Mama and papa ruined you

To my mind, identifying genes for human behaviour and diseases are larger breakthroughs than Freud’s theories about human behaviour and misbehaviour, writes Sanchita Sharma.

Thank God for Sigmund Freud. His theories on the subconscious mind and repression made it possible for many generations — including my own — to blame all our problems on our parents. What we were or weren’t was either because of how we were potty trained and/or the degree of our mother and father fixation. All the psychology textbooks said that.

So while potty training determined whether we were anal-retentive (stubborn perfectionists) or anal-expulsive (lacked self control), our Oedipus Complex or Electra Conflict — depending on the gender, of course — made it possible for us to blame bad parenting for wars won and lost, power outages and bad bosses.

Good parenting did not exist in Freud’s book. I wonder what his growing up must have been like. What led him to spend his life pontificating oral, anal and phallic fixations? But this column is about whom or what to blame, and blaming parents is passé.

Genes are the new fall guys, and blaming all your failings on them works better than bad parenting because you inherited your genes from your parents. The good, bad and ugly genes allow you to blame fate with a clear conscience.

Take the big discovery announced earlier this month. British scientists declared they had found the “fat” gene that caused severe obesity in children. The scientists — from University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, better known for mapping the human, lung cancer and skin cancer genomes — said the loss of a key segment of the DNA, and not just overfeeding, could be one of the major causes of childhood obesity.

Those who think rationally would realise that much of the obesity problem is because of lifestyle factors — an unhealthy diet and lack of exercise, but those of us looking at things to blame, would embrace the idea of a gene that could make some children severely obese because they lack the particular chunks of DNA that kick their hunger into overdrive.

To my mind, identifying genes for human behaviour and diseases are larger breakthroughs than Freud’s theories about human behaviour and misbehaviour. Think about it. There may be a yet undiscovered gene for lethargy. It would be the one that allows us to sleep in while others go for their morning run. Then, there would be the exercise gene, a lack of which would explain why thousands take up gyms memberships they never use. Having the first and not having the second would, of course, excuse people from all forms of activity, except perhaps walking to the refrigerator and back.

Then there would be the dipso gene, owning up to which could explain why our friends and family have to regularly rescue us from embarrassing situations and places we have no recollection of visiting. Lastly, there would be the selfish gene, the presence of which would explain why the 18-day circus in Copenhagen finally turned out to be such a damp squib.