How can siblings be raised the same but turn out totally different?

[Nevilledog]

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Tweet text:Brincel — The Last Hairbender
@TheFineFeminine
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I had been trying to verbalize this sentiment for years — when I witnessed siblings speaking on each other’s experiences


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1:52 PM · Oct 15, 2022

[elleng]

1. Happens often.

[2naSalit]

2. Large families show...

How most siblings are not alike.

I once met a pair of twins who hated each other until they came to a truce as adults but they never got along. I had an extended conversation with one of them and she told me a lot of things about her experience. I thought it was kind of sad, I also realized how hard it must be for twins in general, to have to share their identity with someone else, especially if it's someone you don't like. The same for larger sets of same birth multiples.

[stopdiggin]

3. almost dismantles the nature vs nurture debate

although this man tries (mightily, yet largely unconvincingly) to buttress the argument for 'environment.' "Nobody grows up in the same family." Which is clever ... But also a bit of flummery.

I think most, reasonable, accountings end up going with a (hugely complex) admixture of the two (nature/nurture) - with both (in most instances) having accepted weight and influence. But, the (acknowledged) disparities between sibling circumstances, becomes a fairly tepid explanation in relation to the wildly different outcomes in personality, temperament, pathology .... In a word - it's weak sauce.

But the argument (or prejudice) that I think is most effectively destroyed - is the simple minded and dogged insistence (across the board) of "it's the parents .. " "parents are to blame .. " and yada, yada. You've all heard it. And way too often.

Nope. That ain't the way it works. ------ ---- -----------

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. The effects of epigenetics are underestimated and not well understood at all.

Epigenetics explains why one identical twin might get cancer and not the other, even with nearly identical living conditions.

[stopdiggin]

5. interesting.

https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/what-is-epigenetics-and-how-does-it-relate-to-child-development/

Although - most of the definitions/explanations I ran across in a quick search, concentrated on environment influencing 'expression' in genes - which still leaves something of a question mark around variations in identical twins? Which, unless separated, would seem to be very close in external influence (one supposes), at least through early development. I'm probably not getting in deep enough.

[Chainfire]

6. Children are treated differently by parents.

I had three siblings. There was a clear favorite and a clear "black sheep," and the two of us in the middle. The favorite had a financially successful and apparently happy life. The least favorite, although the smartest of the bunch, by far, has had a miserable existence with emotional issues her whole life. She will die broke and friendless. You can grow up, under the same roof, with the same parents, and have a totally different childhood.

My mother also tried to treat my two children differently, she clearly favored my son over my daughter. She broke my daughter's heart with the unfair treatment, so I ended up severing our relationship with her when my children were very young. I don't think that my mother ever realized why she was cut out of our life and I had no desire to explain it to her.