Good childhood = bad person / bad childhood = good person?

I think that is a far too broad statement, because there are just as many good childhood = good person / bad childhood = bad person.

This is something that I often contemplate. Why, you may ask...well that would be because my brother and I were raised basically the same, and we turned out completely different. I think it comes down to a combination of learned behavior and genetics. Siblings from the same family, that were raised the same way, often end up on different ends of the spectrum, or fall somewhere in between.

I think if a child is in a bad situation, and that child has good genetics that will help them see "through" the situation, that child will be able to rise above it, and become a better, stronger person for that experience. Without that genetic fortitude, or outstanding example, that child will become a product of their environment.

On the other hand, I believe that if a child has a good childhood, they have it easier to become a good contributing member of society. But there is always the kids that "want to be bad" or the spoiled brats that were handed everything at the first sign of a temper tantrum. That doesn't teach them anything except to expect people to give them their way, that leads to a live of disappointment and feeling like people owe them something. I believe that leads to a life of crime, or unhappiness that could make them a "bad person".

We still aren't aware of the complexities of the genetic code, human body or brain. There really is no way to determine how a child is going to turn out solely based on their childhood.

from experience ive had both a good childhood 1-12 then when i became a teenager my parents divorced and we struggled alot i would have to say it totally depends on how the person see things in his life going through both i strayed off into bad things drugs and what not but now im a stronger person i learned while struggling between right and wrong soooo i decided i wasnt going to be BAD i changed my habits and problems..there is some truth in what your saying but generally anything could happen bad people come from good and bad childhoods good people come from good and bad childhoods also it just depends which way the child decides to go. Just because i ended up there (bad tennage life) i knew i wasnt going to stay there.

I think that's a ridiculous oversimplification. A recent study showed that rich people tend to be lacking in empathy, so a childhood that combines emotional security with real life challenges (meaning -- save your allowance if you want an Ipod) is the best.

And actually, YES, childhood abuse can cause some kinds of mental illness, mostly dissociative disorders. A couple of widely publicized cases of childhood abuse (one was dramatized in the book "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden," induced multiple-personality disorder because the child's personality broke apart in order to survive the abuse.

Nothing's all that simple, really.

I have to disagree. I am a person that almost died at birth, saw my family fall apart, watched my mother strung out on drugs, my sister gangbanging, paying my mothers drug dealers so they wouldn't kill her. I have been hit with a shovel by my ex-stepfather. I have been shot at, stabbed, beaten, and many other things have happened, but because I looked into the world and saw things that were much better, as well as worse, I chose not to become the people that I was around. Alot of my friends were the criminals that you all talk so easily about, but the also had a chose. That goes the same with a great childhood. Privileged people could become the worst criminals on the feace of the earth, if they chose to be. Just because someone may not have been blessed to have the greatest childhood, doesn't mean they were meant to be criminals.

Disagreed..

I'll take it on myself : i had a good childhood and no i'm not a bad person.. i do know the meaning of life, i do know what struggle is and yes i'm a good person in the end..

You can't take a couple of people and make something like this a rule.. A lot of people who have bad childhoods end up in a bad state of mind and ruin their own lives with their own hands.. You seem to have forgotten that.. The real issue is for the person to rise from that bad past, a lot of people can't do that, while perhaps less than half do in a 100 people.. How can a person with a screwed up past rise from that and be in a better place??

Well I know a lot of people.

I have had many experiences, and using my acquaintances as examples, I shall explain my answer:

One person I know has had a very very VERY good childhood. Her family is wealthy, they live in a nice house with nice neighbors. She gets good grades, has a lot of friends, never does anything wrong, and is quite good at sports.

As of now, she is boring. Perfection, although strained for, is incredibly boring. I know when she raises her own family, her children will be the same.

Another friend of mine has had a rather rough childhood. At a young age, her parents divorced. Her mother married a man who she strongly dislikes, and has depression issues her mom refuses to acknowledge. As a young teen, she almost killed herself.

This girl is now...stronger and more mature than the first girl. More exciting, with a better sense of humor and sense of life.

I had a rough childhood, with having social anxiety, never fitting in, and a huge tragedy that would make someone strong whether they wanted to or not that I would rather not mention. I don't know how I appear to other people, but I consider myself a mentally strong person.

I think that the harder the life, the stronger someone is. The stronger someone is the apathetic they are, which makes life far more interesting.

Thats not true. You can have the most horrible childhood and turn out to be horrible or use that experience to turn your life around and become a good person. You can have the perfect childhood and be a horrible person or Mother Theresa. Your morals and values that you are born with and develop as you get older are the things that change your life. No one has the right to use their upbringing as a excuse because you can get over it. It might take a long time but you can overcome the handicaps that you may or maynot be born with.

I do not think that there is a hard fast rule here. I can tell you that I have worked for some people who were born on third base and thought that

they had hit a triple. No one has ever solved the question of nature vs. nurture, I lean towards people being "hard wired" at birth when it comes to some things such as personality types and perhaps sexual

orientation/ preference. How ever I believe that every child is influenced

by their surroundings and events. So I don't think the question is so much are we a blank slate at birth but rather is life writing on a slate,

a dry board , in the sand or perhaps on parchment?

Not necessarily. Your concept makes sense though. Maybe it's just the people with good childhoods who were also inept in understanding pain in others, or the beauty of the world around us, that turn into the closed-minded, 'bad' people we know in our world today.

But people with bad childhoods may also come out 'bad' too. They may feel like the world owes them something for what they went through as a child, so they treat other people like dirt because they feel like they have the right.

Experiences shape everyone, but in the end I think it just depends on what type of person you are.

It's pretty much the opposite based on what I know from the people I've met in my life. Not that there aren't exceptions, but if it were true then there would be a lot more upward movement from the lower classes. Bad experiences often scar character. Lauren is right, most criminals have come from a bad childhood.