like father like son essay

Like father, like son

Post author By Pat and Stewart
Post date February 29, 2016

Q: What is the history of the phrase “like father, like son”? Does it hark back to a time when this sort of parallel construction was common?

A: The expression “like father, like son” is an old English proverb with roots in classical Latin. Like many other English proverbs, it doesn’t conform to the usual syntax, the arrangement of words and phrases into sentences.

In “Proverbs,” an essay in the Encyclopaedia of the Linguistic Sciences , the philologist Neal R. Norrick explains that proverbs like the one you’re asking about don’t adhere to the traditional use of noun phrases and verb phrases.

“Many proverbs such as Like father, like son and The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat adhere to formulas, here like X, like Y and The X-er, the Y-er , which do not conform to customary NP + VP syntactic structure,” Norrick writes. “So special interpretative rules beyond regular compositional semantic principles are necessary to assign these proverbs even literal readings.”

Such literal readings, he says, “provide the basis on which figurative interpretations are determined.”

“One interpretative rule will relate the formula like X, like Y to the reading ‘Y is like X’ to derive for Like father, like son the interpretation ‘the son is like the father’; another rule related the formula The X-er, the Y-er to ‘Y is proportional to X’ to interpret The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat as ‘the sweetness of the meat is proportional to the nearness of the bone’; and so on for other recurrent formulas.”

Norrick, who holds the chair of English philology at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany, says other proverbs, like “once bitten, twice shy” and “sow the wind, reap the storm,” are “radically elliptical, rather than formulaic, as such.”

“They require expansion before they can receive grammatical analyses interpretable by regular compositional principles,” he adds. “This suggests a cognitive procedure in which a person constructs a complete paraphrase of the elliptical proverb, then assigns the interpretation derived from the paraphrase.”

Norrick’s analysis can be heavy going for lay readers, so we’ll simply say that proverbs are often idiomatic expressions that don’t necessarily conform to the traditional rules of English.

The McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs defines the proverb “like father, like son” this way: “Fathers and sons resemble each other, and sons tend to do what their fathers did before them.”

The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms , which defines the adage as “In the same manner from generation to generation,” says, “This ancient proverb has been stated in English in slightly varying versions since the 1300s.”

American Heritage cites this 17th-century variation: “Like father, like son; like mother, like daughter,” from Bibliotheca Scholastica Instructissima (1616), a book of proverbs collected by the English theologian Thomas Draxe.

Two anonymous Latin sayings, Qualis pater, talis filius (“as the father, so the son”) and patris est filius (“he is his father’s son”), are cited as the source for the English proverb “like father, like son.”

However, a mother-daughter version appears in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament (Ezekiel 16:44): “As the mother, so her daughter.”

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Learn About Phrases and Sayings

Like Father, Like Son

What is the meaning of the phrase like father, like son ? It means that someone resembles their parents in some way, either in terms of appearance or because of their behavior.

Example: Barbara was at the grocery store with her grandson. As they were shopping, someone down the aisle dropped their bag of groceries all over the floor. Her grandson immediately ran over to help. Afterwards, Barbara told him: “Your father was the same way. Like father, like son , as the saying goes.” In other words, the grandson was similar to his dad ; they are both willing to help others.

1. A chip off the old block 2. Like mother, like daughter 3. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

Like father, like son - kids acting like their parents.

The Origin of “Like Father, Like Son”

When a child acts like their mom or dad, someone might use the proverb ‘like father, like son’ to indicate as much. Or if it’s a girl, they might say ‘like mother, like daughter,’ which basically means the same thing. Why do people say that?

Because it is common for similarities to exist between children and their parents. This similarity is not just in terms of how they look, but also in the way they behave. A reason this happens is because children inherit traits from their mother and father. However, there’s another factor at play. As a child grows up, they are influenced by what they see their parents doing and saying. So a parent’s words and actions can affect them too. The end result is that once a child reaches adulthood, the way they act may be similar to their parents (hence the phrase).

Anyway, let’s talk about the origin of this proverb. This phrase (the “like mother, like daughter” version) appears in the Bible. For example, at Ezekiel 16:44, it reads:

“Look! Everyone who uses proverbs will apply this proverb to you: ‘Like mother, like daughter!’ “

Example Sentences

Short Example:

When things go wrong, Rob is easily frustrated. Unfortunately, this is true for his kid as well. Like father, like son , I suppose.

