I Blame My Parents

I write so much on the nature side of the biology questions that I figured I was overdue for a nuture side article.

This one caught my eye. It's a theory of how the behavior of our father, and our interaction with him, sets the patterns in life that later will be seen in workplace behavior and interaction.

Styles of fathering can affect whether their children get along with others at work, have an entrepreneurial spirit, worry too much about their career, burn out or become the boss, Poulter writes.

So...digging ditches for a living? Unhappy that you're stuck in a dead end job?
Blame your father. The bastard.

(Of course, if you're rich and successful, you really owe Dad at least one good father's day give this June, ok?)

My thoughts about this? I do agree that relationship patterns established early in life tend to repeat themselves throughout a lifetime, unless conscious effort is made to change them. But I'd take the "Father Factor" with a grain of salt, yet to be demonstrated in any controlled experiments or statistical analyses.

Poulter, by the way, describes his own father as the absent type. After this book, he said, "my dad won't even talk to me."