Why don't we share our parents' personalities?

slant said:
I hate when parents say 'well you're just like your mother/father was', especially when they think of their ex in a negative light. This happened to me and it was really damaging to me as a child, my mom always yelled at me for acting like my father and my father always yelled at my sister for acting like our mother, so both of us were hated and shit taken out on because of perceived identical traits.

Don't ever compare people, don't ever do this to people, especially your own children.
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I agree. Thankfully my mum has never done this to me. It's only been from my own personal observations I've noticed me taking on some of his traits.

Of course it can't be all bad. There has to have been something good about the guy that made my mum marry him in the first place.
 
My mom got pregnant, thats why she married my pa, so I wasn't a bastard.
 
slant said:
My mom got pregnant, thats why she married my pa, so I wasn't a bastard.
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Ow, shit was doomed from the start then it seems.

I'm extremely lucky in that although there have been a few divorces dotted throughout my childhood, there's never been any animosity.
 
INTJ father. ESFJ mother.

My mother is unstable. She frequently throws temper tantrums and tries to my sister and myself guilty. She displays so much irrational behavior that I may have stopped "loving her".

My father is a stoic bastard who is never satisfied with me. The only things we see eye to eye on is our worldviews and how the world should be fixed. Other than that, we live on two different planets.

Mother-Father interaction. My father just listens and my mother just blabs and blabs about random gossip she's heard. It's funny, my mother is 45 but her lower functions still have not been developed. She's all Fe and Si. I rarely see her Ne or Ti. Rarely.

My sister is an INFP. When my mother throws her tantrums, my sister takes it. My sister doesn't do anything. Myself, I blow up and we clash. The two of us have strong personalities. She's all Fe. All Fe. I use my Ti with my dominant functions and I defeat her in every debate/argument and in the end, she feels sorry for herself.

It's pathetic.

I suppose we inherit cognitive functions from our parents? And the order is just random...
 
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Well, I would say the combination nature and nuture is probably why we don't share our parents personalities. Parts of our personalities are inevitable linked to our parents genes, but I can also remember from my child years thinking and telling my brother what I wanted to not emulate about my parents (my dad being quick to anger) and actively trying not to, and also subconscious emulating what he I liked about him (his handyman abilities and logical way of thinking about those kind of problems). So, that being the nuture and my willingness to rebel against it.

I do find it interesting though how May is saying independence is at 20, personally I felt like I gained independence from my parents around 11-13. Not physically or financially, but thought wise I was making decisions consciously against there believe and what not around then. So, they stopped having power over my personality probably sometime around then.
 
Interesting question - my parents are ESFJ and ISTP, how did I end up as an Intuitive?! I don't really know, all I know is I just am despite being raised by two people who don't even seem to think the same way as me. I see both my parents in me, but also my sisters and my friends, even things I've picked up from TV! There are so many influences, it boggles the mind. I even think I'm like my grandparents in ways that my parents didn't seem inherit from them if that makes sense. To contradict the nurture argument, my mother always says she sees the way me and my sisters were as babies in us now. My ISTJ sister is quite unemotional, but really sensitive deep down, she hates hugs and rarely smiles; she was exactly the same as a baby. Whereas my xNFJ sister loved hugs and attention as a baby and still does. I think you inherit a certain disposition or certain traits, especially perhaps how sociable you are or neurotic, however things like music taste and ideals are much more nurture based/or are entirely independent. I became a vegetarian at 16, no-one in my family is, a few friends were at the time but it didn't really influence my decision; my own ideals/thoughts and a particularly emotive TV programme influenced me. I think there are too many factors involved in development of personality for you to be very similar to one parent.
 
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