Long Example:

Taylor needed some new clothes, so his dad took him shopping. As they entered the store, the dad politely held the door open for someone. The following week, they went shopping again. This time, Taylor held the door open for someone. He wanted to be polite like this dad. Like father, like son , as they say.

Note: The origin of some common idioms cannot be said with a certainty, so what is sometimes provided are theories for how the phrase may have originated. However, if no theories are provided, you should still see a quote on the page. These quotes often come from newspapers, poems, or books that were written centuries ago. The purpose of these quotes is to give you an idea on how old the saying is.

Essay examples
Management essays

Like Father, Like Son

Like Father, Like Son Man’s goal in life is not to do something incredible during his lifetime, but instead to leave something incredible behind for future generations to act and build on. In Cormac Mccarthy’s The Road, a man and his son struggle for survival in a post-apocalyptic era. The majority of this struggle revolves around the lack of food in the world and the boy’s constant fear of life itself. In order to combat these struggles, the man is forced to have all faith and must keep trekking forward to teach his son never to give up on life.

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Although throughout the novel, these constant challenges never seem to be conquerable, the man never seems to lose hope up until the moment that he dies. The boy who acts cowardly and frightened during his adventures with his father has two choices to make once his father passes: he can become fearful and give up on life or he can continue the struggle that he and his father built and sought together. Because the father instilled such pride and determination in his son, the man’s legacy will never be lost.

Even in such dire times, the boy’s willingness to continue to fight without his father allows for some sort of brighter future and does moderately redeem the generally bleak tone of the former part of the novel. Throughout most of the novel, Mccarthy gives little hope for the man and the boy. It appears that the two of them are just wandering from one desolate place to the next, sometimes meeting new people who are either dangerous or of little benefit to them.

It appears as if continuing with life is more of a punishment; choosing to live is harder than just letting one’s self to die or to commit suicide. In a conversation between the the man and his son, it is clear to see just how calamitous the situation, “go to sleep. I wish I was with my mom. He didn’t answer. He sat beside the small figure wrapped in the quilts and blankets. After a while he said: you mean you wish you were dead. Yes. You musnt say that. But I do. Don’t say it. It’s a bad thing to say. I cant help it. I know. But you have to. How do I do it? I don’t know” (Mccarthy, 55).

Since the boy has seen his mother take her own life at this point to end the struggle, the boy thinks that that is a possible escape route out of this wretched, bare post-apocalyptic world. It is hard for the father to explain to his son that death is not an option because even though the man is to determined to keep fighting, he still realizes that death is a legitimate option. The topic of death itself makes for a generally bleak tone throughout the novel with very little hope. The boy continues to fear death as the man and the boy converse the topic, “Can I ask you something? e said. Yes. Of course. Are we going to die? Sometime. Not now” (79). This continues to reveal to boy’s constant struggle of life. The father’s remark to the boy’s question is even a bit witty. The father often tries to downplay the extremity of their dire and daunting situation by using such dialect with the boy. Despite all of these depressing conversations between the two of them, the man continually attempts to instill his values of willpower and purpose to give his son motivation for this continual battle.

The man says, “Listen to me, he said, when your dreams are of some world that never was or some world that never will be, and you’re happy again, then you’ll have given up. Do you understand? And you can’t give up, I won’t let you” (160). The man knows that his it is almost inevitable that he will pass before his son and that when that time comes his son will have to be ready to take the world on without his father to have his back every single day. Because of this world that the man and his son have been accustomed to, the man can never show any signs of weakness or fear.

Any vulnerability that is shown by him will be reflected negatively to the boy and thus would stick with him forever. The man is not necessarily trying to show the boy this pride and determination to make himself happy or even to excite the boy. The man is showing the boy this so that when the man eventually passes, the boy will be ready to take on the world by himself with having no fear and all faith in himself. The man explains to the boy, “just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that. You forget some things, don’t you?

Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget” (10). The man believes that what he continually tells his son about life will always stay there with him. The boy will always want to forget the loss of his father because it will make him sad, but he will never be able to forget the values that his father has taught him. The man will do anything in the world for his son. “Now you know. It may happen again. My job is to take care of you. I was appointed to do that by God. I will kill anyone who touches you. Do you understand? ” (77).

