother “Cutlass Mary” as she was quite assertive in her driving.\u00a0 She also just happened to drive a Cutlass.\u00a0 Since\u00a0I loved alliteration, rhyming and play on words I understood what my mom was saying.\u00a0 I think that was the beginning of my blaming DNA for my personality.<\/p>\n

As I began to delve into my family\u2019s history I completely identified with relatives who had gotten into some serious trouble for their views.\u00a0 Never one to take the path of least resistance, I have questioned authority for as long as I can remember.\u00a0 In high school, my husband joked that must be my personal motto.\u00a0 When I discovered I wasn\u2019t the only one in my family with that trait, I also attributed it to my DNA.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m rethinking, though, the amount of influence my DNA has on me due to two events that happened within an hour of each other.\u00a0 The first occurred while visiting a new dentist. \u00a0At this initial appointment, the dentist asked me what happened to my front teeth.\u00a0 Although not very noticeable, I have some fracturing on the bottoms and a small indent on one of my top teeth.\u00a0 Regarding my bottom teeth, I told the dentist, I had a playground accident\u00a0as a child as my permanent teeth were erupting.\u00a0 They just came up that way!\u00a0 I told him we must have a genetic mutation of some type on my maternal line as every female has the same indent in the same place.\u00a0 He laughed and asked if I did arts and crafts, sewing in particular.\u00a0 Well, yes, I had even worked as a subcontractor with a costume design company in my younger years.\u00a0 He asked if I used scissors or teeth to cut thread.\u00a0 My goodness!\u00a0 The realization that every woman in my family used their teeth to cut thread hit and all I could say was, \u201cI\u2019ve got to tell my daughter.\u201d\u00a0 So, the indent wasn\u2019t due to DNA but to passing on a habit.\u00a0 My daughter learned to sew from me as I learned from my mom and she from her mom and who knows how far back.\u00a0 I recall my Great Grandmother had the same chip on the same tooth.\u00a0 Who knew?!<\/p>\n

After I left the dentist I stopped by a store as I was having one of my kid\u2019s certificates framed.\u00a0 As the clerk displayed the final product another customer asked me who was the recipient.\u00a0 I told her and she said, \u201cWow, you must be proud.\u201d\u00a0 I am a proud Momma but I always strive to be a Momma who recognized both of my children\u2019s accomplishments so I added an achievement recently made by the other child.\u00a0 Her response surprised me; she said, \u201cYou must have good DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does that mean – having “good DNA?” \u00a0I guess “bad DNA” would be a true mutation that resulted in a life threatening illness. \u00a0Yet mutations alone aren’t “bad,” such as adaptions to make one resistant to diseases. These thoughts quickly ran through my mind as I paid for the frame.<\/p>\n

As I left, I turned to the customer and replied, “Naw, it’s not my DNA or my husband’s. \u00a0It was hard work, tenacity, and self discipline.”<\/p>\n

As we delve into our family’s history, we need to be mindful of both nature and nurture. \u00a0We can blame or praise our ancestors’ influences on our lives, both genetically and observed, but the choices and decisions we make are our own. \u00a0Happy Hunting!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I blame my DNA a lot and I know I\u2019m not alone.\u00a0 Did you ever hear an older individual tell you as you were growing up that you were just like one of your relatives?\u00a0 I had a teacher tell me I was like my Uncle George and I was perplexed.\u00a0 How could I be … Continue reading “Blaming DNA”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[97,382],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trends-and-musings","tag-dna","tag-nature-vs-nurture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":496,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions\/496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}