Perfectly awesome kids (and their opposites) sometimes have nothing to do with the quality of parenting

The high school bully was picking on someone much smaller than he was.  It was really a sad scene with a little crowd starting to gather, just watching the “powerful” bully taunt the defenseless victim.

Then suddenly this beautiful blonde angel… a sophomore at the school, enters the ring trying to bring them together and reason with the bully that it’s really not to his advantage to pick on anyone, and that we can all learn from each other and we all have something special to offer.

Naturally, the bully doesn’t take too kindly to this advice, and knocks the books out of the angel’s hands and starts picking on her as well… 

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, like a mole rushing underground, a freshman girl pushes through the crowd and walks super fast right up to the bully and lands a perfect upper cut across his jaw that lifts him in the air and drops him near-unconscious on the ground, writhing in pain and confusion, with a shattered ego.

The freshman girl stares down at the bully and says, “Don’t you ever fuck with my sister again.”

Just on the outside of the gathering, there’s a boy… a senior… an athlete… casually leaning against a tree with some of his friends, looking on with a vested interest to make sure things didn’t get out of hand… ready to jump in to protect his sisters if need be, but pretty confident that it won’t be necessary.  He sees his littlest sister flatten the bully in defense of the middle sister and shrugs and smiles, chuckling with is friends, “Coulda seen that comin’.”

That “was” (I say in quotes because I saw it in the past, but takes place in the future) a scene that I have imagined/dreamt will happen about 10 years from now, and perfectly captures the differences in my three kids.

How are they so different?  Same dad, same mom, same house, same dogs… but such different personalities.

I think a true advantage to having more than one or two kids, is that you see a broader spectrum of the possible outcomes of your genes matched with your spouse’s genes. 
If you only have one kid, you only see one of the many possible outcomes of how the mashup of your and your spouse’s genes could be.

Rest assured, you could easily have ended up with an angel as you could with something more mischievous.  It would all be part you, but there are some things that are just out of your control… you don’t get all the blame for the troublemaker, and you don’t get all the credit for the angel.  

So just because you end up with an angel (I have one of those) doesn’t mean you’re the awesome parent that others should model, possibly shaking your head at those with less-angelic kids (I have one of those, too)… and just because you have a less-angelic kid, doesn’t mean you’re a failure or that it’s your fault… you’ll just have a little greater satisfaction when you reach the summit of the tougher climb.