The man believes he is destined to do anything for his son; his son is his legacy and therefore his son is a part of him. This love between man and son goes so deep that the man is poised anything in the world for him. As the novel progresses, the man becomes weak and comes to the conclusion that it is his time to go. The boy does not know what to do; he does not want to continue living without his father who has looked after him and been there for him throughout his whole life. In the father’s final waking moments he tells the boy, “you have to make it like talk that you imagine.

And you’ll hear me. You have to practice. Just don’t give up. Okay? ” (279). He wants the boy to always remember not only the memories they have had together, but more importantly all of the lessons and values that can be taken from his father. The boy is scared and becomes anxious about the future once his father has finally passed, but continues to endure the struggle that he and his father started together. Eventually the boy finds a family that appears to be very nice and allows for an ending at is able to redeem to bleak tone that the majority of the novel provides.

The boy asks this new family about the fire, “are you carrying the fire? Am I what? Carrying the fire. You’re kind of weirded out, aren’t you? No. Just a little. Yeah. That’s okay. So are you? What, carrying the fire?. Yes. Yeah we are” (283). Although this man may or may not know what the boy is talking about, the boy is satisfied that they are “carrying the fire” and feels more protected and safe. The boy has used these values that his father has taught him to persevere by himself and gives the end of the novel a much optimistic outlook.

Although the man has passed away at the end of the novel, there is still hope for a positive outcome for the boy. All the man ever wanted was for his son to continue the legacy that he had started. The man did everything he could have to make sure that this hope can be a reality; the man instilled in his son such values of pride, determination, and purpose in life that the boy struggled with at first. Because the boy was able to find a nice family that he can share the struggle with and continue to “carry the fire” their is optimism that will lead the boy to a brighter future.

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Ikemefuna Relationship to Okonkwo Is Like a Father-Son Relationship Because He Really Didn’t Care About Anyone Else Like He Cared About Ikemefuna but He Really Didn’t Want to Act or Show Like Cared for Him Because It

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Frankenstein

Like father like son: imitation and creation alison anne kuhns.

Genesis states, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him". Humans, therefore, were created as a likeness to God. <I>Frankenstein</i> describes a similar act of creation in that in the novel, too, the creation is made in the creator's own image. Victor Frankenstein succeeds in discovering the secret of animation, and brings a monster made of parts of the dead to life. The monster, from the moment of his birth, can be seen to mirror and to parallel the life of his creator: their lives and their fates are horrifically intertwined.

Frankenstein desires to "give life to an animal as complex and wonderful as man" (55). He gathers his materials from dead humans, amassing bones to imitate the human frame, although on a grander scale: "I resolved to make the being of a gigantic stature... proportionately large" (55). Frankenstein assembles the monster out of pieces of the dead and uses the human frame as his model; he thus makes him as close to his own image as possible.

Although it is obvious that the circumstances of Frankenstein's birth and the monster's construction are rather different events (although they are both indisputably "births"...

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Arts & Culture

Like Father, Like Son, Like Daughter

Clinging to memories of my dad became second nature—until a new generation shifted my understanding of the things he had passed down

By Wright Thompson

June/July 2018

Illustration: Jonathan Bartlett

I packed my hospital bag weeks before my first child was born.

Jonathan Bartlett

Soon-to-be new dads are easily spotted in a crowd: They are the ones who look terrified and still think planning can somehow ease that existential terror. Before zipping the bag and leaving it beside the bed, I threw in an old black-and-white button-down shirt that belonged to my late father, and a Phi Delta Theta Dad’s Weekend hat I gave him and later found in his things. He died thirteen years ago, and having a piece of him in the room as his first grandchild came into the world felt important. His name was Walter Wright Thompson, same as me, and both of us are known to our friends as WWT. Although my wife, Sonia, and I kept it secret to avoid opinions we didn’t want to hear, we had already decided to name our daughter Wallace Wright Thompson. We hope she’ll come to understand what those initials mean.

Sonia’s water broke on a Sunday morning in January. I jumped out of bed and loaded the car with our prepacked bags, ready to make the short yet now daunting drive across a sleepy Oxford, Mississippi, which would soon be Wallace’s hometown. Daddy’s shirt and hat came with us. I’m overly sentimental about things that once belonged to him. Because he didn’t live to see my adult life unfold, these talismans have taken on outsize and somewhat embarrassing importance. His old shoe-shine kit is framed and hangs above the door to my office, and near my desk is a print he once had in his own office: WHEN YOUR WORK SPEAKS FOR ITSELF, DON’T INTERRUPT. I wear his watch and cook with his recipes and drink from his decanters. He wrote me a lot of letters, which I still have in a box. Years later, I’m still trying to make peace with his absence.

