Nurture vs Nature

Lately, I've been asked the Nurture vs Nature question by my boss in office.
My instinct answer was that it's really nature.
Everyone's genetically formulated. Our characteristics are predetermined before we could even think for ourselves.
I like to think it that way, because it just somehow makes life more magical.
Ok, somewhat magical.
Because we have no control whatsoever on the person we are and have become.
We are, just the way we are.

Don't you think it's magical?
Sometimes when you look at a certain characteristic of yourself being reflected on your children, or perhaps in your parents?
It's like proof that you are truly related, and not just 2 separate entities altogether.

My boss asked me that question, because she wanted to prove to me, that interest in reading can be cultivated from when you are young.
I begged to differ.
Personally, I feel, if you have the interest, means you have it.
Despite the attempts of parents to introduce the goodness of reading to a child, if they are not formulated with that interest, nothing else could help develop that.
You have to personally like something, you can't like something because you are constantly exposed to it.
That's what I thought.

I do however agree, that young children are very impressionable.
So it is important as parents to start the lifelong process of nurturing your kid since young.
As much as interested cannot be nurtured, I think there are still very many others that can be.

Parents make very curious creatures.
I've seen the good, and the bad.
Really, the bad are the ones who truly disgust me.

A couple of weeks ago, I was on a rather crowded bus.
There was a young mother, and her toddler son, about 3 years old.
When they were approaching their bus stop, another passenger pressed the bus bell.
You know how toddlers love to hit those bells on the bus.
Ok, as a parent, you've heard the bell the first time, and you know how on buses, you should really just hit the bell once to let the driver know you are alighting at the next stop.
Once will suffice in most cases really, unless the driver did not show any signs of slowing down at your stop, then perhaps, you hit it another time.
This young mother, told her toddler son, to hit the bell another time despite knowing the bell had already rang once.
Fine.
Perhaps if your kid didn't hit the bell, he'd create a fuss, which you as a highly incapable mother cannot handle.
BUT.
After he hit it once, she blatantly told her son, who was already pretty much satisfied, to hit the bell one more time.
You are a mother, and that brings a whole weight of responsibility on your shoulders. But if you can't see it in yourself to teach your kids the right from the wrong, you obviously are not cut to be one.
Don't at a young age, educate the wrong stuff, and except the education system to correct it for you in future.
Don't rely on others to bring your child up to be righteous, when you cannot impart simple general knowledge like this to your kids.
Yes, it's easy to say, the toddler is still, well a toddler.
But for fuck's sake, they are still very much impressionable.
If you cannot / will not educate your child on what's right and wrong, what's appropriate and what's not.
Don't start a family.

It saddens me, that some parents behave as such.