Do we know what our kids will turn out like?

I recently found my son Jethro's grade 4 report card. It was an interesting read. In some ways it was no surprise but in others it brought back memories that I had long forgotten. Which got me thinking, can we predict the future in regards to our children? Do the characteristics, idiosyncricies and prevications give us a hint as to what our grown up children will be doing?
Well my answer is yes and no.
My daughter Michelle who was never much for anything to do with home making, the countryside or animals, cooking or organisation for that matter (When her room got so untidy she couldn't even get into bed because it was under so much mess, she used to move into her brother's room and mess that up so much that he then went and cleaned her room up so she would move back...) has just bought her first house with her husband in the country which has enough room for an organic vegetable garden and chickens (she raises them now) and a goat as she wants to make goats milk products. She is also an excellent cook and a manager of an organics store, which she does so well they have doubled their profits three years running. When she was a child I never would have guessed!
My first boy Benjamin on the other hand was born a scientist. He would alphabetise everything, was more organised with paper work than I was, kept his room fanatically clean analysed everything including politics from a young age and asked for a copy of 'Greys Anatomy' for his tenth birthday. No surprises there when he had a PhD at 22 in you guessed it Scientific Research.
Now Jethro on the other hand was predictable in some ways but not in others. For a boy who would not read a book until in grade 9 when he started with Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' it came as a bit of a surprise when he wanted to do drama and loved Shakespeare. Not one to necessarily like hard work, his one year stint lugging bananas on a banana farm was remarkable until you take into account he was courting Anna (his wife) at the time and she also worked there. However his easy going character, love of people and caring nature means that it is not surprising he is working as a Youth Worker with troubled teenagers.
So a mixed bag really.
I think you get glimpses of what they may become, God's influence in their lives makes way for character alterations and other influences may move them in a certain direction but they are not set in stone. Your influence as a parent has a huge impact even if you don't realise it at the time. Things they complained about as a child become their habits as adults. Often they take something you may have dabbled in and make it their own.
I don't believe children are blank canvases nor are they born with set futures but are a mixture of both. God creates individual people who have the potential to go in a variety of ways whether we see them or not.