I’ve promised myself that I’d stop writing about him. And yet here we are. Sitting in an Oxford coffee shop with my eyes closed, I try to hold a picture of him in my head, and I begin to cry. It’s ten in the morning and I’m crying in public. At least I have the self-respect to accurately feel like an idiot. The memories are coming fast now. The things we once did together feel like flickering dispatches from another life: the trout-fishing trip to Gaston’s resort in Arkansas, watching the Masters, the way he took me to the Grove every Saturday of my early life, and how every single time I go now, I whisper to myself, before pouring a drink and fixing a plate, “We do this in remembrance of you.” He loved Ole Miss specifically, and all sports in general, and he died before I got my job at ESPN. I’ve tried my best to bring him along on the journey, to make sure he never gets forgotten. That’s the least I can do with this enormous megaphone.

Photo: Courtesy of the Author

Walter Wright Thompson, Sr.— pictured here with his namesake, Wright—died of cancer in 2004 at age fifty-eight.

Sometimes I think I’m wallowing and Daddy would be disappointed that I can’t look forward all the time. When Sonia got pregnant, I thought a lot about what advice I needed. What knowledge could he pass on? What insight might he have about the inherited sins passed on to me, which I was about to pass on to Wallace?

What had he learned from looking at his and my life?

I wanted a father.

I had a shirt and a hat.

During that long night at the hospital, I held Sonia’s hand. I counted the seconds of contractions. I didn’t think about my dad or the past or the future or anything other than the reality of this room. No other room mattered. In the morning, the nurses told us it was time. I slipped on Daddy’s shirt and hat. I stood by the bed. Sonia felt nervous and wanted to see pictures of the beach and the ocean. After finding the best ones on my phone, she asked if I’d sing her a song. So I sang Jimmy Buffett’s “Tin Cup Chalice,” which always re- minds us of lazy days in the sun. That seemed to work. The labor passed quickly, and Wallace was born on a chilly Monday, January 15, 2018. (If you’re like my dad and me and prefer your birth dates translated into the ancient and powerful language of Ole Miss Quarterback, that’s John Fourcade, Glynn Griffing, Archie Manning.)

We packed up three days later to go home.

As we pulled out onto South Lamar Boulevard, the radio played the SiriusXM Elvis channel. That made me smile, and I looked back at the car seat holding Wallace.

“This is music,” I told her.

When we drove around the Oxford town square for the first time, I told her that this was her home, and that we were her mama and daddy. It felt good, now firmly and forever looking forward. Right now called for so much energy and attention that I finally felt free of the past. Or rather, I didn’t even stop to consider a past, because of what this new human being in the backseat required of me. We were all in this emerging reality together, Sonia and Wallace and me. I felt confident and calm, as if somehow I’d been carefully taught how to react in this moment. That’s my real inheritance, not some leftover clothes.

A few weeks later, I went out on the road for my first work trip since Wallace’s birth, to Japan for a story on a baseball player. In Kyoto, I visited the cookware shop of a 458-year-old knife maker. In a case by the door were two shiny hammered beer cups made of aluminum. I bought them and had them engraved “SWT” and “WWT.” Maybe Wallace will carry one to the hospital when her first child is born, foolishly thinking that her parents exist in hand-me-down objects. She doesn’t know what I know now: There’s no place she can ever go where I won’t be with her, part of her, which is something my father surely felt about me but I never understood. I didn’t need a shirt and a hat for my father to be present at her birth. He’s always with me and now always with Wallace. That’s how the circle works. That’s the candle in the window, the fire on the horizon. That’s family. That’s god. That’s home.

I thought these things while I held the metal cups in my hand.

The saleswoman asked if I’d like to upgrade to a higher-quality copper version. It wasn’t that much more expensive. I smiled and shook my head. These simple ones that looked like tin cup chalices would work just fine.

