# Did mental illness in your family or your partner's family influence your decision to have children?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mental-illness-in-your-family-or-your-partners-family-influence-your-decision-to-have-children/647335>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [January 16, 2013, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mental-illness-in-your-family-or-your-partners-family-influence-your-decision-to-have-children/647335 "2013-01-16T00:04:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mental-illness-in-your-family-or-your-partners-family-influence-your-decision-to-have-children/647335/41 "2015-11-11T16:18:59Z")

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> [@dishant](#):
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> Hi, my girl friend’s brother is mentally ill. does this trait will pass on in my progeny. what should I do.

Without knowing what problems the brother has there’s no way for any of us to say.

Even knowing exactly what problems he has, about the most specific thing an expert could say is about like this: “Everyone is at small risk of producing mentally ill offspring. Your risk is slightly higher than average.”

It seems to me that an answer like that doesn’t really bring you much closer to knowing “What should I do?” How lucky do you feel and how much risk is too much risk? No way for us to know what you think of these things.

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**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mental-illness-in-your-family-or-your-partners-family-influence-your-decision-to-have-children/647335/42 "2015-11-11T16:42:16Z")

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> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> Even knowing exactly what problems he has, about the most specific thing an expert could say is about like this: “Everyone is at small risk of producing mentally ill offspring. Your risk is slightly higher than average.”

Or, depending on the illness, “as far as we know, your risk is not any higher than average”. Some illnesses have a strong genetic component, others don’t; some are known to need an external trigger. Nobody gets PTSD without something to get PTSD about.

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**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mental-illness-in-your-family-or-your-partners-family-influence-your-decision-to-have-children/647335/43 "2015-11-11T16:44:50Z")

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> [@Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](#):
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> Addiction and mental illness run rampant in both our families. We chose not to pass it along.

Same here. Though my sister and brother’s children seem to be doing fine.

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**Author:** ![Dereknocue67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6de8d8/32.png) [@Dereknocue67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dereknocue67)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mental-illness-in-your-family-or-your-partners-family-influence-your-decision-to-have-children/647335/44 "2015-11-12T08:13:20Z")

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Mental illness played no part in my deciding not to have children.

I attribute that to sanity.

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