Nature vs. Nurture

After reading Henry's post about Long Rice Kreger, I commented about the inevitability of Gogol's fate.  Despite this prior posting, I would like to devote an entire entry to exploring this idea.  For those who have not yet read Henry's masterpiece (and you should), it focuses on a possible child between Jillian and me.  Henry contends that this child would share many of the defining characteristics of Gogol's childhood.  However, I found myself most fascinated by the question of whether or not Gogol's parents could have averted his hatred.  Henry seems to indicate that his development was inevitable - Long Rice's childhood parallels that of Gogol, so Henry suggests that the cultural clash that Gogol experiences (as does Long Rice) affects him most profoundly.

However, I would believe that the parenting of each child has a greater impact.  This would make both Gogol and Long Rice's situations avoidable.  If, for instance, Jillian and I decided not to stress Long Rice's Asian background, he would likely grow up very differently than if we raised him in America but forced him to practice elements of Asian culture.  In Gogol's life, his parents encourage him to maintain his Indian culture, and this leads to a lot of role confusion for him - he cannot choose between the traditional Indian culture of his parents and the modern American culture he sees all around him.  The internal conflict Gogol experiences tears him apart, and he never fully recovers from this childhood trauma.  As I read about this time in Gogol's life and saw its implications later in his life, I became a bit frustrated with Gogol.  Why could he not just choose a culture and move on, or even blend them together?  Now, however, I see Gogol's dilemma from a different perspective.  Perhaps Gogol's reaction to the conflicting cultures was inevitable, but his parents could have avoided the whole situation.  They simply needed to shift the balance of cultures that Gogol had in his life, liberating him from his internal conflict.  With this in mind, Gogol does not seem to be at fault for his bitter childhood - the blames shifts more to his parents, who neglect to recognize the potential dangers of attempting to raise an Indian child in America.  Once again, Gogol's parents just have to ruin his life.