Article July 25, 1988 ISSUE

Environment or heredity?

The Christian Science Monitor

Some friends were discussing whether environment or heredity has the most influence on a person's life. The discussion was interesting to me because as a child I had been adopted and lived away from my natural parents. Yet, through an unusual arrangement, I often visited my natural family on weekends or during summer vacations. Because of this, I couldn't help comparing the life my siblings were having to the life I was experiencing. Although we had the same parents, the same mannerisms, and even looked similar, our ways of doing things were not the same. I was told this was so because I lived in an entirely different environment.

As I grew up, I became more and more confused, wondering who I was. Was I like my birth parents or was I like the people who adopted me? Whom should I call Mom and Dad? And where did my loyalties lie?

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