Some friends of ours have 4 children. Three of them turned out normal but the 4th has been nothing but trouble all of his life. The troubled child was adopted.

This seems to be more the rule than the exception. And even though these children were adopted shortly after being born and raised in normal households, they turned out to be nothing but trouble for their parents.

Is it genetic? According to Dr Laura, it is. And there may be something to be said for that. After all, there are certain biological traits that are passed on from you to your off spring.

But according to Freakonomics, a book that I am reading, the solution is much simpler than that. The solution is prenatal care or lack of it.

It seems that these mothers didn’t not want their babies in the first place so, they made no special effort to care them before they were born. And since they knew that they were going to put their child up for adoption, they continued in their usual lifestyle which may have been harmful to the baby’s development.

Therefore, it could be the lack of prenatal care that causes adopted child to be problems and not genetics or the environment. But, I doubt that we will ever know for sure.