I AM A PIERCE -The Importance of Heredity

For instance…I am a PIERCE. Sure my DNA has been handed down to me, but what does that have to do with my drinking, the way I eat, my emotions, or how I handle day to day living. The more we know about DNA and how it makes up who we are the more and more it is evident that some of the habits of our ancestors have been handed down to us for centuries. Is there anything we can do about it? Or must we just accept that it’s in our makeup and we much learn to live with it.

I once had a conversation with my doctor concerning my lack of ability to control my emotions. I hate that the slightest things make me cry. I worry over EVERYTHING. I don’t handle confrontation well at all. I can’t fight back because I feel the tears will flow if I try to speak. I struggle constantly to overcome depression.

My dad was that way. I inherited the worry gene from him or at least he’s the one I blame. The doctor told me that this is a learned behavior and that I could overcome it with practice…rather unlearn it. Yet when you look back at my life since birth…my mother says I was born that way. I was a cry baby from day one. It was a family joke and they used it to pick on me even at a young age.

Let’s take a look at this phrase from our definition of heredity; “few scientists dispute that heredity can create a susceptibility to alcoholism”. 

My mom always claimed that all the Pierce’s were alcoholics, and yes…most of us like our drink, and we drink until we get drunk and we love to party . It’s in our genetic make up. Look what I found in searching for my ancestors!

Alexander Pierce, was my second great grandfather. Apparently he didn’t have an  objection to the drink. This doesn’t tell me he was an alcoholic, but makes ya wonder???

Besides worry, my dad was a drinker, and he used the worry as an excuse to drink. He would think up reasons to worry so he could drink. When talking to my uncle about my dad I was told also that when growing up …he too was a cry baby. So is my behavior learned or  inherited?

This was written in the obituary of my second great grandmother Sarah Ann Hays/Hayes:

“Aunt Sallie Johnson was known to everybody in the vicinity of Rock Port-known to be kind hearted and good though eccentric-best liked by those who understood her best.”

The definition of eccentric:

Does this in fact explain some of the craziness we find in our family? Is it handed down by DNA or simply the parenting and environmental aspects of our upbringing? Is this a reason that I am the way I am? Certainly makes me want to know more about Sarah Ann Hayes/ Johnson.

My grandpa, Henry A. Nutsch, was about the smartest, wisest man I have ever known. He had such wisdom when it came to life in all aspects. If he didn’t know how to do something he would find some one who could or learn to do it himself. He seldom got excited and took life as it came. One of his sayings was “if you can’t get along with someone give them a good lettin alone.”