That’s why we’re behaving more and more like our parents

A year ago, one Reddit user asked others about the moment they realized: I’m behaving like my parents. The answers came quickly. Do you think you’re familiar?

My better half and I packed our stuff to go to the family on Thanksgiving. When I cleaned up, he said something like, “Don’t go crazy, you can clean up when we get home.” I said, “I DON’t want to come back to a dirty house.” At that moment I realized I was about to transform myself into my mother.

The moment I stared at the many different rubber bands and closure clips.

I washed out the hummus plastic cup in case I needed it at some point.

I started looking for discounts on food ads, and I now have three bonus cards.

When I first said to my children, “Close the door, we don’t heat for outside.”

Yesterday still very individual, by no means like your own parents and today mum or dad in some surprisingly similar. When exactly does this happen? And why?

Our genes are not our destiny

Frank Spinath is Professor of Differential Psychology and Psychological Diagnostics at the University of Saarland. He remembers his mother commenting aloud at another guest’s behaviour in a restaurant. “As a teenager, I was very distressed,” he says. Today, he also feels a desire to classify the inappropriate behaviour of others. “Without a big break or to address the person in the same way,” says the behavioral psychologist. “But I would like to bring it to your attention.”

For Spinath, it is not uncommon for us to resemble our parents. “We also share genes with them,” he says. So there is a hereditary component to personality. This becomes clear, for example, in adopted children who grow up with their adoptive parents from infancy and in whom the characteristics of their biological parents later appear.

However, genes are by no means our destiny or a blueprint that sets us immutably, environment and plant always work together. “Especially in the area of personality, there are good examples that it can also diverge and children are clearly different from their parents,” says Spinath.