Having said that, this topic scares me.

It scares me how much i am potentially screwing up my children by not micro-managing the aspects of my parenting.

It scares me, how much i may screw them up if I start micro-managing every aspect of my parenting.

And it scares me how totally out of control of the whole thing I really am.
So true!!

I was thinking about this the other night putting DD2 to bed. DH & I were on the bed with her & she was doing her nightly 'wind-down' and we were talking about the temper that we see in her. Usually she is the sunniest, happiest baby. But she has a temper! And I said boy it will be interesting to see what she's like as a toddler

So that got me thinking about my children's different personalities and how different they are in little ways. Some of it might be attributed to birth order or our family circumstances as they grow. But some things, like DD2's temper, seem to be an innate part of who they are - it's how they were born.

I do think that parenting absolutely matters - as has been said, it's where our children get their tools for life, where they get their first examples of how to be - and how not to be.

But I also think that children will react differently to the same parents / parenting because they are born differently wired.

We have all heard stories of children from horrific backgrounds who rose above it all.. many of them had other good influences around them.
Many of us also know of children from 'good' families who have gone a little sideways in their path...

For me it's like gardening.... a plant might grow & flourish if left untended, but to give it the best chance of really thriving, we water them, feed them, make sure they get sunlight, etc etc.
So we do the same for our children, we nourish them emotionally & hope that we have done enough for them to not just exist but thrive.

Sorry if that's all a bit disjointed I have been thinking about this for days now!