Three Identical Strangers

Our friend saw Three Identical Strangers at Sundance and raved.  We missed at Sundance but I kept it in the back of my head waiting for it to hit the theaters.  We saw it last week and I keep thinking about it. It is a documentary about a set of male triplets that were separated at birth through an adoption agency that randomly discovered each other at 19 years old.  It was covered in the 1980’s by the New York Post and then made the rounds on all the talk shows.  It is a remarkable story but it doesn’t just end there.  Siblings that didn’t grow up together might be instantaneously connected through natures pull but if they did not spend time learning about each other growing up it is not so seamless.  It is rarely a fairytale ending.  I highly recommend seeing the film.

What the documentary really points to is nurture vs nature.  The agency where the boys were placed separated them at birth on purpose.  They conducted interviews with them for years as children to study nature vs nurture.  There were others who were separated as well.

We all know how amazing nature is.  We inherit mannerisms, interests, looks and more from our shared DNA.  What nurture provides are support and guidance.  Do genes matter more than the environment?  After seeing the film and raising 3 kids, I definitely believe that nurture outweighs nature most of the time but not all of the time.