Don't drown in your child's gene pool

New parents have so many hopes and dreams about what their child will be like, but the reality of bringing up a little human can be crushing at times. We may hope to raise a leader of men, a sports star or a brilliant student- someone with all the best features of the people we admire most- and yet one day we find ourselves staring at a child who resembles nothing so much as a small replica of the partner we divorced so bitterly, or our dissolute Uncle Bruce, or-worse still- someone who combines all our own worst features with none of our coping mechanisms.  It's a hard moment for a parent.