It depends on how you defiine prisoner.

For some reason, I've been thinking about that stupid-ass Kamala Harris quote recently.

"You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?"

Fuck, she annoys me. But that's honestly pretty astute. I believe we are inseparable from our upbringing as it gave us the lens through which we view the world. Even when you go against the grain, you have to draw from your experiences to know what not to do.

So, is one a prisoner? Only so much as one's experience is a prisoner of oneself. It's a give and take. Everyone comes into this world unable to meaningfully impress upon it, and so we are formed by those initial experiences that we cannot choose or define. Those experiences inform our actions which inform our future experiences and so on and so forth.

At the end of the day, I think we're just truly reactionary beings. I believe we've just been reacting to the experience of the universe since we popped up in it. I've yet to see a single human creation that wasn't a reaction to a condition or behavior.

Mother Necessity, some call it. But I think we can see in other sentient creatures the experience, act, experience pattern as well. We're just fully sapient so we get to struggle with concepts such as fate.

Having small children it's even more obvious to me how the environment in the first 2 years shapes you. Just look at learning how to speak. Every baby is able to produce every vocal sounds but later in life will only be able to produce the ones it learned in early life.

And speaking itself is even more obvious. Just by being in a certain environment a baby learns to speak a certain language which also shapes how we think and feel.

And this only are the observable things. The environment also shapes the formation of the babys ego and all the other basic psychological functions.

And all this happens without us remembering it (because there is no independent psychological entity before. It is when and how the "I" is formed which then can have memories).

On the other hand though it became also obvious that babies already have different personalities (or rather tendencies), so I guess it really is 50/50 when it comes to nurture vs nature.

We are deeply shaped by our upbringing, but not permanently imprisoned by it. The past explains us, but it does not define what we do next.

There's a great book that goes into detail on this called 'The Courage to be Disliked'. I highly recommend it.

In my opinion (and the position of Adlerian psychology) is that no experience (however painful) is in itself the cause of our current unhappiness. What constrains us is the meaning and goals we attach to those experiences. When someone says “I am this way because of my childhood,” the book would argue that this is often a story chosen to justify a present goal (for example, avoiding risk, intimacy, or responsibility), not an iron law imposed by the past.

Freedom begins when we separate “what happened to me” from “what I am choosing to pursue now,” and take responsibility for our own life tasks instead of living to meet others’ expectations. That is the “courage to be disliked”: accepting that if you start living according to self-chosen values rather than your upbringing’s scripts, some people may disapprove. Yet that is the price of genuine adulthood.

No, it is a part of our overall experiences and while it tends to have a very strong impact we can change and overcome negative impacts. We are not prisoners, but we might have a hard time leaving voluntarily.

No.

But a lot of people choose to be because it gives them a built-in excuse for their perceived failures and faults. I notice with people who 'struggle' at life that they continue blame their parents for their failures, and then often end up moving back home anyway and 'settle' for a mediocre life because living on their own was 'too hard'.

I am nothing like my family members because I choose to be different than them. Not the same with many of my peers I grew up with... most of my high school friends were poster children for bad choices or refused to leave the 'nest'. However, as I have gotten older the limits of my background have been made very obvious to me and as i got even older, I have faced straight up discrimination I hadn't felt earlier. I 'pass' as being two social class above where I was born, but among the upper classes, accomplishment doesn't matter much and birthright is everything.

That said, I'm talking from a western viewpoint where independence from your family is the goal. There are different cultures where trying to get away from your upbringing/family is consider sacrilegious and families are much more dependent on one another. I had friends who lived at home until 30 and even then their parents dind't want them to leave, but they were eastern.

I am never sure how time works at all. It’s possible that everything we experience is just rolling out from some original cause, everything happening is just an effect caused by what came before, essentially has already happened, in a way, you cannot change anything.

A lot of us are. I see so much hopelessness and apathy among my generation because of how much they believed the bullshit of the previous generation.

Trauma literally rewires your brain

Our upbringing leaves huge impressions on us that help us shape who we become, but a prison implies a freedom you are kept away from.

If we had no upbringing whatsoever (how would that look like?) would we have more potential?

Even if we could engineer the perfect adult body to be born as, would we retain our reality of unique individual lives or would we all become the same flavour of person?, limiting the range of what humans combined can experience (highs and lows).

I’d argue the restrictive prison is individual life itself, you can never become someone else that exists or experience things as different species. You can only really experience your own perspective of lived experiences.

The people around you are modifiers they may enable you, hinder you but others are never and never have been in charge of your person, regardless of how much they/parents may pretend to be.

In a kind of way? Our material conditions are a large factor in our development and decision making ability.

This almost gets into "do we even have free will?" territory which is a hell of a question.

"But your honor, humans have no free will, I couldn't have done otherwise"

"I agree, which is why I have no choice but to sentence you to prison for the crime of murder"

Heredity and environment walk hand-in-hand and both have an impact on development.

Nope.

This is a really good question. I wouldn’t say we are prisoners always, but circumstances at birth and even prior to birth (during development) play an enormous role in shaping us. For many, to escape the circumstances of birth are insurmountable. Things like medical conditions or extreme poverty in isolated locations and no access/opportunities to change or grow. Or lack of resilience even if there is access.

Now, imagine you have all the potential in the world, but still have to overcome poverty. That means more resources are required to gain similar positive outcomes as your better positioned peers. It means an automatic higher risk of negative outcomes, and almost guaranteed trauma and health impacts.

I was brought to to spell truely differently and not to swear. So truely fucking no.

For the most part. There will always be exceptions, but social mobility in the western world is decreasing, and in poorer countries the situation is even worse. When you are born in a specific social "caste", there's a good chance that you will never get out of it. The probability of a child exceeding the education level of their parents is also low.

No.

I think genes have more to do with it than upbringing. You can definitely screw a kid up with poor upbringing but a good one doesn't steer them away from what genes "predestined" us to become. Obviously it's much more nuanced than that but I don't think that parents have that much influence over what their kid becomes

It'll shape you and sometimes give you extra things to deal with that others don't have to, but free will is God's inalienable gift.

Idk I sure seem to be

I am never sure how time works at all. It's possible that everything we experience is just rolling out from some original cause, everything happening is just an effect caused by what came before, essentially has already happened, in a way, you cannot change anything.

If that is true, then yes. You are an effect caused by your parents' actions and they in turn were an effect of their own parents' actions, on and on back to the origin of the universe.

If it works the way it feels to us, and we are choosing actions, then no. You can modify yourself and choose to do things not caused by your upbringing, there is not just one path already laid out before you. If that's the case, I'd think just asking the question at all is a good start, deciding what you want to keep from your past and what you want to change, living intentionally, mindfully.

I do think upbringing plays a big part in shaping a person and have often said that if a baby was dropped on my doorstep I do think it would end up being like my other kids, more than different. Especially at this point when all those other kids are adults and would also be influential.