Wright Thompson

Like father like son Essay (701 words)

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In My Fathers Life by Raymond Carver I learned that Raymond Jr is an alcoholic, has the same name as his father, and an inability to settle. These are all traits that he has in common with his father. I will further discuss the things that children learn from their parents and take with them throughout their adulthood. In the beginning of the story we are told of the common names between Raymond and his father. I got the impression that he did not like having the same name as his father. I base this assumption that he doesnt like having the same name as his dad on when he said: I hated the Junior part.

Another reason I say he didnt like having the same name as his dad is when he put this information in his story: When my wife answered the phone, my mother blurted out, Raymonds dead! For a moment, my wife thought my mother was telling her that I was dead. Then my mother made it clear which Raymond she was talking about. Why would Raymond include this in his story unless he disliked it. I think this is a way of inadvertently expressing his dislike for having the same name. Raymond was always confused with his father. I think he didnt want to be like his father.

During his childhood and later on in life he would strive to be his own person. Raymonds father was an alcoholic, and he was an alcoholic even before Raymond was born. His mother met Raymonds father coming out of a tavern. I think Raymonds drinking problem was inherited. Raymond would always see his father drunk, and he even tried some of his fathers liquor when he was younger. Raymonds fathers death was even caused by his drinking problem.

When a child grows up in an environment like that it is more than likely the child will also have a drinking problem. Raymond had a drinking problem, we find this out when he says: at a time when I found myself, like my dad, having trouble with alcohol. Raymond took to alcohol to escape the problems of his life just like his father did. I think the alcohol made dealing with life easier for Raymond and his father. Raymond and his father both moved a lot.

Raymonds father moved around looking for work. Raymonds dad seemed like he had to be the provider but at the same time became bored quickly and thats why he moved so much. His constant moving is made evident by this statement: But I think, in the main, that my dad had grown restless and simply wanted to try his luck elsewhere. Things had gotten a little to predictable for him in Yakima. Unlike Raymonds father he did not move around from boredom, but I think he moved around so he could support his family, this is made evident when he says: During those years I was trying to raise my own family and earn a living. But one thing and another, we found ourselves having to move a lot.

Raymond and his father are alike in these ways. The only time that I could see any feeling from Raymond was when his father died. Raymond had unresolved issues with his father. Raymond was not able to tell his father these things or even say goodbye before his father died. Raymond took to examining old pictures of his father to try to figure out who he really was. Raymond would take these picture with him from move to move until one move he lost them.

The loss of the picture may symbolize closure on his father and his death. One picture in particular he tried to remember by writing a poem called October. October was not the month that his father had died, but it is a dreary month and he did not want to remember his fathers death in June. Raymond realized that his father was not as strong and brave as he portrayed himself.

Raymonds father in fact was kind of helpless and weak. It took years for Raymond to figure out that his father wanted to be strong for his family

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Like Father, Like Son

2008, British Journal of Criminology

Related Papers

Sytske Besemer, David P. Farrington

Sytske Besemer

This article investigates father and offspring criminal careers by employing the semi-parametric, group-based trajectories methodology. The findings demonstrate that children of sporadic and chronic offenders have significantly more convictions than children of non-offenders. However, contrary to expectations based on taxonomic and intergenerational theories, chronic offending fathers do not have more chronic offending children than sporadic fathers. The results demonstrate strong intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour, but it is the fathers having a conviction rather than their conviction trajectory that is related to offspring convictions.

Sytske Besemer , Johan Axelsson

Purpose Crime runs in families: a convicted parent is a risk factor for children's criminality. What is the extent of intergenerational transmission in Sweden? Is transmission similar for men and women and/or do we see gender-specific transmission? To what extent do children follow similar offending trajectories as their parents? Methods We used group-based-trajectory-modelling to study intergenerational transmission in the Stockholm Life Course Project. By merging the samples when running the trajectory models we get a more robust model than if we had run the samples separately. Results Children of convicted parents are about 2-2.6 times more likely to have a conviction compared with children of non-convicted parents. We did not find strong support that intergenerational transmission is stronger for same-gender relationships. Transmission seems slightly stronger to daughters and from mothers, but few of these patterns are significant. Although father and offspring trajectories look similar, the significant relationship can be explained by the observation that non offending fathers are more likely to have non offending sons. Fathers with more chronic offending trajectories do not necessarily predict sons with similar more chronic offending trajectories. Conclusions We find strong intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour, but offspring convictions are related to the fact that fathers have a conviction rather than to what their conviction trajectory looks like.

