In the path to raising calibrated kids and becoming the best parents we can be, we need to be armed with as much knowledge as we can muster.
It’s largely believed that our genetics are a fixed component of our being, that we’re stuck with what we’re born with. This isn’t actually the case. Where nature provides the levers, nurture pulls them.
Epigenetics is a super important part of nature and the development of organisms, and understanding these factors can play a large role in your children’s life – even prior to conception. They can play a role in your children’s children’s children’s children’s lives.
What is Epigenetics?
Epigenetics is the study of the changing in expressions of gene sequences, without changing in the underlying DNA. Put more simply, what you do in life, influences the structure of the DNA you are born with. Varying factors influence what changes may occur in any individual. These can be things like age, stress or diet. They can also be other things like activity, study, and effort.
These changes are heritable. Which, in essence, means that the decisions you make as an adult, to be fit, or unfit, to eat more or less, to continue to learn or to neglect knowledge…ALL of these factors can alter your gene structure, and be passed onto your children. So if you prefer to get out and go for a run, your children are more predisposed to being more active. If you spend more time feeding your head new information, your children are more likely to have greater neuroplasticity(ability for your brain to adapt).
And again, it doesn’t stop after conception or birth. These epigenetic factors alter over the course of a lifetime, and are most vulnerable in youth and become more stable as we reach adulthood, though they still stay dynamic to a degree. This means that they can be modified through lifestyle decisions and environmental influence. The way your child grows up influences the gene structure they’ll have for the rest of their lives, and pass over to their children.
This is an incredible way to invest long term into improving human capital.
Epigenetics Start From Conception
Epigenetic shifts happen first in the womb, with the child subjected to the decisions of the mother during pregnancy. For example, stress during pregnancy over prolonged periods results in a build-up of cortisol. Cortisol is probably the worst thing for an unborn child beside external recreational drugs(or the obvious starvation, thirst etc). High cortisol can result in poor bone mineralization, higher chances for ADHD and Depression, fetus growth retardation and postnatal development delays. More on all this in later posts. Adhering to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs will also help in this regard.
As your child grows up, it will be up to you to guide them to become the best version of themselves. This is to help both neural network development(healthy brain structure) and to give them optimized gene structures. A kid that stays inside watching TV all day will have a much harder time later in life, both intellectually and in terms of health. A child that has varied and challenging days filled with imaginative play, learning, and physical activity will most probably have a healthier development and. Children that eat fast food frequently will have a harder time with food cravings and inhibitory control later in life, not to mention have a harder time maintaining fitness and a healthier weight.
Needless to say, epigenetic factors play a huge role in our lives and you should keep this in mind when raising your children or when planning for them.
Outsourced Parenting
In the modern world, most parents opt to outsource their parenting to daycares when their children are toddlers, and to the state as their children get older.
This has a hugely detrimental effect. These institutions do not have your children’s best interests at heart.
Daycares, take your children when their neural-plasticity is at it’s peak. Instead of teaching reason, morals and values they cater to the lowest common denominator. The majority of daycare workers spend their time seeing to the children that are the most disruptive. These facilities, instead of building a sense of reliance and permanence, they present transience. The workers don’t share your family’s culture and values, and instead impose their own – which are often foreign incompatible with western beliefs.
The state is interested in raising good cogs for the machine. Schools don’t encourage question asking, only answering. Leadership qualities are quashed in favor of creating those that follow. They want to make folks that will move on to take on debt and vote for the party that they’ve been indoctrinated to. People that fit in and don’t innovate or think for themselves.
The combination of these results in epigenetic shifts that make it increasingly difficult to break the mold that’s presented to them. Ultimately the intent is to prepare kids to enter university, taking huge amounts of debt and feed the beast. All the while universities are infested with socialists that intend to brainwash students, turning them into good voters that will further the agenda of the system. They wind up shackled to jobs and following a scripted life. This in turn creates more parents that outsource their first duty – parenting their children.
Your Move, Nature
Nature presents the leaver and nurture does the pulling.
[bctt tweet=”Nature presents the leaver and nurture does the pulling.” username=”Dynastus”]
Armed with this knowledge for your intellectual capital coffers, where do you intend to aim? Netflix and chill? Or knuckle down and hone your body, mind and soul? Drop your answer in the comments below.
Thanks for reading. Yours,
