Inheritance

I suppose it was hearing my Dad bicker with my stepmom in the kitchen last weekend (possibly about how to best steam vegetables) that got me thinking about personality traits — and which ones we genetically inherited from our parents.

While I didn't think it at first, my parents do have a couple of the same personality traits. For example, they're both driven. So I would say it's both "nature and nurture" that have led me to be motivated in my professional life. There are some strange coincidences, too. 

I thought it would be fun to put up a post about what I feel like I "inherited" from each of my parents. Here I go:

Mom:

• A penchant for journalism and corporate communications (my mother earned her undergraduate degree in corporate communications from Auburn)
• Night owl-ness (she could easily stay up past midnight, whereas my dad turns into a pumpkin at 10pm or earlier)
• An affinity for entertaining friends and family (I suppose this actually goes for both parents, who are always happy to have a house filled with people)
• Thriftiness 
• Creativity and craftiness
• Sometimes being quick to react — then being more logical and level headed later when the topic is revisited

Dad:

• A love for cooking (versus baking)
• Stubbornness 
• A sarcastic sense of humor (Me: stubborn or sarcastic? Nah....)
• Knowledge of the pulp, paper and packaging industry (okay, this isn't an inherited trait, but he's been in the industry for 30 years and I somehow ended up getting my first job at a recycled paper, packaging and merchandising display company — in corporate communications)
• Occasional blunt honesty

Of course there are characteristics in each of them that I wish I'd been hardwired with — but that's neither this nor there.

What traits do you think you inherited from your individual parents? Or Dan, want to weigh in on what similarities you see in me and my parents?