This paper explores mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour by investigating specifically the timing and frequency of the parents' criminal behaviour while including risk factors for criminal behaviour. The results demonstrate a dose–response relationship: parents' number of criminal convictions is positively related to offspring's conviction rate. Furthermore, children whose parents had only been convicted before the child's birth have more convictions than those whose parents had never been convicted. Children whose parents had been convicted after the child's birth have more convictions than those whose parents had only been convicted before the child's birth, but this difference can be explained partly by the observation that the latter group had fewer risk factors for crime. When parental convictions at different ages were examined, children whose parents had been convicted between their 7th and 13th birthdays exhibit more criminal behaviour than children whose parents were convicted in other periods, but none of the differences were significant. There does not appear to be a sensitive period for the impact of parental criminal behaviour. The results demonstrate support for static as well as dynamic explanations of intergenerational transmission such as the transmission of a criminogenic environment and/or mediation through risk factors.

Criminology

Arjan Blokland , Daniel Nagin

Arjan Blokland

Labeling theory suggests that criminal justice interventions amplify offending behavior. Theories of intergenerational transmission suggest why children of convicted parents have a higher risk of offending. This paper combines these two perspectives and investigates whether labeling effects might be stronger for children of convicted parents. We first investigated labeling effects within the individual: we examined the impact of a conviction between ages 19–26 on self-reported offending behavior between 27–32 while controlling for self-reported behavior between 15–18. Our results show that a conviction predicted someone's later self-reported offending behavior, even when previous offending behavior was taken into account. Second, we investigated whether having a convicted parent influenced this association. When we added this interaction to the analysis, a labeling effect was only visible among people with convicted parents. This supports the idea of cumulative disadvantage: Labeling seems stronger for people who are already in a disadvantaged situation having a convicted parent.

Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health

Miriam Wijkman

Background Intergenerational continuity in offending has been assessed in several studies. However, this has rarely been studied using more than two prospective generations. Also, within-gender and cross-gender effects have rarely been addressed. The evidence for mechanisms that may explain transmission is mixed.Method Using conviction data on five generations (n = 6322) that span the years 1882–2007, transmission from parent to child was studied, disaggregating for males and females. Parental conviction before the birth of the child was studied separately from parental conviction after the birth of the child. Transmission was studied using odds ratios.Results Parental convictions increase the risk of offspring convictions, although the risk increase is, at around two on average, not extremely high. Delinquency by the mother was also associated with offspring criminality, although because of low prevalence the odds ratios were more variable. Parental delinquency before birth does not lead to increased risk. For serious delinquency, these findings were stronger.Conclusions The study suggests that nurture rather than hereditary or labelling mechanisms may play a role in intergenerational continuity. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We investigated to what extent children of convicted parents might have a higher risk of a conviction themselves because criminal justice systems, such as the police and courts, focus more attention towards certain criminal families—a concept called official bias. Bias was measured using several variables: a convicted parent, low family income, low family socio-economic status, poor housing and a father’s poor job record. A convicted parent as well as poorer social circumstances such as a father’s poor job record, low family income and poor housing predicted an increased conviction risk while controlling for self-reported offending. The results support the official bias mechanism, but also suggest that other mechanisms are needed to explain intergenerational transmission of criminal convictions.

Children whose parents exhibit criminal behavior (CB) appear to have an increased risk of displaying CB themselves. We conducted a systematic review and pooled results from 23 samples in 25 publications (including 3,423,483 children) in this meta-analysis of intergenerational transmission of CB. On average, children with criminal parents were at significantly higher risk for CB compared with children without criminal parents (pooled OR = 2.4). Studies taking into account covariates also showed increased risk for CB (pooled OR = 1.8). Transmission was strongest from mothers to daughters, followed by mothers to sons, fathers to daughters, and fathers to sons. Moreover, transmission appeared stronger for cohorts born after 1981. When we examined methodological quality and other characteristics of studies, response rates, sample size, or use of official records vs. self-or other-reports of parental CB did not moderate outcomes. However, we found stronger transmission for samples that used convenience or case-control sampling, and in studies in which parental CB clearly preceded offspring CB. We discuss mechanisms underlying intergenerational transmission, including social learning, criminogenic environments, biological proneness, and criminal justice bias. Finally, we consider limitations and directions for future research as well as policy implications for breaking the cycle of intergenerational crime.

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