Same

My kids are very different.

My youngest is a little one. Almost three but still wears 18 month clothes. He is quick, agile, opinionated, stubborn, sweet, artistic, talkative, and has a laugh that can light up any cloudy day. My oldest is a broad 5 year old. He throws the ball the farthest in his class and is calm, athletic, easygoing, also very sweet, intuitive, smart, and dreams about multiplication and fractions. They have different favorite colors, birthmarks, eye shades, hair hues, and taste in clothes. According to genetics, that is exactly how they should be. A mix of Mommy and Daddy with even some genes passed down from our ancestors.

No two people are exactly the same. Right?

Enter Dr. Bouchard from the University of Minnesota. He decided to do some studies on genetically identical twins that were separated at birth and raised apart. By definition, identical twins have the same DNA. One egg from Mommy, one sperm from Daddy = a fertilized egg that split in two and grew inside the Mommy as 2 distinct, yet genetically identical, babies.

Nature vs nuture. The first set of twins Dr. Bouchard studied were boys separated at 1 month old, raised by different families, and then reunited 39 years later. You would expect that identical twins would be somewhat alike, regardless of how they were raised, but the results were pretty remarkable. The boys had similar drinking and smoking habits, their favorite subject growing up was math and they disliked spelling. They were both interested in mechanical drawing and carpentry. About the right amount of similarity, given that they grew up in different places by unrelated people.

Well, as Dr. Bouchard dug deeper, the similarities just took off, some almost bizarre.
1. Both were given the name Jim
2. Both drove blue Chevrolets
3. Both chose a career in law enforcement
4. Both were deputy sheriffs
5. One named his son James Alan and the other named his son James Allan
6. Both took family vacations to the same beach in Florida
7. Both had an adopted brother named Larry
8. Both had a family dog named Toy
9. Both married a woman named Betty, got divorced and married a woman named Linda

While I realize that, obviously, these similarities are not all genetically based, it does make one think about how the genes you are born with are influenced by the environment you are raised in.

An adopted brother named Larry? What are the chances....?