Similar to Mum than Dad?
My boy is preparing to resume prenursery next month and I genuinely wonder whose academic brain he inherited.
As kids grow older, we tend to compare who they resemble more between both parents. This comparison is not just limited to physical semblance. Every kind of traits that can be observed or inferred is not spared. My son is just going to two years but my partner and I had fantasized peculiar traits we wanted him to separately inheirt from us long before he came out of the oven.
Of course the boy came out with his own preferred traits and now we learn more about them everyday, sometimes pointing accusing fingers at each other along the way. We now know his dry skin is from his mum and his laborious type 4c hair is from dad. Aside his dashing beauty, the more physical attributes are less debatable. Neither of us is ready to back down on getting that particular credit.
Well, my perspectives about the subject improved when I came across an interesting scientific fact during the week.
Are you aware that a child actually carries more of their mother’s genes than their father’s?
Yes, a child is more similar to the mum than the dad.
I shared the information with my partner who in turn lectured me more on the subject. After learning new medical jargons, I wondered what the fuss is about a child, particularly a son, resembling the father? We both agreed the curiousity around a child’s semblance and similarity with the dad has to be a societal way of validating the masculinity of the man. Evidently, a substantial level of similarities between a child and the father are cultivated and not necessarily inherited.
There are ways of life and mannerisms my son would pick from me that’d make him appear unmistakably mine in front of people who know me well. He didn’t neccesarily inherit these from my DNA. He cultivated them. Rather than worry over my traits he did not inherit, there is so much more I can hand down to him just by examplary living. In plain terms, aside winning genetic lotteries, a child needs a good role model to cultivate. This is going to tell more on who they develop to become.
I have always insisted that the greatest determining factor of who a child would become is who the parents are. Who is bringing the child to the world and who they are bringing up the child with plays a great significance on the life the child will get. Here, the means justifies the end. There might be exceptions but this looks like the rule. This reiterates the summary of my lesson so far on this fatherhood journey.
As I get to know more about my son, the finger-pointing between my partner and I won’t stop anytime soon. We are always keenly on the watchout for his latest developed traits so we can jocularly attribute them to either of us. It is like a favourite pastime in our parenthood and I am loving it. My boy is preparing to resume prenursery next month and I genuinely wonder whose academic brain he inherited. God abegg o!
Yours in Fatherhood,
I bet you want hm to take after his mum 😂
These are valid points!
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