Nurturing Nature

I was talking with a friend the other day about adoption. Specifically about adopting an infant from unfortunate circumstances (i.e. when there is substance abuse, mental health issues, domestic violence, or incarceration in one or both of the birth parents' history). She was asking if I ever thought about any "what if" type of questions when we were looking at cases while we waited. For example, a potential situation might have said that the birth mother had a history of mental illness in her family. She might have reported a previous suicide attempt, or maybe one or more of her family members suffered from depression, or maybe she listed Bipolar on her medical questionnaire. In that situation, did I ever worry that the child might have mental health issues? That was essentially her question. Or in another example, if the birth father was incarcerated and the birth mother supplied details stating that he was in jail for assault and battery, would I worry about the child growing up to be dangerous, angry, violent, etc? My response is that of course I thought about those types of things. Who wouldn't? Many of the bio sheets on potential adoption situations read like the top 100 worst things about someone. To a limited degree, I understand. Agencies and attorneys are trying to give a prospective parent all of the information so that they can make an educated decision. But honestly, I think those summaries could be a pretty crummy read about the best of us...and I guess that's kind of my point. Ultimately, I have to believe that the environment that a child grows up in can counter balance the genetic and early environmental influences (to a certain degree). Because really, isn't it the same gamble with children that are genetically related to us?

Now sure, if you come from an upper-middle class family where everyone stays married until death, no one drinks to excess, no one steps outside the confines of marriage, no one gambles, everyone graduates from college, and no one in the family has ever needed a day of counseling then, yeah, I'm sure it might be a little scary to think about a child with certain traits hardwired into their DNA. But for Sam and I, it would have been a roll of the dice no matter what.

Sure, I'd have wanted to pass on all the best DNA to a child genetically related to me. No one wants to pass on characteristics to a son or daughter that make life difficult. If it was a boy, I'd want him to have 80% of Sam's height, but he could skip that booty (because finding clothes for Sam is a nightmare). I'd want him to have our dark hair, and maybe my green eyes (because I have better eyes than Sam). I'd want him to be athletic and competitive like his dad and intelligent and an avid reader like his mom. If we had a girl, I'd want to pass along her Nana's height (because there is no need for any more girls over 5'8 in this family, and certainly not 6'4). I'd want her to inherit her father's more agile and confident characteristics and skip her mother's clumsiness. I'd want her to get her Grandma's graceful aging and her great grandmother Marguerite's sharp wit. But there are also a whole slew of things I'd really rather not pass on to my children--medical things that are common in my family like alcoholism, diabetes, deep vein thrombosis, not to mention INFERTILITY. And I would certainly never want to pass along my long-standing battle with anxiety or any other proclivity for mental health issues.

In the same way that I can't control what DNA Sam or I would pass along to a biological children, I can't control or know what DNA a set of birth parents might pass on to a child. Yes, the presence of mental health issues on either side of the family places the child at an increased risk for inheriting those mental health issues (i.e. a child of a mother who struggles with Bipolar disorder is at an increased risk for being diagnosed the with same). But it's certainly not a sure thing. No more of a guarantee than that I would end up as an alcoholic. Alcoholism is prevalent in my family. I knew that by the age of twelve, and at that age I decided under NO circumstance would I ever become one. It was simply not an option. Therefore, in my entire life, I've probably had less than 20 drinks. I can't control whether the predisposition for alcoholism or drug addiction lies dormant in my brain, but I can control whether I give that predisposition the opportunity it needs to flip the switch and take over. The choice to never do drugs (no, not even a cigarette) and to drink very, very rarely and only wisely and in complete control, has kept me far, far away from the potential for drug or alcohol addiction. There's a line in the sand and I'm back so far, I can't even see it.

Though I did not major in Psychology, I took a few courses in college. Thankfully, I learned that there are few psychologists who actually believe that development is 100% nature or 100% nurture. It's a blend. We know that heredity and environment both influence the person we become. I am proof positive of that. The anxiety and depression that I've dealt with on and off throughout my life are likely there because of genetics. However, the environment that I grew up in, the home, the generation, all of that, gave me access to counseling and medications. While none of those things remove the presence of the inherited trait, they do alter how I handle that trait and how it affects my life.

Rather than looking at any set of circumstances, be they genetic or environmental, as a defined path or obvious outcome, I like to look at them as the potential. A child with two parents who dropped out of high school may have a lower intelligence potential. But that may is important. Maybe the parents dropped out due to income...maybe they had to take care of small children, help support the family, etc. Or maybe they dropped out due to an unplanned pregnancy, drugs, or any number of unfortunate circumstances that can cause a teenager to leave school. You can't look at a fact on paper and assume that you know the correlation and causation that both let to that outcome and how that will affect the future. That child may struggle in school, but he might also excel, be excellent in science, and go on to be a neurosurgeon. In a similar way a child of parents with a long family addiction to drugs is unarguably at a higher risk for drug and alcohol addiction herself. Add in exposure to drugs or alcohol during pregnancy, and there is certainly a risk for drug and alcohol abuse later in her life. But the presence of DNA that makes a child more susceptible and exposure at a young, formative age, even in combination, are not a one way ticket to rehab. There are many, many contributing factors to the growth and development of a child, and many of those factors, an adoptive parent has some control over.

So yes, I think you think those what if questions, and then you let them go. Life and death, health and sickness, potential and limitations are far too complex for a a short bio to explain. We all spin the wheel and deal with the circumstances that come our way. Early intervention and access to medical care and health professionals is vitally important. I don't believe an adoptive parent should walk into a situation naively, but also don't think fear and a list of what ifs should 100% drive the decision to adopt a child or not. There are certain things that are just out of our control. All that we can control is what we do when those things arise.