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" Meet my great-grandchild, &amp;quot;Paul.&amp;quot; A blue-eyed, graceful six-footer who&amp;#039;s one of the country&amp;#039;s fastest runners in his age class. Stratospheric IQ. Healthy, too\u2014not a hint of autism, asthma, allergy or high cholesterol. Paul loves broccoli and Brussels sprouts. He never bullies other kids, lies, cheats or steals. Paul even picks up wet towels from the floor without being nagged!   Wishful thinking? Nope, genetic engineering! OK, so science hasn&amp;#039;t yet identified the tidy gene, but just give it a generation or two. Believe it or not, everything else about &amp;quot;Paul&amp;quot; is either already possible to select before birth or the relevant genes have been identified, paving the way.   My personal experience with the sci-fi world of genetics has been, like most parents&amp;#039;, pretty much limited to observations like, &amp;quot;He has his daddy&amp;#039;s smile!&amp;quot; But that&amp;#039;s changing faster than you can say, &amp;quot;So have you had Junior tested for the jock gene yet?&amp;quot;   Thanks to the decoding of the human genome, last year saw a flurry of reports about &amp;quot;reprogenetics.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s the crossroads of reproductive technology (like IVF) and genetics, which increasingly allows prospective parents to choose certain traits (like which gender) and eliminate others (like high odds of getting a dreaded disease). Now for &amp;quot;parentingenetics&amp;quot;\u2014 raising your child by the numbers encoded in his DNA.   Exhibit A: The Atlas First, a new genetic test that tells you what sports your child has a natural disposition for, based on which variants of the ACTN3 gene he was born with. Its makers recommend it for ages 1 to 8. No longer does a proud papa need to wonder about the quarterback prospects of the little tyke lying in the crib. Now a $149 swab of saliva can tell him.   If you think the mompetition over whose team advances furthest in the Pee Wee league is tiresome now, just wait for the pressure to get a profile of your child&amp;#039;s genetic potential\u2014and then to line up the proper regimen of trainers, tutors and opportunities to enrich those encoded inclinations to the fullest.   All this makes me tired just thinking about it.   Giving your child &amp;quot;advantages&amp;quot; will no longer mean buying a house in a good school district and signing her up for piano lessons. It&amp;#039;ll mean gaming the genetic system. If she doesn&amp;#039;t have the &amp;quot;piano gene,&amp;quot; why waste your time and resources on lessons?   Never mind that most human behavior largely results from neither nature (the genes you&amp;#039;re born with) nor nurture (everything that happens after that), but a fancy tango between the two. An estimated 25,000 genes make up the human genome. Some 200 of them\u2014so far\u2014help determine athletic performance. That new Atlas jock test looks at only one.   Accuracy is one pitfall when genes are overemphasized; perception is an even bigger one. If you knew your child had it in his bones (literally!) to be the next Michael Phelps, would that make you unintentionally blind to his other shining qualities\u2014his talent for math, his natural leadership? Or say you groom your future swimming star with years of intensive practice and private coaching, but what the boy decides he really wants is to study ballet. Can a parent with so much invested in perfecting a backstroke shrug it off? I can see such a child submerging his artistic interest because he doesn&amp;#039;t want to disappoint his parents, only to rebel down the road.   If raising four kids has taught me anything, it&amp;#039;s that my central mission is supporting them in their journey to figuring out who they are. (Emphasis on their.) My firstborn probably has those gene variants that show endurance and speed\u2014not that in a million years I&amp;#039;d test him for it. He&amp;#039;s a 6&amp;#039;2&amp;quot; natural athlete, so I expected he&amp;#039;d be a sports star like his uncles. Indeed, he&amp;#039;s played lots of sports, done well, and enjoyed them. The language of his soul, though, happens to be music, not sweat.   Fine by me. I didn&amp;#039;t need a genetic road map to tell me how to raise him. We&amp;#039;ve encouraged sports and music in all four of our kids regardless of aptitude. Sports, for example, aren&amp;#039;t about scholarships, they&amp;#039;re about camaraderie and teamwork, following rules and burning off abundant kid energy. Those Friday-night lights would be pretty dim if every high school game\u2014every under-10 game!\u2014were a Super Bowl\u2013like clash of elite athletes groomed from birth. Nor does it sound like much fun making first chair in a high school orchestra where everybody is first chair.   Having hopes and dreams for your child is one thing. But trying to micromanage her at the construction level sets an ominous precedent\u2014not to mention adds a whole new dimension to the phrase &amp;quot;control freak.&amp;quot; Raising a child is less about exerting control than it is about figuring out how to slowly and gradually hand over more of it.   I&amp;#039;m sure I&amp;#039;ll be delighted by a great-grandson Paul who hates broccoli and leaves wet towels on the floor, just as I love his Grandpa Henry who does the same\u2014a child who came to me as a delightful mystery, a present I unwrapped one day at a time. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/relationships/family-friends/a3442/momfidence-is-genetic-engineering-good-58615/>