Are you beginning to wonder if we are the kind who assign blame to parents for everything that is wrong about us?

Well, put your mind at ease–we’ re not!  We are all responsible for the behaviors that we develop that end up destroying ourselves and others. They may have been stimulated by a wound received, but we can adopt them or not–our choice.

Parents do have a profound influence on us, however, because in that first year of life outside the womb we learn 50% of what we’ ll know about living life. Another 25% is learned in the second year.

Our interactions in those first two years are primarily with parents, so they are powerful contributors to who we are today. Children model after parents–They imprint Mom and Dad’ s behaviors, and often go us one or two better–or worse.

But influence does not a command make! So we cannot blame them for who we are, but it might be a good idea to assess just what they taught us, and how well we learned!