PONDER IT
Having children makes you think like your parents
January 5, 2010
John Sakamoto
"If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?"
"Because I said so, that's why."
"Just wait till you have children of your own."
Many of us can still hear our parents' voices echoing in our heads when we read those phrases.
Some of us can even remember vowing never to subject our kids to those hoary pearls of wisdom – and being shocked to hear those same phrases tumbling involuntarily from our own mouths.
Turns out there's a reason for that. According to new research out of the Netherlands, having children makes you more like your parents.
Part of that connection is simply the result of increased contact, says a report on www.sciencedaily.com. Grandparents, after all, are likely to visit to help care for a new grandchild. But the correlation goes beyond that, the article says. The birth of a child, suggests the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, "makes young adults think more like their parents about issues of divorce and marriage, and the allocation of household duties."
Apparently because they said so – that's why.
John Sakamoto
Toronto Star