Lessons From The Civil War: Long Shadow Cast By Trauma Stretches Far Beyond A Single Generation
There's evidence that a father's extreme hardship can alter the function of his genes in ways that can be passed on to his sons and shorten their lives.
Los Angeles Times:
What Civil War Soldiers Can Teach Us About How Trauma Is Passed From Generation To Generation
An experience of life-threatening horrors surely scars the person who survives it. It also may have a corrosive effect on the longevity and health of that person’s children and, in some cases, on the well-being of generations beyond. The latest evidence of trauma’s long shadow comes from the families of American Civil War veterans. Focused on the children of Union soldiers who were held in Confederate prisoner of war camps, it offers tantalizing clues about the means by which a legacy of misery is transmitted from parent to child — as well as a way to disrupt that inheritance. (Healy, 10/17)